Dog Yarn

Today I discovered that in the past people made a dog yarn from dog hair, some people  still spin it today.

You would not be able to use mine or Penny’s as our hair is much too coarse, but if you collected my friend Monty’s  which is very soft dog hair, or from one of the many bigger dogs that molts, you could in time have enough to make something useful.

Its Unusual

Spinning a dog yarn is inexpensive and unusual, it is an environmentally friendly way to make use of all the hair a dog  that might shed,  it then can be spun into a soft and warm yarn.

Hard Wearing

Dog hair was used many years ago, when people could not find anything else to use and I guess it would have been a very time consuming task.

Dog yarn is just as durable and hard wearing as a soft wool, although it does not have the elasticity of traditional yarns.

Add A Fine Wool

These days if you want more elasticity you could mix it with a little wool in the yarn, simply blend a fine wool or any other spinning fiber and spin as usual.

When you have gathered enough hair wash it  lay it out to dry on screens  separate the fiber and fluff it to help the drying.

Gently wrapping  the fibers on to a card helps to bring them  into alignment and  preparing it for spinning, the carded fiber is then spun into a dog yarn which will then be stored until you have enough fiber to spin.

I hope you have found this interesting, I did.

Oscar

A Dogs Yarn