Wednesday 14 July 2010

All the better to knit you with

Ha! Eat your heart out, whatever it is that produces Qiviut.
This is Milo the very friendly husky. Milo is currently moulting, and is being defluffed by my brother, his owner, in this photograph. I believe Milo produces quite a lot of fluff. I have just googled, and it appears you can spin husky fur, and now I feel I ought to learn to spin to make the most of this natural, sustainable resource. Would that be odd? (OK, well, I know it would be odd, but would it be odder than any of the other things I do?). Has anyone ever spun/ knitted with dog fur?

Accompanying Milo on his walkies is probably the closest I will ever get to going out with a celebrity. Milo is quite a cool dog. He is named after a DJ, and he is in a band. When he goes out, he is stopped every five minutes by people who want to cuddle him. What a pretty dog you are, they say, as Milo licks their faces affectionately and, I have to say, rather indiscriminately. Are you a wolf? Is he a wolf? Is he, though? Look, people, life lesson number 653: check whether something is a wolf or not before you cuddle it, not after.

8 comments:

Artygal/Lalheg said...

I really don't like the thought of something knitted out of dog hair - imagine if it rained while you were wearing it and you ended up smelling of wet dog..........

resa said...

I haven't taken the plunge into spinning quite yet but I have drafted some cat hair after brushing them just to see if I could. I could see it working, but maybe blended with another fiber since my cats don't shed that much.

As for the smell, if the fiber's scoured like any other animal fiber I wouldn't think it'd be a problem. It's not like wet sheep smell that great either. Or dry sheep.

Susie said...

I saw a woman in Simply Knitting magazine who had knitted a jacket and skirt set out of cat hair, but her cats were very hairy Persians - they were the sort who look annoyed all the time. There was a photograph of her wearing her jacket & skirt, beaming and holding the cat who had provided it. It looked very unimpressed.

There's a question though, does wet sheep smell worse than wet dog...

Oh Miss West said...

Milo is gorgeous. He's certainly prettier than any musk ox could ever hope to be. As for knitting with pet hair, well, my kitties prefer to leave their hair on my projects after they are done.

If I could, I'd learn to spin and raise my own alpacas (but they'd probably die of heatstroke here in the desert).

Susie Jefferson said...

I saw an item on TV a couple of years ago, where a woman spun the combings from her huskies, her Angora goat and her rabbits. The dogs' fur had great waterproof properties, apparently.

It does sound very labour-intensive, though!

Anonymous said...

hehehe, love it. Such a cute wolf :P I've never tried spinning dog hair, though I don't think of it as any different from angora :)

Jess said...

Check this out... look in the comments, there are some ideas for getting rid of the "wet dog" smell!

http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com/2008/10/wearing-hair-of-dog-portraits-of-people.html

Susie said...

I love that blog post, thank you!

I think actually what I would find odd is wearing something made from an animal I know. I think if it was a dog I wasn't acquainted with I'd feel fine. I know that's odd and I might get over it, so you're not necessarily out of the woods yet, Milo, be very afraid.