Doggie yarn

I needed a break so I sat down at the spinning wheel the other day with a bag of fluff I'd combed from Ralphie, the English Shepherd. At the time, his sheddings were mostly the soft, fine white undercoat, though there were enough of the longer buff guard hairs mixed into give the yarn an interesting variagation. The yarn on the spindle itself is from Ralphie. The fluff to the left is from Bebe, who's a Rough Collie & English Shepherd cross. I was comparing the color tones and trying to decide whether to include her combings in the Ralphie yarn.

It took about an hour to spin what's on the spindle, and that's much longer than it would take me to spin that much from sheep's wool. Dog hair handles differently, though, and thus I had to learn the subtleties. It's not so slick as the Angora from my rabbits, but enough so that I found some of the finer techniques I learned on Angora worked well on Ralphie's 'wool'. The yarn on the spindle has a very tight twist, much too tight for knitting as singles. I plan to ply it with a strand of sheep's wool singles, and that process will absorb much of the twist to leave a yarn that I hope is just right.

Usually I prefer a finer singles so the end result with two or three strands plied together isn't too bulky. This time, that wasn't happening. Ralphie's yarn is about worsted weight thus far, and has the typical beginner bumps and thick-and-thin spots. That's the learning curve at play, but that's okay. It'll definitely have that handspun look, even after plying with the smoother strand of sheep's wool. I expect the end result will be a bulky yarn that's stronger and holds its shape well. It should knit up quickly in a simple scarf pattern.

The project has earned me eye rolls from the dh and a couple of my children, including the daughter who last year requested that scarf made from Ralphie's combings. They called me a goober. Oh well. I can live with that. And I don't have to share my scarf. So there!