Meet the Rabbitsons - Stella's Kids

Early this Fall Stella celebrated a blessed event. She gave birth to seven little Rabbitsons. They grew and grew until finally they had to move out of her cage

Meet the Rabbitsons - Poppy

Poppy came to us from a women in Clinton, Maine who rescued her from the auction. She gave her to us for nothing. Poor Poppy was in a very bad condition when she arrived here. Her fur was so matted that she couldn't even move properly. She was all felted together. It took Peter quite some time to remove all the matts. It has taken months for her digestion to normalize. She wouldn't eat anything but pellets. She didn't know about carrots, apples or lettuce.
Nowadays she is giving us some very crimpy wool that takes dye very well. She eats every little treat and is especially fond of raisins and the scratch that we have for the chickens. She would rather be petted though. She gives kisses and likes hugs.
It's heartbreaking to think of all the rabbits that are abused as Poppy was. I never imagined (before the Rabbitsons came to live with us) that a rabbit could be such a wonderful pet and friend but now I can't imagine living without them.

Art or Craft?

I think of my hats as wearable art. I am able to create color and texture with different yarns and the acid dyes that I use. I follow the same process building a hat as I use for art projects: I visualize the finished product and then wend my way to my final destination. I think of the yarn as lines of color and the needles are the pencils or pens. So, I end up with a sort of sculpture constructed with lines of color rather than with clay or stone.
When I first started making scarves I was inspired by Hundertwasser. He is one of my favorite artists and his use of color is mind boggling. I feel limited by the yarn but still satisfied, I am not so wild and require closure. Every color must be answered by a complementing color and must fall in the proper order because, in the end, a scarf is a scarf and someone might want to wear it.
Although needlework may be classified as a craft I don't see it as such. Artists work in different mediums and, for me at this point in time, I choose yarn.

Meet the Rabbitsons - Judy

Judy couldn't be cuter. She also is the bearer of the best fiber in our rabbit clan.Cute she may be, but boy is she cussed.
Judy came from Norridgewock. Her color is called agouti. When her hair is grown out she looks like the aurora borealis. Of course, when we spin her fiber, the color blends into a bluish tan.
I mentioned that Judy's temperment is less than perfect. She bites me sometimes and she fights with Peter quite often. The fighting has become a ritual between them. He taps his gloved hands inside her cage and the battle is on. She makes a little nasal squeaking sound, turns, and makes a short charge. Then she flips around and scrabbles at his arm. I think she likes to fight with him. She tries to fight with me but, I'll admit, I'm a little bit afraid of her.
All of our rabbits are mutts, part German and part French. We believe that Judy has German Giant in her make-up. I'll bet she weighs 10 pounds. Even though she is very large, she is not the lead Rabbitson. Stella holds that position. Stella and Judy's cages are stacked and I can't leave the doors open. If I do, Judy will get her nose nipped by Stella.
Judy's lively temperment makes life interesting, to be sure.

Meet the Rabbitsons- Stella

Stella Rabbitson came to us from Skowhegan. She lived a sort of free range lifestyle in her early life; bounding around a small chicken house with her siblings. When we got her home, she didn't take too well to her cage. She was pissed off for her first few months and was a little standoffish. I spent a lot of time singing to her the "Everybody Loves Stella" song. Even though I am a terrible singer she seemed to like it.
Stella's fiber is a lovely grayish blue color. As is grows out it gets lighter in color and then turns black.
Stella and Brucey had a litter of babies late this summer. Seven little rascals made her life difficult for about eight weeks before three of them moved on to new homes and four stayed with us. There is a lot more work out in the rabbit area now.
I love Stella for her calm. She never gets riled up. She sits with her front paws under her big ruff and observes the goings on. She doesn't mind coming out of her cage and getting brushed. I hope that, in time, her little ones develop a similiar personality.

