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[gius]

Oh but these aren't killed.. Their hair is shaved off
Hair blended with another fibre to make yarn

In high school I used to collect the hairs shed by my friend's angora rabbit They are funny-looking and cute,.. look like cats or floppy ear dogs to me...

I remember reading there was a way to tell if a label read angora, that you can find out if it is rabbit or goat. But yes there are angora rabbits and angora goats.

 

[j´adore dior]

softgrey was talking about fur yarn once.. i am wondering if it still has the skin on it, or if it is just the hair spun into thread (like sheep's wool spun into wool thread).

do you think if it is made into thread it is not as soft as a skin/pelt?

here is another look with fur yarn by Fendi

men.style.com
from fall 2008

The thread that I saw was cashmere with loose fox hair, no skin involved, probably as fashionista said, like angora, foxgora !!

Whats very common is knited mink, over a net they start kniting very slim strings of fur and they create that knit look, which was quite cool in 2000 but it is quite common and cheap nowadays.

 

[gius]

i see.. so i wonder what constitutes it being called fur.
if it's a sheep/llama/ they are not called fur i think...

i think fur blend is not so unusual either
i see them often (online) but i guess i just had this thought that a 'full fur yarn' is that the skin would still be there.. i think i saw some yarn on Saga Furs that was furry all around. I thought maybe the skin was inside. it was wrapped/bound into a 'cylinder'
it looks just like chenille

 

[fashionista-ta]

Sheep/alpaca would be considered wool. I wonder if fur must be blended with wool in order to make yarn. Are you seeing 100% fur yarn on Saga? Is it spun?

 

[tigerrouge]

It's an interesting point as well - is it macabre? If so, why?

Well, the association involved in wearing fur is that you're wearing the prized hide of something you've hunted and killed; to wear something glorious made from human hair would perhaps contain echoes of the same process meted out to a person.

Of course, in the modern world, fur usually comes from fur farms, and you can collect human hair without cutting someone's head off, but nonetheless, there is the primal sensation that fur etc is a 'trophy', it's showing off your ability to overpower nature and claim it as your own. Is wearing someone's hair as a garment saying something similar?

When someone wears hair extensions, the purpose is to pretend that the hair is all yours, but to wear a garment made of hair is to make an obvious demonstration that you've acquired this hide, this fur, this hair. You've taken it from whoever it originally belonged to.

 

[Crying Diamonds]

^ Yes, sort of like how the Victorians kept the hair of their loved ones - sort of a souvenieur and prize that was won from the loved one.
It has to be earned.
I love your point tigerrouge.

 

[gius]

Sheep/alpaca would be considered wool. I wonder if fur must be blended with wool in order to make yarn. Are you seeing 100% fur yarn on Saga? Is it spun?

yes, unfortunately i can't find it.. i don't know if i saved it. i might have seen it on tFS...
anyway it's like the Fendi men's sweater i just posted..
it's almost like it's wrapped around a core
or a fur sheet rolled into a thick yarn.

about wool.. you're right
found a good explanation on wiki

Wool has several qualities that distinguish it from hair or fur: it is crimped ; it has a different texture or handle; it is elastic; and it grows in staples (clusters).

Also it adds rabbit to the list of animals that have wool

 

[gius]

answers your question about fur into yarn..

Wool's scaling and crimp make it easier to spin the fleece . They help the individual fibers attach to each other so that they stay together. Because of the crimp, wool fabrics have a greater bulk than other textiles and retain air, which causes the product to retain heat. Insulation also works both ways; Bedouins and Tuaregs use wool clothes to keep the heat out.

The amount of crimp corresponds to the thickness of the wool fibers. A fine wool like Merino may have up to a hundred crimps per inch, while the coarser wools like karakul may have as few as one to two crimps per inch. Hair, by contrast, has little if any scale and no crimp, and little ability to bind into yarn. On sheep, the hair part of the fleece is called kemp. The relative amounts of kemp to wool vary from breed to breed, and make some fleeces more desirable for spinning, felting or carding into batts for quilts or other insulating products.

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ Well that is just fascinating! Rabbits have wool! And sheep have a varying mix of hair & wool! What you can't learn here on tFS I swear, though, you can see little hairs in furblend sweaters

The Fendi sweater you posted looks like it has strips of fur on it to me. I'm not sure that has anything to do with yarn.

