From Angora Goat to Mohair Yarn to Amigurumi Goat…

…this is an an 8-year-long yarn story!

Our story begins in 2009, in Ontario, Canada…

I visited Wellington Fibres, a small farm that raises Angora goats.

(In case you didn’t know, Angora bunnies produce angora fibre, and Angora goats produce mohair fibre – there’s no such thing as a ‘Mohair Goat’!)

I enjoyed seeing all the adorable little newborn kids, and toured the mill that processes the mohair fibre into yarn.

And I left with a skein of unwashed mohair-blend yarn, to make my own amigurumi goat.

Later that year, I washed and dried my yarn…

…and then life happened. I moved halfway around the world, then my commissions list got so backed up that it was years before my Goat design made its way to the top of the list!

Fast forward to 2017 – my Goat commission was happening at last, so it was finally time to use my mohair yarn to make a goat from its own fibre!

I wound my precious yarn, and it looked much too fine, so I doubled it and wound it again. Ooh, it looked so good:

But when I started to crochet, I discovered that the doubled yarn was far too thick – I wanted this goat to be a little kid, not the largest goat in my collection!

I couldn’t think of a clever way to separate the doubled yarn, so I had to unwind it a metre at a time, crochet from one strand, and hand-wind the other strand into a ball.

It was slow going, but it worked, and eventually, I ended up with my little natural-fibre goat:

So now I finally have the goat I dreamed of, 8 years ago and half a world away 🙂

(By the way, if you’d like to make your own, you can find my Farmyard Goats crochet pattern here!)

Epilogue: I’ve since discovered the dreaded clothes moths in my house – disaster! My poor little goat and all my other natural fibre amigurumi are having a little vacation in a ziplock bag in the freezer at the moment, in case they’ve been contaminated – it’d be terrible if this story ended in a moth-eaten goat!

If you’d like to make an amigurumi animal from its own fibre (or from any yarn – they always look great in acrylic too, and at least aren’t at risk of moths that way!) do check out my collection of Natural Fibre Amigurumi Patterns 🙂