Bunny (left) and Alpaca (right)

This has been a really fun, busy week with the Alpaca Bunny Smackdown going on. We’ve had lots of giveaways. (there’s still time to enter). Everyone has been waiting, with baited breath, to find out who the winner is. The Bunny Or The Alpaca. Our esteemed judge reminds us that this contest was actually on softness alone. It was not so much for the “best” fiber, but the softest.

(Drumroll Please)…..

And the winner is……

“The Bunny – by a Hare.” You really have to read the judge’s thoughtful remarks here. Our judge is a wonderful guy and the pressure of the Smackdown may have been more than he bargained for. But now he can retire to his new Etsy shop where we will all bombard him and buy out his shop. Right, readers? Let’s give Vtknitboy some love! (Applause & Cheers!!!)

Alpaca fans – do not dismay. Read Chris’ remarks. The scientific nature of angora is that it comes in 10-13 microns. It is rare for alpacas to have that fineness. Next week I will post a recap of the alpaca-bunny smackdown. For now, I must label 100 school supplies and meet a dozen teachers. Basically, both Alpaca and Angora ROCK! And they work perfectly TOGETHER! So it’s really all about alpaca/bunny luv. But that’s another series altogether. Onto Fiber Arts Friday! While we’ve been Smacking Down, what have you been up to this week?

Fiber Arts Friday Blog Carnival!

To participate:

1. Add the permalink to a specific blog post that features something Fiber Art related, rather than your general blog address and not your Etsy store. (Please DO put a link in your blog post that takes us to your store though.)
2. Link back to Fiber Arts Friday from your post so that your readers can come and see everyone else’s projects! Use the button or a text link to http://www.alpacafarmgirl.com.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and leave comments! That’s what helps us all connect!

For the Alpaca Bunny Smackdown, we are giving away a skein of white royal baby alpaca yarn. This yarn was home-grown on our farm. Made from the fiber of our alpacas, Earth Angel, who won a Blue Ribbon in the National Spin-off Competition, and her son, Bishop, who was a Champion herdsire. The skein is a natural white in color, 16 WPI. The skein is approximately 200 yds and weighs 4.0 oz.

Alpaca fiber is prized worldwide due to its luxurious fineness. Alpaca is very light, warm, and has a nice handle.  Alpaca also lacks the lanolin that wool has, making it wearable for those allergic to wool. This yarn can also be purchased in our Etsy shop.  This yarn Giveaway made possible by the alpacas at Fairhope Alpacas!

Win a Skein of Royal Baby Alpaca Yarn!

There are a total of 3 Ways to Enter to win, and everyone is eligible. You can enter as many ways as you like. Each method of entry = 1 entry into the contest. Here’s how:

1. Leave a comment telling me what you would do with this luxurious yarn!

2. Leave a tweet on Twitter about this giveaway. You can write whatever you like as long as you link to this post. Leave a comment that you tweeted with a direct link to your tweet.

3. Write a post on your blog about this Giveaway. You can write whatever you want, just link back to this post. Leave a comment that you did this with a direct link to your post.

* It is important that you leave a separate comment for each method of entry.* Winner will be chosen at random. This giveaway ends on Sunday, August 9 at midnight CST.

Welcome to the Alpaca Bunny Smackdown. In the Alpaca Corner, the contributing alpaca – Kocoa Moon! (applause, whistles, & WOOTS!) pictured here. Kocoa also answers to “Pretty Girl”. Weighing in at a healthy 165 lbs. (that’s baby weight honey), Kocoa’s hobbies include sticking her front feet in the water bucket while friends are trying to drink, and giving kisses. She can often be found teasing the boys and taking care of her very first cria. Before this competition, Kocoa’s claim to fame was winning over the heart of Mr. @Alpacamundo so that Mrs. @Alpacamundo could raise alpacas. (see shameless flirting lower right)

Alpaca fiber comes in more  colors than any other fiber bearing animal. It is very light and warm. Alpaca fiber also has a nice handle, making it a good choice for next to skin wear.

Alpaca does come in different grades, and an alpaca’s very first fleece is the finest one they will have. Alpacas’ fleeces become more coarse and shorter in staple as they age, though most alpaca breeders are breeding for longevity of low micron count (fineness) and staple length.

Alpaca is a rare fiber. There are only about 150,000 alpacas in the United States.  The fiber is comparable with cashmere, yet more reasonably priced. As an alpaca breeder, the most exciting thing is that alpaca can be improved beyond what we have today. In the future we will see more alpacas with even better fineness, uniformity, (which gives the fiber more memory making it less likely that you will need to blend it with something for memory), and volume. Some (huacaya) alpaca is also extremely bright! We have the genetics for alpacas to far surpass the lovely fleeces they produce today. If you like alpaca now, just wait until you see alpaca in five and ten years.

Read more about Kocoa and her owners take on the Alpaca Bunny Smackdown on Kathryn’s blog.

This Giveaway is for 1/2 oz. angora fiber from Nougat! It is super soft and lustrous. Lynn took the above photo of it from her iPhone. In fact she tells me she does everything, blogging, tweeting, etc. from her phone rather than a computer. Amazing. Remember when phones had to be dialed? …feeling old. Back to the giveaway.

