Purchasing bags of natural colored angora fibers can be confusing.
A bag labeled “natural black angora” is actually filled with gray fibers.
Another bag labeled “natural red angora” is a fawn color. And what
in the world in a “broken angora”!?! How can a spinner order fibers,
especially over the Internet, and know what they are getting?
First it’s important to understand that angora rabbits have normal rabbit
hair as well as the angora fiber they produce. The normal rabbit hair
is found on their faces and on most breeds on the ears and legs as well.
The rabbit is classified by the color of this normal rabbit hair.
The angora fibers it produces are always a dilute of the normal hair color.
To illustrate, the black French Angora rabbit in the photo has jet black
head, ears and legs will produce gray fibers on its body.
Black and chestnut angoras have the darkest natural colored wool.
Chestnut looks like a wild rabbit in the normal hair, that wild blend of
browns and blacks, but the wool is predominantly gray with some brown tints
to it. Here is a list of colors by name and what the fiber looks like:
Black = deep gray
Chestnut = deep gray/tan
Chinchilla = sliver gray
Blue = light gray
Chocolate = taupe
Lilac = light dove gray
Fawn = buff
Tort = beige
Red = fawn
Smoke Pearl = off white
Opal = pale gray
Lynx = pale fawn
There are three classifications of white angora rabbits, but they all
produce pure white fibers. They are the blue-eyed white, ruby-eyed
white and pointed white. The pointed white has dark normal hair on
it’s nose, feet, ears and tail, but the spinning fibers on the body are
pure white.
Broken angora is simply a term for any colored animal that is spotted
with white. So a “broken black” will have fibers that are white and
deep gray. The fibers will be mixed and mingled to some extent.
Some people like the brokens for this piebald effect and other dislike
the mixed colors.
Like natural colored wool, the colored angora fibers also take dye beautifully.
One of my favorite color combinations is to dye chestnut angora with green.
Dyeing any of the grays with a soft pink is also very pretty. Have
fun and experiment with natural colored angora!
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