FIBER: Dog Yarn

I'd promised The Boys for a few years that "someday" I would spin up the fur I've been collecting from brushing Josie and Fleur over the years. I just had the feeling that it would spin well and thought it would be cool to make yarn from our dogs' fur.

This was The Year.

Meet Josie, a border collie mix and runt of the litter, adopted from the Ashtabula Animal Protective League after being hand-picked by The Boys when they all were little. They all grew up together.

The Boys, pre-Pandemic, flank Fleur when she and I went to visit them in Columbus. We were hiking at one of the metroparks there....I remember Matt finding a vine and swinging on it, a la Tarzan....Fleur adopted me soon after Andrew went off to college at Ohio State. She's part golden retriever and part collie and has the best traits of each breed. Whip smart and  even tempered. Such a beautiful dog with a personality to match.

A batt of Fleur fur after carding, ready for spinning

A "single" of Fleur fur, spun and on the bobbin of my spinning wheel

Here is the Josie yarn, spun and plied. She looked like a black dog with some white on her chest but it is amazing how BROWN this yarn is!  The yarn is really soft, with a halo--

as is the Fleur yarn.

Josie on the left and Fleur on the right: spun, plied, washed and wound.  I had not done any spinning in 5-6 years, so I was relieved that I still knew what to do!

Here are The Boys with Fleur and their (mostly Josie) dog yarn hats. The hats turned out to be really warm and really soft.