 

[gius]

I see what you mean.. For myself I think the general concept of yarn is that it is something narrow that can be interlaced.. Like I have made fabrics using chopsticks and strips of paper or cellophane and also "rag weaving" is done by cutting up your old clothes into strips and making cloth out of it
By the way the fur yarn (@Saga Furs).. it is fur all around. I was thinking, if it was a strip, it would have skin on the underside. Perhaps the fur is all around for the Fendi sweater.. I don't think knitted sweaters are made with a lining...

I think I have seen 100% angora knit...
so I'm sure you can make rabbit into yarn
But a colleague of mine couldn't spin her dog's hair or cat hair/fur. It's too fine and like the article says it doesn't have the 'scales' that allow the hair to stick together to twist into yarn... it's just too slippery...

hehe I'm learning too!

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ Yeah, the thing with wool is, it just becomes this mass ... hairs are separate. I see that kind of thing sometimes in my dogs' undercoat, maybe that is their wool

 

[shutterbug]

I have a large fox fur collar that I bought second hand... that's about it. I'm actually too afraid to wear it outside even though I quite like the look of it... I'm wrestling with my conscience.

 

[gius]

have you heard of people being 'attacked' in Vancouver?^

^ Yeah, the thing with wool is, it just becomes this mass ... hairs are separate. I see that kind of thing sometimes in my dogs' undercoat, maybe that is their wool

i'm starting to get it..
i havea mound of some black merino wool in my luggage.. it always stays as one pile. they stick to eachother. it reminds me of when i get my hair cut, and all the hairs are just everywhere.. they dont stick to eachother
so i guess that can be the difference between the two

yes! it would be neat to see if all the places on your dog's body, the hair is different

 

[Crying Diamonds]

My vintage black coney coat I ordered arrived yesterday.
It's the best fur garment I've obtained. It's the deepest black and yet has the highest gloss.
It fits wonderfully and I would make it a wardrobe staple but I'm watching the weather forecast - I'm afraid to wear it in the rain and I would swelter in the sun.
I'm looking for a nice dry, cold day!

 

[tigerrouge]

In terms of 'fur vs wool', our dog has two distinctive coats - an outer coat of fur, which is designed to repel the elements, and an undercoat of wool, which is designed to retain heat.

You can easily make a yarn out of the undercoat - though we usually leave the outcombed bits for the birds to use in their nests - but there's no way you can turn the outer coat - the 'guard hairs' - into a yarn, due to their inherent design, where the hairs have to remain separate in order to perform their function (protection against the elements and also to remain loose to lessen abrasion).

Any fur 'yarn' I've seen has been slivers of skin cut very thinly, but it's entirely possible, I imagine, to apply a chemical to fur hairs to make them clump together and create a yarn.

 

[tigerrouge]

I'm afraid to wear it in the rain

I wore one of my coney coats and got caught in the rain, and when I sat down, a cat came in and started licking the coat and grooming it, as if it was trying to encourage the fur to lie properly, like I was a giant cat.

 

[Crying Diamonds]

^ How cute!
Coincidentally, when I wore my coney today I had a cat eyeing me up on the way to college

Does it lose any quality/softness if you wear it in the rain?

 

[tigerrouge]

Most of the fur bounced back to normal after air-drying - just leaving it out to dry in a warm room - but despite light brushing into shape, some sections developed 'waves' that I could never get rid of, no matter what I tried. It was a black coat, so thankfully not that noticable in the overall texture, but I knew those sections were there.

Previously I'd worn coney coats on damp days or been caught in a light drizzle of rain with no ill-effects, but a proper downpour was a disaster. Even that cat felt sorry for me.

I suppose another problem with rain is what happens to the coat if you store it before it dries out completely.

 

[goregeous]

I've recently starting wearing a racoon fur cap(like Davey Crockett) I was a little nervous at first about how well it would go over, but so far I've gotten nothing but compliments. Apparently everyone thinks it's a riot/really unique.
I'm going to make this my signature hat

 

[Crying Diamonds]

^ I love the sound of that!
I'd love to see a picture!

I was wearing my mink scarf today with the tails on the ends - I can't say I got many compliments - more like looks of horror
I love it though - it's so vintage chic.