How to Spin Pet Hair Into Yarn

Spin your pet's hair into yarn.

Although pet hair is an unconventional spinning fiber, creating yarn from your beloved pet is not unheard of. Spinning pet hair into yarn will allow you to create a keepsake item that will remind you of your favorite pet for years to come. Unlike scaly wool fibers, pet hair is slippery. For this reason, inexperienced spinners may find the hair challenging to spin. However, if you're an experienced spinner and you're comfortable with spinning short-staple fibers, you can create an unusual and meaningful yarn.

Things You'll Need

• Pet hair combings
• Hand carders
• Spinning wheel
• Strand of yarn

Instructions

Carding the Fiber

1. Load one hand carder with pet fur, using your right hand to lay the fiber vertically across the teeth.

2. Apply an even layer of fiber and hold the loaded carder in your left hand.

3. Hold the second carder in your right hand, directly over the other one.

4. Brush the right-hand over the left one, working from the right to the left and holding the bottom edge of the right hand-carder perpendicular to the left-hand carder's teeth. Repeat between five and ten times, depending on how many passes it takes to evenly distribute the fiber over both combs.

5. Line up the bottom edge of the left-hand carder with the handle edge of the right-hand carder.

6. Lay the fibers extending from the left-hand carder across the right-hand carder's teeth, and brush to the left to transfer the remaining fiber onto the right-hand carder.

7. Hold the loaded carder in your left hand and repeat the carding process until your fibers are separated from one another and airy.

8. Make a rolag (a tightly rolled tube of fiber), using the bottom edge of the right-hand carder to roll the fiber on the left-hand carder toward the handle.

9. Continue making rolags until you've prepared all the pet hair.

Spinning

1. Place the smallest whorl on the end of your spinning wheel flyer and loosen the tension to make the wheel's take-up speed slower. On scotch tensioned wheels, Turn the screw to which the end of your tension line is attached to the left. For double drive wheels, lower the mother of all things (the base that the flyer, bobbin and whorl are attached to).

2. Tie a leader yarn to your bobbin and zigzag it over several of the flyer hooks, feed it through the orifice and pick up one of your pet fur rolags.

3. Begin treadling your spinning wheel while holding the leader yarn between your right thumb and forefinger.

4. Allow the yarn to gather twist, and then draft fiber from your rolag with your left hand, lining it up against the leader yarn.

5. Unpinch your thumb and forefinger and move them further down the leader. The fiber from your rolag should twist onto the leader as you move your thumb and forefinger back. Continue drafting fiber with your left hand and moving your right thumb and forefinger back in small increments, spinning until you either run out of prepared fiber or fill your bobbin.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to create a plied yarn, spin half of your fiber onto one bobbin and half onto another bobbin. Twist the yarn together on a third bobbin, spinning in the opposite direction you spun each strand of yarn.

• Down from long and medium haired dog breeds, such as Golden Retrievers and Samoyed Huskies, are the easiest to spin.

• Choose clean, unmatted combings that measure at least 1 inch in length to spin.

• In order to create a sturdy yarn that will hold together, full your spun fiber, agitating it in hot, soapy water and then immediately dunking it in cold water. Repeat until the yarn is almost felted, and then smack the still-wet skein against a hard surface to finish the felting process.

References

• The Joy of Handspinning: How to Prepare Fiber with Hand Carders
• "Spin-Off;A Dog Down Cell Phone Cover;" Pat Martinek; Winter 2008