a bit random - weaving dog hair?

Manty

I saw this thread title and it reminded me of a book I saw in a charity shop, just looked and found it on Amazon... Knitting With Dog Hair, I kid you not.

valk_scot

I can spin (got eight spinning wheels..I spin a LOT!) and yes, it's perfectly possible to spin dog hair. Some breeds have easier hair than others to spin though...a rough coated outdoorsy breed is going to have harder hair to spin than something like a Samoyed, which is the classic spinnable dog!

But...it's time consuming and if you're looking to get someone to spin you anything, wool included, be warned it can get bloomin' expensive. Professional spinners charge a lot. Me? I'm an amateur and I'd be taking about three hours to spin and ply you a 100m skein of DK weight yarn. For that I'd be charging about £15 ie £5 an hour, which is under the minimum wage I think. To knit an average sized DK sweater you'd need about 1100m, okay? Thats £165. Still interested?

That's just for the yarn, remember. You'd still have to pay someone to knit it up, probably about another 30 hours in there.

And wet jumpers made of dog hair smell of wet dog. Just saying.....

valk_scot

Gofdoc wrote: »

Hi Merlin,
I too am looking for someone to weave pet hair into wool for knitting.

Nonono...weaving is something you do with the finished wool (wool is sheep based) or yarn (from everything else.) You want a spinner to make you yarn, okay?

Try your local branch of the Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. They may know someone. But have a look at my above post on costs.

valk_scot

PS. No, I'm not offering to spin anything for anyone. I just don't have time. If I wanted to earn a living from spinning I'd be teaching, at £30 per class of six per hour!

Penelope_Penguin

Just came across this thread while searching for something else, so I thought I'd share a pic of how you might look if you spin and knit your pet hair into sweaters



Neither wrong nor random, I'll sure you'll agree

loobyloo2

A friend of mine does spin with dogs hair, she uses hair from non shedding long coated breeds.
She does not use a spinning wheel but a small wooden thing (drop spindle, you can see how to easily make one on 'www.thejoyofspinning.com')that she holds in her hand and spins. She only makes small items like socks, so it is perfectly do-able at home, without being too expensive.
She has tried with Newfoundlands hair and that had to be mixed with sheeps wool as a poster above said, it was not barbed, but there are dogs out there with 'wooly' coats which can be spun without the addition of sheeps wool.
HTH

Justamum

I remember seeing something about this years and years ago. A woman used to comb her Pyrenean(sp?) Mountain Dog and spin then knit the hair into jumpers. Apparently it's lovely and soft.