Mohair as a fibre

[shebob bears]

Hi everyone,

One of my hobbies is breeding Angoras. To be more precise - Angora Goats which produce the most fabulous Mohair fibre. I have four goats including my latest little baby kid. I shear them twice a year and get an average of 2 Kg of mohair per goat per year.

Several people have assumed that my teddies are made from my goats' fleeces, and I was wondering if anyone out there can come up with a way of incorporating the mohair fibre into a fabric.

I have a spinning wheel, and spin anything from sheeps wool, dog hair, mohair, etc. The list is endless. I would love to include this lovely fibre into something other than the usual sweaters, jackets etc.

Any suggestions would be more than welcome.

Regards
Sheila
(Shebob Bears)

[Jenny]

How about needle felting it?...Faces, noses, paw pads are often felted these days. I know a lady in the USA that I buy feltings from ( Mikki Klug of Cripple Creek Creations, her work is amazing..) keeps alpacas and uses the fleeces for her work..and it's superb..she hand dyes it and everything! I imagine that to have your own supply must be a great asset and would make your work so much more 'individual' ..a great selling point!!!!

[shebob bears]

Yes Jenny, that sounds great! I have done some needle felting using wool from our Jacob sheep. Yes, I have three of those as well as the goats. Must be really mad but I just love them all to bits.

Last year I made a little needle felted lamb and was really pleased with my handiwork and entered it into a needle felted class at a show for rare breeds.
I almost panicked when I saw the competition - 28 entries far superior to mine. Then I thought it is the taking part that is important. Imagine my surprise when I was awarded a second place!!! I still think the judge should have placed others far above mine, but the judge's decision if final, so they say, so I musn't complain. I am sending a photo of the little needle felted lamb. What do you think?

If you would like to try some mohair, Jenny, I am happy to send you some to try as have more than I can cope with.

Best wishes,
Sheila

p.s. I have tried a few times to upload the two pictures, but I am getting a message saying the files are too big. I cannot understand why, but I will keep working at it.

[Melanie Jayne]

I have got to agree with Jenny too about both Mikki's work and using it for needle felting. Although needle felting takes such a long time to do it is a great material to use on bears.

I know Penny (gotobed bears) once made a bear from fleece curls and the result achieved was very fetching

I hope you do not mind me adding this photo but here are two bears where I needle felted their muzzles they took hours & hours of felting, but it is good fun.

[Jenny]

Thanks for thinking of me Sheila...maybe I'll take you up on it some time!!!

I have ..for the record...not been much of a felter myself..LOL!! I have just done a course on-line at E-Bearz (Nancy Tillbergs Kranbearys website) on felted faces and have now worked out how to do a felted cats paw for my next feline offering!!

Melanie those two are superb!! You clever person!!

Sheila..huge congrats on your competition success...see you should always believe in yourself!!

[shebob bears]

Hi Melanie,
Your photos are fantastic!! Clever girl. I am still having trouble uploading my two pictures. How did you manage yours?

If you ever want any mohair to dabble with, let me know. There is always plenty to spare, and jacob sheep wool as well!

Keep in touch.

Best wishes,
Sheila.

[Melanie Jayne]

Hi Sheila, thanks for your comments. To add a photo you just click onto the paper clip icon at the top of the message box, or if you have a website or a photobucket host you can use the photographs ULR by clicking onto the photo icon above, I hope that helps.

[shebob bears]

Thanks for your help Melanie, and I know this sounds really stupid, but I can't find the paper clip at the top of the message box!!! Any help would be gratefully received.

Regards,
Sheila.

[Melanie Jayne]

Hi Sheila, the paper clip is at the top of the full message box with all the smilies and does not appear on the quick replay message box, hope this helps
hugs
melanie

[shebob bears]

Hi,
I have eventually managed to upload the picture of my needle felted lamb. The picture of the baby angora kid still refuses to upload. I can't reduce it any more, so just take my word that she is gorgeous and cuddly and can't wait to sample her first clip of kid mohair.

Best wishes to everyone.

Sheila.

[Jenny]

Oh Wow Sheila....how sweet is your lamb!! I am not any good at felting...I am very jealous of those who have the patience to do it..I have the kit...the book...the needles..everything and so far all I have done is two cats paws. I was rather chuffed with them till I saw your lamb...Damn!!

PS: Like you Sheila I need a lesson in uploading pictures..I can't seem to get mine to be a decent size/ quality for viewing on this forum yet still be small enough to load. I can't work it out so I stopped trying as it wastes too much time. We need help!!

[shebob bears]

Believe me, Jenny, if I can do it then anyone can when it comes to needle felting. A lady at our spinning club is a whiz kid at it, and it is much easier than it looks. For the lamb, I took quite a large handful of sheeps fleece. Rolled it in my hands to make an oval shape. THEN just slip it all into the toe of a nylon stocking and knot the open end making sure the ball of fleece is as tight as possible. Put it in your washing machine along with your normal wash. The temperature MUST be high. When it comes out, it will be a solid mass of felt. Leave it in the stocking and put it through the tumble drier (not essential but it helps). Do exactly the same for the head but use less fleece.

I then used the needles to put some shape into the face. I made 2 indentations for the eyes, and using VERY strong thread inserted teddy eyes. I was going to secure the threads on the back of the head as in teddy making, then I thought why not take these threads through the body and back up to the top of the head and then fasten off. So I then had a jointed head albeit with a huge dimple on the top, but I then needle felted a curly top knot in the dimple. For the covering of the entire lamb, I needled lots of brown curly fleece all over.

For the legs I felted two cigar shaped pieces from fleece. I wanted cloven hooves so I sliced the end of each leg for about 1/2". Then used lots of fraycheck on the hooves. This hardened perfectly and I just painted the hooves black. I then needled the legs to the base of the lamb. The ears were felted from a handful of fleece and then cut to size and needled into the head,

So simple, isn't it?!!!!!!!! I've really got the needle felting bug again. After all I have about 10 bin bags full of fleece, some sheep and some mohair. So please don't hesitate to ask and I will happily offload some. I really need the space.

Have fun.
Best wishes

Sheila.

[Judi Russell]

Hi Sheila

Funny you should explain about the wooltops in the stocking technique, I only heard about that at the weekend and thought I would give it a try. Two delightful WI ladies were chatting to me at the N.A.M.E. exhibition at Stonleigh on Saturday and were full of enthusiasm for their crafts, the main one at the moment being felting. Although they do not make bears its sounded a great way to get a large body shape, it takes soooo long to make a large form just needlefelting. I will let you know how I get on.

Judi

[Jenny]

Judi I was planning on going to that show and told all my clients about it..I think several were going. We had a catastrophe at the salon and Sunday was pretty much spent on the phone to all an sundry...

I hope it went well..the website looked great!!

[Judi Russell]

Jenny, the NAME show was fantastic, hard work but just so rewarding to see so many budding artists being able to showcase their work. Of course I had to buy something, would have been rude not to. What did I get? well, it is a wicker sculpture of two hares boxing, so true to life. I used to watch the real thing in a field and now I have my own reminder. I have also ordered some more work by Lynn Walters the Welsh artist that makes sculptures in wire, they are fantastic. Hope you can make it to next years event, or even the Cardiff exhibition in April 2007 Judi

PS Hope everything is okay at the salon