The best angora comes from rabbits that are bred by skilled 
Angora
Angora goats have mohair and are sheared for its fur; however, that is not the case when it comes to angora rabbits.
Most sweaters today are not 100% angora, but a combination of angora, nylon, mohair and silk; and, in some cases cashmere. Angora sweaters do shed and they also pill after wearing them a few times also. So we recommend you never wear a white angora sweater with black pants.
Mohair sweaters and cashmere sweaters come from goats only! Angora comes from a rabbit.
There are angora goats, but their fur is called mohair, not angora. It gets confusing!
Angora rabbits produce extremely fine fiber considered a luxury fiber in some areas. It takes a French Angora rabbit about 3 months to produce a full coat of fiber. The animal's own body via hormones signals when it's time to shed its fur. This is much like how snakes know when to discard their skins. It may look a little bizarre to have a bald rabbit for a while, but it doesn't hurt them at all. You can gather about 8-16 ounces of fur in about 2 hours. The lower quality, less expensive angora, is derived mainly from China, Japan, and Korea, which currently dominate the world market. This low-quality angora typically comes from young animals which are shorn. Because of the variety of fiber lengths and diameters, this yarn lacks the distinctive angora halo, and it tends to shed fibers. Angora yarns are the softest, warmest, and most beautiful, but they command the highest prices. Angora is considered "The Royalty of Wool."
History of Angora
The first historical reference to rabbits occurs at about 100 B.C.
Around 6th century A.D. Catholic monks in France began to domesticate wild rabbits by 
breeding and housing them in cages. Because this meant that the rabbits no longer ran in the wild nor subject to being killed by other animals, their fur color didn't matter when domesticated by the Monks.
As a result of being safe from predators and from the monks breeding experiments, the rabbit’s fur suddenly began to create lovely blends or shades of grays, browns, and white fiber of extreme length and quantity. It could be selected for and bred into the animals. The result was the French Angora rabbit.
Napoleon is credited for starting a successful angora farming business. As many as 2000 animals were common by the late 19th century.
The fiber of the French Angora rabbit must be harvested by hand. So, raising these animals is a labor intensive industry but well-worth the superior quality of the product produced. The French, (trying to keep the technology secret in order to give themselves a monopoly) also developed machinery that could process the very fine angora wool. A top producing rabbit of original French stock would yield, just under, three pounds of fiber per year.
French Angoras bunnies came to the United States in the 1920s, but because of the high cost of labor, the French Angora industry never got off the ground. Very few rabbit farmers made a living from the rabbits alone.
Apart from its beauty, tests show angora wool to be 7 to 8 times warmer than other raw wools. And, angora wool is also said to possess therapeutic qualities. French doctors, for the aristocrats and upper class, recommended angora garments for asthma, bronchitis and rheumatism patients.
Spinning Angora Wool
Good angora wool is the result of good housing, sanitation and breeding of the angora rabbits, plus having healthy well-fed and nourished rabbits that are groomed regularly. The diameter of Angora under wool fibers averages only 8 to 13 microns. Extra fine Angora is 5.5 to 6 microns. So why bother? Angora is not only very soft, it is also very warm. It has excellent insulative qualities.
But Angora rabbit wool production is laborious. The fiber doesn't come from a big animal like a sheep. It comes from small, cute little rabbits so you don't get as much. And, angora has a unique texture that resists spinning. It seems to want to "unspin" itself, often popping up out of the twist when trying to spin it.
On average, you will get about 100 yards spun per ounce of fiber.
In the 1990 "Official Spin Off" the winner was Jonnie Vaughan Southworth from Stanton, Kentucky who spun angora at 38, 881.11 yards per pound or 2,430.06 yards to the ounce to be the record holder.
Angora fiber can be blended with other fibers, like wool, alpaca or silk or even synthetic fibers like nylon. Angora fiber can also be dyed. In order to spin angora fiber, the key is in the "drop spindle." It's important to use a drop spindle that doesn't weigh too much. A spindle with heavy whorl will make angora impossible to spin. And the best type of spinning wheel to use is called, “Ashford Traditional Scotch-tension Single Drive Wheel Spinning Wheel”. Angora spinners often choose a brake-band type of tension control because of its great flexibility to adjustment due to the separate control of drive and bobbin.
According a resource book:
"While staring out the window over a sink full of dirty dishes and wondering how to best describe the process of spinning, we decided that it was a lot like life: if there's too much tension, things fall apart; if there's not enough tension, you whirl around in circles, going nowhere. The same is true of spinning angora fiber. Too much tension causes the yarn to fall apart in your hand and it whisks the fibers away from you. Not enough tension lets your fibers twist around and around themselves, creating over twisted knots that never make it through the orifice of your wheel.”
Sources:
"Angora Wool Ranching and Goals in Rabbit Raising" By William E. Otto and Hedley B. Burden
Diamond Farm Book Publishers Ontario, Canada © 1999 (14th Printing!) and
"Completely Angora" - The 2nd Edition By Sharon Kilfoyle and Leslie B. Samson By Samson Publishing Onario, Canada © 1992 and 1996
Yarn is guaranteed free of defects
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