Oh! Sorry about not getting them. They looked at first sight just like ordinary ignorance.
Okay: I haven’t made a baby blanket out of my smelly dog’s hair. However, I’d be happy to make a baby blanket out of somebody else’s chiengora yarn (that’s fancy fibercrafter’s talk for “smelly dog’s hair”) if they asked me to.
The jury’s apparently still out on the question of its smelliness, though. Some chiengora users I’ve talked to or read about say that there’s no odor at all if the hair/yarn is properly cleaned before using; others say they notice a “wet wool” smell if the finished product gets wet.
Believe me, if you saw up close what sheep’s fleeces look like while the sheep are still wearing them, you would think that wool was pretty gross too.
Ok. First of all, if you meant this as a joke, you shouldn’t have posted it in General Questions. GQ is for questions which have factual answers, which is why so many people took you seriously.
I’ll move it to MPSIMS, which is better suited for joking around.
The Straight Dope can teach you all kinds of weird things no matter how esoteric. Like I and many others mentioned, the Samoyed breed can be used to produce beautiful material for yarn and the Samoyed people used them for that probably for several thousand years. You don’t have to shear them in the least. They just produce the raw product naturally and there are probably other breeds that do too. I have never seen a spun product from them that smells either.
Here is a picture in case you don’t know what one looks likes. They make fine spinning fur without shearing.
I have a poncho made from Alpaca. It still smells like an alpaca. Even when dry.
Processing has a LOT to do with residual smells.
You can spin pretty much any hair, although longer hair is easier than shorter, and some types are easier than others. I haven’t spun doghair (although I have spun my own hair) but I’ve seen it done by others.
I agree - about 10 bags of hair would make sense for a blanket, but YMMV.
Sorry I didn’t get it, wigwag. As Colibri pointed out, if you ask a question in GQ, you’ll quite possibly find out more than you ever wanted to know. If you post in any other forum, however, someone just might try to pull the wool over your eyes.
Okay. Many thanks for putting me in my place (MPSIMS, the story of my life). I promise I’ve learned my lesson.
But, I must protest. I lived on a sheep farm for three years and no sheep I knew ever smelled like my dog, particularly after he (my dog) had rolled in something dead.
And Samoyeds… yes. I know them well. However, these guys seem more likely prospects, if you’re looking for something sheep-ish.
Back in the 80’s I had a friend(Bob) who owned a Norwegian Elkhound. He saved the fluffy undercoat(it’s much paler than the outer coat). A friend of his wove it into Bob’s ordination stole. The pale blond stripes stood out from the red stole, and kind of looked like mohair.
Wet wool does have a highly noticable smell. Even if it’s not a bad smell, it’s a smell. (it is rather nasty when combined with kool-ade as my latest batch was last night) The pure cashmere sweaters I have smell differently when wet, also.
When I brought home two raw, skirted fleeces last year to wash, they smelled very strongly of sheep, and only a little after a few good soaks. And not at all once dried.
I used to custom spin cat and dog hair; although I preferred to spin unwashed dog hair (as the oils in the hair made it spin easier), once the finished yarn was washed, it never smelled ‘doggy’ when it was wet.
I once made a pair of socks from Sheltie yarn which won a blue at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and a few other things that went on exhibition.
If you do custom spin, definitely reserve the right to refuse stuff – I had one woman give me bags of filthy dog hair she’d swept up from her grooming shop, so I got dirty dog hair as well as misc. bits and bobs from the floor. A fellow spinner suggested always storing a new order in a ziploc bag with a cutting from a fresh flea collar for a couple of days, as well!
The best stuff to work with was combings from when owners groomed, rather than clippings. Dog hair also makes very warm jumpers and socks, so I used to do one ply dog to one ply wool (it also helps the garment keep its shape as dog and cat hair have no memory.)
I nearly drove my family out of the house when I kool-aid dyed some wool yarn last fall. It was lime kool-aid. Nothing quite like the smell of limes and wet wool in an enclosed space. Blech. Now I save these projects for days when I can have a window open. The resultant green yarn was pretty, though.
I used to have two Great Pyrenees dogs, and though they were stinky livestock guardians, their fur would have spun up beautifully. I never tried it though. I doubt I could have cleaned out the smell of big slobbery dog.
I have a cat, Seymour, and I have tried spinning his dense undercoat up into yarn, and it works! I didn’t save the kitty yarn, though. If I ever got a hankering to make more, Seymour loves to be brushed and sheds insane amounts of fur. I don’t think I could bring myself to wear my pet’s fur, but I might one day make a small knitted conversation piece of some kind. I’m getting started on fiber crafts and might get desperate for some roving to spin. Here, kitty kitty!
I have been told that it is the dander that makes it smell, so if you get rid of that, it will smell no worse than any animal hair (e.g. wet wool). No cite available, but it seems plausible to me.
An old boss of mine had some big fluffy dog - some sort of husky mix. He saved the brushed out hair until he had bags of it and pass that on to someone who made yarn from it. The yarn was turned into a sweater and given to his wife.
It turned out nice. Looked like any other sweater really. I don’t remember it having a smell.
I was told the wife didn’t wear it because she got too hot in it.
Anyway, I could totally see spinning Robert and Gidoen’s fur during shedding season. Sometimes I spin it a little with my hands anyway. Obviously, you don’t get much yarn from that - maybe a few inches. I hope to have a wheel before next shedding so we’ll see.
Once on TLC’s What Not to Wear Clinton and Stacey threw away someone’s dog sweater. Pretty cold of them.
