Spinning Milkweed

Well call me crazy but I like to work with different fibers. Samantha and I harvested the seed pods from the milk weed plants at a friends house. We brought home a full bucket full. Soon after we found out that Sam is allergic to milk weed. So the job of plucking the seeds from the fluff became mine alone. As the pods were still green it was easier to pull the seeds off then put the wet fluff into plastic freezer bags. Well this took several days to finish and I found that the first bag became moldy due to the bag getting closed and sealed. The rest however I left open and continued to rotate the fiber in the bag daily to get it to dry. Last night I took the drum carder outside and alternately carded wool and milkweed into bats. It is too short and too slippery to spin by itself. Tonight I hope to find time to spin some of the milkweed and wool. My plan is to dye it. I have read that the milkweed doesn't take the dye so it leaves shiny white streaks in the yarn. I will post photos when I get some yarn made. Sheri

3rd Generation Fiber farm

Alli, Samantha and I have been working on a fiber business for about a year now. We started by working with Angora rabbits. Angora is soft and beautiful. Both girls have learned to spin and make beautiful yarn. This summer Alli added an angora goat and a pair of Shetland Sheep to our fiber animals. This fall we took in Natalie's Romney sheep (Violet) until she can get her own place to keep her and then just last week we took in an angora goat wether (Darby) from Tina Cameron.

A phone call to Grandma Bellairs a couple months ago brought on the name change from Bellairs Rabbitry to Bellairs Fiber Farm and Rabbitry. The Bellairs have had a fiber farm for years but Grandma could no longer keep the business going after her stroke. She was excited when she found out that the girls wanted to take the name and put it together with their fiber endeavors. The girls have a lot to learn from Grandma and are eager to keep the fiber business going.

With the fiber from the animals we are making lots of beautiful items. The yarns are gorgeous, warm and soft. We have wool blends with angora, alpaca and mohair. Our Etsy store is up and running and doing good business. Another product we are unveiling is goats milk soap. This is a wonderful homemade blend that is all natural and so good for your skin. Check out our website and Etsy store for our products.

Getting cleaned up for winter

Here we are coming up on another winter. Can't believe that tomorrow is November. The snow will be flying before long. We are closing up the barn, hanging plastic and putting in the heat lamps. We have several does bred and due in the next few weeks including blue Dutch and French/German angoras.

On a side note, we have started using paper bedding in our rabbit trays as well as in our cavy cages. I can't believe the difference it is. We have tried pine shavings and wood pellets but the paper shavings are much better. They are made from shredded phone books and then blown through a fan to eliminate dust.

New Focus

Well after much discussion we have decided to adjust our focus. We are scaling the Dutch back to 2 varieties to include Blue and Gray. Samantha's main focus has become raising her silver fox rabbits. Alli and I are in love with the wool given by the German and French angoras that we raise. So... we are focusing more on a fiber farm since we are also raising Shetland Sheep and an Angora Goat.
Dutch are in no way taking a backseat to the others but we will be selling the chocolate Dutch to narrow the focus a bit.

We are very excited that we added 3 new rabbits to our barn this weekend. Two blue Dutch does (Taylor's Azure and Taylor's Blue Bell) and a blue French Angora buck. The Dutch does will be added to our breeding program right away. They are both very nice typed animals. The French Angora is a baby and it will be some time before we can harvest that luxurious blue wool.

On a side note, Alli washed her Shetland fleece from her ewe named Lily. It is really gorgeous. It has several colors in it. She is waiting impatiently for it to dry so that she can spin it with some angora mixed into it.

Well that is all from the homefront for today. We will try to add updates on a more frequent schedule from here on. Thanks for reading.
Sheri

Etsy Store

Well we are finally up and running. WE just opened our Etsy store. Alli will be busy listing things as she has time in the next couple days. We plan to not only have angora fiber but also other crafts including candles and tye dye shirts. Check us out here http://www.etsy.com/shop/allisbunnystuff?ref=si_shop

This is a video made this winter at a press conference for the Great Lakes Fair. My girls were featured in it. So proud!

Spring

Here we are and it is Spring finally. Although it doesn't seem like it today with the cold rain. It has been some time since we have been to a rabbit show. We are all looking forward to our next show. We miss our friends that we see there. We finally have some juniors to show. Alli will be bringing her broken blue satin doe and blue satin buck to the next show. Sammy has a really nice silver fox doe to show as well. Thanks to Henry Carpenter Sammy also has 4 chocolate Dutch thanks to show.

My little entrepreneurs are trying their hand at selling under the name of Bellairs Critters and More in the new Stockbridge Open Air Market. Samantha is in charge of marketing her homegrown eggs and her composting worms. Alli brings along her Angora wool, handspun angora yarn and knitted and crocheted craft items. Here is a picture of our first week. Alli made a lot of improvements since our first week but we haven't taken an updated photo.

I contribute the Crocheted Market Bags to the booth. They are crocheted using yarn made from the Bellairs Fiber Farm sheep. They are a natural color gray and very pretty with a lacy pattern. They sell for $20 unlined and $25 lined.

Stop by and see us at the market or give us a call and set up an appt to come to the house.