Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Preparing Doggy Hair for Spinning

My Ravelry friend Teresa sent me a couple ounces of washed dog hair ↓

We wanted to see what kind of yarn it would make. I was a little worried at first because it was so "hairy", and thought that it would probably be too prickly. I've only spun the undercoat brushed from my Golden, Cassie. This was cut, not brushed out, and had lots of short hairs, like the second cuts from alpaca shearing. I threw away lots of those shorties.
This picture of my drum carder shows me adding the dog hair on the metal tray. The turning/crank handle is on the right.
I added a layer of the dog hair and then a layer of a white alpaca/merino roving that I pulled, separated, and fluffed up. I continued layering until I filled up the drum, removed the batt and set it aside. The batts are pretty much a 50/50 blend.
After I carded all the doggy hair, I split the batts and ran them through again. This may have been a mistake because I created some little merino noils (lumpies). I probably won't run it through the second time if I do this again.

I think these batts look gorgeous and have them all packaged and ready to send off to Teresa in Atlanta, Georgia. There's 4.2 ounces here. I wanted to spin up a little to see what it would spin like but all my bobbins are full. I will just wait for word back from Teresa.

5 comments:

Teresa said...

Oh yay! It looks so soft and nice! I can't wait to touch it and feel it! Thank you so very much!

Donna B said...

Those do look very yummy.

I was so glad to be able to meet you on Saturday.... thanks so much for the alpaca clouds... I am putting them in my pile O'fiber to spin up for the Tour de Fleece.

Aimee said...

I'm curious! My daughter has a rough collie, and has combed out a vast pile of soft undercoat. She says she's going to spin it and knit a sweater for our other dog, Ivory, who has practically no hair of her own.

Zu said...

It looks beautiful! Amazing what you can do with a little hair. :-)

Jacy said...

Maple, you are amazing. Simply amazing.

Map