My high school German teacher (who was Danish) made beautiful sweaters from her malamutes' hair. I used to have a Mala-mutt that produced the loveliest pure white under coat fluff that we saved for another woman that spun and knitted sweaters from dog hair. As for the stench - a lot of this depends on the dog's lifestyle. Not always, but typically, a dog that is not allowed access to lovely odorous things to roll in - this includes normal ordinary organic matter - tends not to stink horribly when wet. Annette M
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 21:16:04 -0400 From: "Shane & Sheridan" Subject: Re: [h-cost] Was carpet sweeper, now dog hair To: "Historical Costume" Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Subject: Re: [h-cost] Was carpet sweeper, now dog hair > At 1:50 PM -0700 10/18/05, Cynthia J Ley wrote: > >I haven't yet, but a friend of mine who is a spinner did. Made some very > >successful yarn from it too. She said it didn't need blending because it > >already had a nice twist in it and made a fairly strong yarn. > > When I was actively spinning, I was asked if I'd take a commission > from a local afghan (hound) club to make an "afghan afghan." I > thought it was a cute idea but didn't have the time. > > I believe there's also a book on using dog hair in weaving -- IIRC > it's titled or subtitled (yes really) "From Woof to Warp." > > I suppose the temptation was irresistible, really.... > -- For some dog owners the temptation is more a survival reaction. :-) My uncle raises Alaskan Malamutes, and often puppy-sits for other Mala-mutt owners. He has had up to 25 dogs at his acreage at one time. That's a LOT of dog fluff! My Malamutt every spring would shed a garbage bag's worth of soft undercoat, her favorite thing was to sit with me outside and let me pull handfuls of the stuff off of her - much easier than trying to scratch it off herself I'm sure. A friend of my uncle's would come and collect the fluff from him and other Malamute and Samoyed owners then spin and knit the colletion every year, she made a nice bit of money at the season's dog shows selling the results. Softer than you might think, and very warm. :-) Sheridan (missing my dog now...) ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 05:31:04 -0500 From: "Land of Oz" Subject: [h-cost] now dog hair To: "Historical Costume" Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original I can confirm that dog hair makes lovely fabric, whether woven or knit or felted. Any dog that blows a fine, soft undercoat (usually in the spring) makes a good candidate. If it's at least an inch and a half long, most people will not be able to distinguish it from angora (rabbit) in a finished object. The main objection is odor. If the dog smells, the fabric will too. Sometimes the odor can be washed out at the yarn stage, but sometimes it can't. --------------------------------- Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume