Handspinning Afghan Hound's hair

#1

My mom has been collecting her afghan hound’s hair. She gets shaved in the summer so we are really collecting a lot.

My questions are how much does it take to get enough to knit a nice sized afghan blanket?

I’m wondering how hard it would be to learn how to spin with it. I’ve been checking out some sites including joyofhandspinning and it’s made me kinda nervous. Since money is an issue I guess I’d have to learn to use a drop spindle.

The hair is very long and incredibly soft. Not like the downy undercoats of huskies and not exactly the coat of a golden. Sort of like human hair mixed with angora. Silky with a bit of fluff. I haven’t seen any coarse hairs in it. If possible I’d like to make this yarn 100% Afghan hound, but since I don’t know what I’m doing maybe someone can let me know if that’s a bad idea. Do I need to blend it with something else?

I’m a little confused with the plys too. Is two-ply handspun most common?

Where can I find exact step-by-step directions of preparing and spinning this fiber? The terminology is confusing me too. Right now the fur is just sitting in a trash bag freshly clipped. It needs a bath too…

Thanks in advance!

#2

An easy way for you since you’d be starting from scratch is to visit www.vipfibers.com. They make the yarn for you. Very reasonable too. The do not blend it with anything.

And to make a blanket you’d need a good bit. Find a blanket pattern that you like. Figure up how much the yarn for the blanket weighs. That is the min that you’d need in raw fiber. But get more as fiber is lost in the processing (up to 30%).
For example: I like the Old Shale (feather & Fan) throw. It is knit in DK weight yarn and each ball weighs 1.76 ounces or 50 grams. It would take at least 10 balls to make the blanket. So, I need over 18 ounces of fiber to compensate for lost fiber. That’s over a pound.

I spin people’s pet fur on a regular basis. I’m backed up at the moment or I’d offer to help out. I’m currently spinning a cat fur, silk blend into lace weight.
Anyway, that is the easiest and quickest way to do it. Learning to spin takes time. It is still an option for you though as the primary reason I learned to spin was to create yarn from my cat =-)

#3

Thanks SO much for the link!!! I book marked it and will look into it more when I figure out how much fur I will have. Seems a great service!

#4

Hi, I collected the fur from my beautiful Rag Doll cat for ages and posted it to my sister who lives about 4 hours drive away as she was doing some felting and wanted to try the fur, but when it arrived it was felted into a hard mass already just from the jostling around in the mail! She gave it to her cats as a toy but they were a bit wary of it! I def will not be able to spin and knit her fur unless it is to felt.