Dog hair yarn

I have been saving up my dogs undercoat as she sheds because it is incredible soft and long. I thought it would be great to spin up and make something for everyone in the family. She is a cute dog, very hairy. But she doesn't shed and leave hair everywhere she goes. We have to pull out the undercoat as it gets loose. Here is willow:

She is so cute!

So under all that soft silky outer coat is a downy uber-soft undercoat. It looks like this:

I put some of the willow hair next to alpaca and yak to compare as both of those fibres are soft as well. This is what it looks like:

The alpaca on the top is the longest, then willows hair and then the yak down which is quite short in this instance. 

Next to the Dorset x wool from my neighbour it looks like this:

I took a bunch of the dog hair and carded it in with some wool so I could spin it up and see what it felt like and how it knitted up. I carded some with black welsh:

With merino:

And a bit of pure dog.

It is all good.  Now that I like what I see and feel I feel pretty good about going about spinning the dog hair into some of my work. She is a big dog, so I have collected a lot over the past couple of years. I will show you what I do with it!!

Weekly accomplishments

Spare time. Ahhh, it is not common at this time of year. I am in the throes of nutcracker costume sewing and alterations. But still I find some time to call my own. Time to make things, a time to get rid of crankiness and a time to play. 

I finished my bfl/ramie blend. I Navajo plied the single and created a small 42g skein. It looks silky and is soft. I will likely make more. 

The colours are pale, not usually on my project queues, but I kind of like it!  This will likely go into a pair of mitts, or some other small project. 

I finished a Navajo 4 ply from malabrigo nube merino fibre, that I purchased at Deanne Fitzpatrick's shop. I spilt the hand dyed roving lengthwise and spun both the same. I then 4 plied Navajo style but altering the two singles in the 4 ply position. It is very soft and just over 100g. 

Then, one night, I was cranky and I needed to crank something out fairly quickly to have a positive thing in my day. (Work was the pits, social life sucked, kids were trying my patience and I needed to be solitary. So I made a quick 50g skein of chunky BFL - alpaca. First, I blended alpaca across the hand carders with part-brown hand-dyed fleece artist wool and part-blue wool. I kept the two wools from blending but blended bothe with the alpaca.  I spun 2 singles in thick and thin and plyed them together. 

It's lofty, it was therapeutic. If only I could take my spinning wheel to work. I might be a better person there!  Ha. 

Lastly, I made this one tonight. A two ply yarn consisting of one single merino and one single merino/camel/nylon mix.  It is so incredibly soft!  The merino was a rainbow blend of many colours. It works perfectly with the blend. Which in its own is so soft. The end result is a yarn that would make a cute scarf or cowl. 

For now I dream of what comes next. When it comes to me, I will create. For now I am content. And that's a good thing!