Spinning Mohair Locks

I am absolutely in love with mohair. There is such an amazing texture to it... it's so much smoother than any other fiber, and it's got an almost slippery feel to it. It also has a natural silky luster that makes it almost glow in the sunlight. I've recently gotten my hands on some raw mohair fleeces from a farmer who raises her own goats and sheep and they come from a very loving environment.

When my adventure started, I was faced with some understandably dirty, sticky locks. Here's the before washing photo of the mohair:

It took a few washes and rinses, but I was able to get the mohair clean of lanolin and ready to pick through. A little bit of chert (goat dandruff, for lack of better words) is common with mohair, so I had to pick through and remove the stray hay (VM), dirt, and chert so that all I had was beautiful locks. This process takes several hours for every pound of mohair that I process, since it's done all by hand to ensure that the locks stay as intact as possible (doll makers love to use mohair for doll hair since the curls are so lovely, and fellow spinners like myself love the texture of curly locks in our yarn). After picking through the fiber, I was left with this:

 I love spinning fiber from the locks, and this was certainly a fun spinning session. I decided to take a small video to show how I did it. My goal with this yarn was to keep a little bit of the curly locks, but also have a fun, textured result.

And the final yarn is finished! I offer this yarn for $25/skein or 5 for $100 (a $25 savings!). Each skein of yarn is custom spun for my customers, and no two will be exactly the same.