To enter, leave a comment telling us what you would do with this lovely bit o’ fluff from our hero, Nougat bunny. For an extra entry, you may tweet about the giveaway once a day. Use #AlpacaBunnySmackdown in your tweet. You may also blog about it for an additional entry. Please leave a separate comment for each entry. Contest closes at midnight on Friday, August 7th (CST). Good Luck!

Win this Persuasion Alpaca/Angora Batt!

(Sorry we’re not giving away the bunny)

There are a total of 3 Ways to Enter to win, and everyone is eligible. You can enter as many ways as you like. Each method of entry = 1 entry into the contest. Here’s how:

1. Leave a comment telling us your thoughts on Alpacas, Bunnies, or both. If you have either feel free to leave a link so we can visit them.

2. Leave a tweet on Twitter about this giveaway. You can write whatever you like as long as you link to this post and include #AlpacaBunnySmackdown. Leave a comment that you tweeted with a direct link to your tweet. Limit one entry per day.

3. Write a post on your blog about this Giveaway. You can write whatever you want, just link back to this post. Leave a comment that you did this with a direct link to your post.

* It is important that you leave a separate comment for each method of entry.* Winner will be chosen at random. This giveaway ends on Friday, August 7th at midnight CST.

Angora Rabbit

Welcome to the Alpaca Bunny Smackdown. In the Bunny corner, the contributing bunny – Nougat! (applause, WOOTS, & cheering!) who is pictured below right. Weighing in at a feathery 3.5 lbs., Nougat’s favorite hobby is trying to hump the doe in the next cage. He likes chewing wooden blocks and dislikes having his belly groomed. Turn-ons: Well, he’s a rabbit. Everything turns him on.

Nougat’s owner, Lynn tells us about her rabbits:

Angora rabbits are kept for their luxurious fiber, as show animals, and for their pleasant personalities. Many people keep them as pets, sheared in a poodle cut. They come in a wide variety of colors such as white, fawn, black, chocolate, lilac, chinchilla, red, chestnut, agouti, tortes, broken, and more. There are satin, French, English, and giant german angoras and each have a slightly different texture. I chose to raise angoras for several reasons. Their fiber may be plucked or sheared and can be spun raw without further processing. Plucking the naturally shed wool is time consuming but it guarantees a minimum of guard hair and creates a higher quality fiber because there are no blunt shorn ends to itch you.

Nougat & Peter

The wool has a micron count of 10-13 and lends itself to very fine spinning. It is easy to spin lace-weight on a drop spindle or wheel. In rabbits there isn’t an obvious divide in fiber quality like there is on other fiber animals but some breeders may divide between the back and side fiber, and belly and leg fiber. Angora felts easily and felted bits on the rabbit are sheared and discarded, or cut up and spread outside for birds to use in nesting.

There are many uses for angora rabbit wool. It is six to eight times warmer than wool and can be blended into other fibers at 10-30% for added warmth and softness. It is often spun straight by itself for use in infant knitted products. Because it felts easily it is ideal for needle felting or fulled items.

Items knit from the fiber often have a fuzzy halo to it. Blending the fiber can reduce this as well as reduce shedding and pilling in the finished garment.

These delightful animals are growing in popularity. I truly enjoy working with them and their fiber and sharing their beauty with others.

This post contributed by Lynn who blogs as FiberMama and Tweets as @SheepMama. She lives on a small farm in southern Ohio with her husband, three sons, kitten, Icelandic sheep, chickens, and of course, angora rabbits. In her spare time she enjoys spinning, knitting, needle felting, and the occasional healthy competition.

They decided that they would settle the matter once and for all by having an impartial judge, master spinner @vtknitboy, spin a sample of both fibers. Each participant sent a sample to Chris (@vtknitboy who blogs here) for him to spin. They also sent samples to each other so they could spin the others’ fiber and comment on it. I begged them to let me post the results on Fiber Arts Friday and they agreed. I think they felt sorry for me because they know I feel pitiful because I can’t spin.

[If you are wondering what all the weird names with the @ sign in front of them are, those are their Twitter handles, and you really oughtta get one.]

Read Kathryn’s take on the smackdown here and Lynn’s here. We are awaiting our Celebrity Judge Chris’ results and his account of the Alpaca Bunny Smackdown this Friday. I admit to stalking him contacting him in order to get inside scoop. He’s not talking so bugging him to death asking him about it won’t work.

This week on AlpacaFarmgirl we will be celebrating both alpacas and bunnies, the animals and their fiber. We will hear from both the rabbit camp and the alpaca camp. Since we are an alpaca-based blog, the bunny will go first. In addition, we will have several giveaways this week! We’ll be giving away fiber and yarn so check with us each day this week. Tune in Friday for the unveiling of the judges results on the Fiber Arts Friday Blog Carnival, where you can also link your own fiber-related blog posts. We want to see what YOU’ve been up to with your knitting, weaving, quilting, spinning, felting, etc. projects.

New Developments will be archived here on the Alpaca Bunny Smackdown post.

The Bunny – Angora Rabbit

Alpaca/Angora Batt Giveaway

Angora Giveaway

In the Alpaca Corner – Alpaca Fiber

Alpaca Yarn Giveaway

Fiber Arts Friday – Smackdown Edition (results)