Peter is a spinner too

Peter, my boyfriend, is an integral part of the Headfelt operation. He began as my facilitator. He put the spinning wheel together and added accessories to it. The first thing he made was a yarn stretcher and then he added a skein winder. He built a drum carder all by hand. This involved an entire winter of cutting and bending wire and inserting it through a piece of leather. The drum was once a log that he shaved down to size on a lathe. He is the sole card operator because it can be a bit touchy since he motorized it with an old drill and a sewing machine pedal.
Last summer my friend Kim gave me a spinning wheel. It is a primitive affair (I call it the Cave Wheel). I never really took to it because the spinning action was less than smooth and the Louet wheel works very well. The Cave Wheel sat alone by the bookshelves getting dusty until one day Peter decided to make it work. His first attempt at spinning was very chunky but still, recognizable yarn. He has gotten a lot better and I am now using his yarn as well. He is still thinking about how he can motorize the Cave Wheel. If that happens, I guess I will call it the Model T.

Meet the Rabbitsons- Brucey

When we first began spinning I thought that I would like to have a sheep of my very own. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and finally decided that a sheep might not be happy on our 1+/- acres. Rabbits, however, don't take up so much room.
We started looking around for the perfect rabbit. We found Brucey in Topsham and proceeded to fall in love with him. Brucey is quite a character. He is very sweet and seems to be a little slow. He sleeps like a log. The first time I caught him sleeping almost on his back with his mouth open and his eyes rolled back in his head, I thought he was dead. I went to his cage and opened the door, all the time wondering how I was going to tell Peter. By the time I got the door open I could see that he was still breathing. I reached to pet him and it took him a good minute to come to. I felt bad for disturbing his sleep.
Peter and Brucey play a chase game. Peter opens the back door and Brucey runs from front to back while Peter tries to catch him. He gets agitated when other rabbits are getting attention. He stomps around like an angry child.
Brucey's wool is sparkling white. He is happy to share it with us because he suffers when he gets hot. His skin is very sensitive as is his digestion. He has to have regular servings of hairball remedy. He laps it up like it's a special treat.
I call Brucey my other boyfriend. I never knew that a rabbit could be such a special friend.

In the Beginning

My sister taught me how to knit sometime around my fifth year of life. I learned to crochet when I was maybe ten. I still remember the vest I made. It was orange and didn't fit very well. I have always enjoyed needlework. The satisfaction of creating a useful object with my own hands is sometimes more than I can bear.
We started making hats and whatnots a couple of years ago. I was using purchased yarn from Bartlett's Yarns in Harmony, Maine. Everything was going along fine but I wanted my product to be different. I started working on my own patterns. I work in a stream of conscience fashion. I make a start and see where my needles will take me. The more I follow the stream the more interesting a creation will become.
I don't know about the rest of the world but, I find purchased yarns to be incredibly boring. The same all the time, each round not very interesting.
About two years ago we went to the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine. This fair is dedicated to all things organic, animals, handcrafts etc. I happened upon a woman who was giving a demonstration with a drop spindle. I guess she changed my life. The next thing I knew I was spinning little balls of yarn. Drop spindles are quite slow and I like to produce mass quantities. Peter sent away for a spinning wheel kit, put it together, and a spinner was born. Of course, my first yarns were way less than perfect. I still have a ball of my very first hand spun yarn. I like to see how much I've improved.
Needless to say, I no longer am bored by my fiber. If nothing else, I feel intense satisfaction using my own hand spun yarns.

Welcome to Head Felt

Hello, thank you for stopping by.

We are a small business working from our home. We create needlework accessories completely by hand beginning with the wool from local sheep and hair from our own pet rabbits.
We first pick through the fleece and then wash it. Next,we lay it out on a drying table. After the fleece is dry, we run it through a card to remove undesirable vegetation and to straighten the fibers and, it's on to the spinning wheels. We spin the fiber into yarn and then dye it using acid dyes. We design and create fabulous hats, scarves and gloves with our yarn.