I took a commission from a friend of a friend to make a pair of mittens from hair collected from their dog, a husky. At first it started out as a family joke, as the dog is notorious for shedding, but as they researched the idea, they got more and more excited about pursuing the mittens.
The hair was about 1” long, not long enough for my skill level to spin on its own, so I blended the hair with about 30% wool, but still the batts were just like big balls of fluff. I am still hacking up hairballs!
Spinning was a challenge, I am used to the long fibers of Shetland which spin up nice and consistent and smooth.
The hair tended to draft out of the batt in clumps, so the yarn ended up looking like a bulky novelty yarn. 
Not a bad thing, just not what I’m used to.
Knitting was awesome, since it was a commission, I had the excuse to knit all day on that stormy Friday.
Probably will end up being one of my favorite Christmas memories of 2008. Guilt free daytime knitting, catching up on Charlie Rose episodes, watching the snow storm through the window, wearing sweat pants, slugging down hot tea and cookies, catnapping every so often from the exhaustion of non stop knitting
…oooh, nirvana!
So here they are, and they were picked up last night.
I started spinning on Wednesday, and wove in the final strand on Sunday afternoon. I hope the giftee is happy with them.
The hair was about 1” long, not long enough for my skill level to spin on its own, so I blended the hair with about 30% wool, but still the batts were just like big balls of fluff. I am still hacking up hairballs!
Spinning was a challenge, I am used to the long fibers of Shetland which spin up nice and consistent and smooth.
The hair tended to draft out of the batt in clumps, so the yarn ended up looking like a bulky novelty yarn. Not a bad thing, just not what I’m used to.Knitting was awesome, since it was a commission, I had the excuse to knit all day on that stormy Friday.
Probably will end up being one of my favorite Christmas memories of 2008. Guilt free daytime knitting, catching up on Charlie Rose episodes, watching the snow storm through the window, wearing sweat pants, slugging down hot tea and cookies, catnapping every so often from the exhaustion of non stop knitting…oooh, nirvana!So here they are, and they were picked up last night.
I started spinning on Wednesday, and wove in the final strand on Sunday afternoon. I hope the giftee is happy with them.
7 comments:
Very nice!
Way too funny! They turned out nice. I would have had an asthma attack! Have a great holiday. I'll sent you and Rich and email, I hope you got to see it. I never know which address to use. Your new look on your web sight is very nice! Have a great holiday!
Anyone in their right mind would be thrilled -- you did great!
As the giver the of gift...I know my mother-in-law will LOVE them! They turned about GREAT Jen! Thanks so much! This is the dog that all that fur came from!! :-)
I received the "dog hair" mittens as part of my Christmas gift this year. They are the most unique and thoughtful gift I think I have ever received. I am actually looking forward to the next really cold Canadian winter day to check out the insulating properties of this fur. I just knew there had to be a use for all that shedded hair! Thank you for trying this out, Jen. They look great and I now match my son and daughter-in-law's dog.
I really enjoyed your dog hair mittens blog. I have a large bag of my border collie's combings which I hope to eventually spin, mixing with wool. I've also saved my Tigger cat's orange fur and thought I'd try spinning some - more as a lark than anything else. I keep telling my neice and nephew I'm going to make Tigger ear muffs.
How remarkable! I love them! My greyhound's fur is way too short to ever do anything with, besides which, he doesn't shed much. But it's a neat idea!
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