Megan
VanVlack

Lisa Moretti stands on the porch of the building where she does the majority of her work for her small business making and selling yarn she spins herself, primarily utilizing her Angora rabbits’ fur. Having grown up owning horses, it was an easy adjustment to start owning rabbits for Moretti. “They’re not nearly as big and by selling the yarn with their fur, they basically pay for themselves,” she says. Also making herself available to spin other types of fibers, such as hemp and alpaca fur, she sells her skills and wares under the name Athens Angoras, both online and from her home in Athens, Ohio.

Moretti looks at her rabbit hutches on a rainy day, Dec. 5, 2023, at her home in Athens. Her hat has a little rabbit, just one of her many rabbit-themed items she has collected. Her rabbits play a large part in her social life, as well, not only because she sells yarn made of their fur, but she also shows her rabbits in competitions regularly. Moretti shares that she is preparing for some shows coming up in late December and January. She also breeds and sells her rabbits to others who plan to show rabbits saying, “The farthest I’ve ever sent a rabbit was to Texas. I try to make sure they are safe and comfortable when I do; there’s a lady that drives a big Mercedes van full of rabbits that I trust to send mine with.”

To start the fur collecting process, Moretti uses a shop vacuum to blow most of the dust and dirt out of a rabbit’s fur. Because they have so much fur, it collects a lot of debris that she does not want in her yarns, so he tries to remove it before.

Moretti clips some particularly matted fur from a French Angora rabbit buck. “I prefer to pluck the excess fur out because it grows back better, but because their fur is so fine, it mats easily,” she mentions. Moretti says that the rabbits don’t really mind when she removes their fur and that it doesn’t hurt them in any way, saying that it’s good for them and that it prevents painful matting.

Moretti walks into her workspace with her rabbit, Passion on Dec. 5, 2023. Though the building is now used mostly for plucking rabbit fur, spinning fibers, and holding her spinning supplies, she shares that her children used to have their rooms in this building when they lived at home. She gets ready to brush some fur off of Passion, an English Angora rabbit.

While working with her rabbits and spinning fibers into yarn, Moretti wears a pink apron with the name of her business, “Athens Angoras” embroidered on it, along with her name and two Angora rabbits. It helps to keep some of the stray fur off of her clothes.

While Moretti spins Angora fur into what she calls a “decorative yarn,” her oldest cat, Sid, sits with her. “He’s 16 years old but he doesn’t always act like it. He’s special to me because we’ve been together so long; I’ve had him longer than I’ve had my husband,” she laughs. Moretti also mentions that she’s tried to spin her cats’ fur into yarn for fun before, but has never been successful because it’s so fine.

Moretti works on brushing fur from her rabbit, Passion, while her youngest son, Amos, works on cleaning the rabbit hutches outside. She jokes, “I always ask my sons to do work for when they’re home, but even my mom does that when I visit her, so I guess it’s okay.”

In her free time, Moretti also volunteers at Passion Works Studio. On this day, her assignment was to punch holes in pieces of metal for the Passion Works flowers. She says she loves the colorful environment and the positivity of the artists there. “I can’t believe how some of them have such a positive outlook considering their conditions. Like Noah, for example, is so positive even though he knows he will die of his cerebral palsy. I really admire their attitudes.”

Moretti holds one of her French Angora bucks, getting ready to clean him up before brushing and cutting his fur for yarn spinning, Nov. 15, 2023, in Athens, Ohio.