I just saw this on the news and checked out the web site…vipfibers.com
You can send them animal hair and they will make it into yarn. you can even buy sample cards of what various breed yarns will feel like! I have always wondered what they would smell like if a dog hair sweater got wet!!! :shrug:
Pet Hair to Yarn
hi tillie. we had a post on this very thing a little while ago
http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27131&highlight=smell
The Today Show just did a piece on a lady who had a sweater made from her cat’s hair. I guess it looked nice. I don’t think I would want to wear pet hair--------------------oh, wait, I mean knowingly wear pet hair, not the fur you pick up from the shedding pet.
I did have a lady ask if we could spin her dying cat’s fur. She wanted to needlepoint a picture of her cat and use his fur. We said NO! :shrug:
MaryB, why did you guys say no? :pout:
Hmm… I just posted on my blog about that little piece on the Today show and how it offended me that they thought it was so funny.
There’s nothing wrong with knitting with pet fur. It’s no different than knitting with sheep fur. Or goat fur. Or rabbit fur… or ANY animal fur.
Dog and cat fur may smell like the animal when it’s wet, but so does wool. Why is a barnyard animal’s fur ok if dog and cat fur is not ok? Makes no sense to me. I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the habit of wearing wet sweaters anyway, so who cares what it smells like when it’s wet?? :??
I say use whatever fiber you want, and be proud of the work you put into it!!
:cheering: 
Heck, I knit my own hair into just about anything I make :shrug: :teehee:
We said no because needlepoint stores are really not into spinning yarn. That is more for the knitting and weaving. We had no supplier that would do this.
We said no because needlepoint stores are really not into spinning yarn. That is more for the knitting and weaving. We had no supplier that would do this.[/quote]
Ohhhh, ok, I understand. 
Ah, come on, you have to have a sense of humor about this. It IS really funny. That isn’t to say it isn’t also cool and that there aren’t a lot of reasons to do it. A woman I ride horses with and I are both thinking about having it done with our horses’ hair. Her horse is older and she has had him since before he was born (she had the mom and is the one who bred him), so it is very sentimental for her. My horse is still young, but she is super soft and shiny, so I would hope the yarn would have those characteristics too. Plus, I just kind of think that you should try everything once, particularly when it comes to different kinds of yarn! It may turn out beautiful or really bizarre, I don’t know, but it certainly seems fun … and really funny. Come on, admit it, it is funny (don’t get me started about how funny it is that we wear wool, silk, etc. I mean can you imagine the first guy who looked at the sheep and was like, “Hey, that looks warm. I’ve got an idea…” )
bip-
i would think horse hair wouldn’t be too soft, they used to use it to make ‘horse hair’ braids which would be used to make hoop skirts stay open/wide
i think its a cool idea to make yarn from your beloved pet!
I will confess that it is creepy to me. I know that it is irrational that it creeps me out but it does. Logically I know it is no different than knitting the hair of a sheep but it still FEEEELS different to me.
As it is, I have very little time for The Today Show. They lost me when I realized that Katie Couric was about the world’s worst reporter on “mainstream” news… it took me a while but one day she made me shut the show off and that was it. :wall:
i agree with bip, its pretty funny. like, i remember once spongebob made squiward a sweater out of his eyelashes and he didn’t like it so he made another one out of his tears. THAT was funny. these ppl arent knitters so as far as their concerned its pretty much the same thing. as for the wet sweaters, theres a pretty high chace that ur gonna get caught in the rain sometime with ur dog sweater or hat or whatever, and i dont think it would smell that great. not to mention the smell of it when u wash it.
ETA: i found this link. it doesnt really have to do with knitting the hair, but i definetly didnt know this. http://www.styledash.com/2007/02/08/faux-fur-often-real-dog-hair/
I agree with you silver!
except for when the animal’s dying, then it’s a little creepy.
but maybe it’s harder to forget about how dirty the fur could get when you lived with its owner? or it’s like that scene in the man who wasn’t there when BBT starts fretting about how hair is always growing and is a part of your body that you keep lopping off and throwing away?
and even that is less creepy to me than qiviut, now that I know where that comes from.
has anyone here knitted with possum yarn?
I was considering buying some through ebay, if it turned out they didn’t have to off the possums to get it.
?
& am I the only person who really loves the smell of wet wool?
my bf thinks I’m crazy…
I couldn’t believe the smell of wool the first time I washed it. I had never smelled anything like that before. :ick:
Not saying I like the smell of wet dog (wet cat doesn’t bother me), but I don’t like the smell of wet wool either.
I’m currently collecting my cats fur to make some mittens at some point. :teehee:
What I don’t think is funny is how they (on the Today Show) literally made fun of this woman and her sweater. They were cackling like it was some incredulous thing to knit a sweater out of cat hair. It was just rude and unprofessional of them to make fun of her. They could have easily just dismissed the story if they thought it was such a joke.
And frankly, no, I don’t think it’s really funny. Now, I’m not saying that I think it’s a some important thing that should be thought of with intellectual seriousness. I’m not some kind of a fiber prude or anything. I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s any funnier than knitting a sweater out of rabbit fur. It’s just… another fiber, that’s all. :shrug:
Now knitting a cat statue out of your old cat’s fur to replace her when she’s dead… THAT would be funny and very, very weird.
has anyone here knitted with possum yarn?
I was considering buying some through ebay, if it turned out they didn’t have to off the possums to get it.
I’ve never knit with it, but I do have a sweater that my husband bought for me in New Zealand that has possum hair. Super soft! The New Zealand possum is not like our short-haired possum here in the States.
I volunteer with a wolfdog rescue organization (the dogs range in content from practically none to almost entirely). She saves their fur (from brushing) and sends it to a woman (I think in Oregon; not really sure right now) who spins it and knits it into shawls. I haven’t smelled a wet one, but they look gorgeous!
I know that Spongebob episode. It is really funny. Though I’m not sure I get the comparison of knitting with pet fur to knitting an entire sweater with eyelashes. :?? :teehee: :??
But the rain bit is true. I got caught in the rain yesterday with my wool hat and it smelled like, you guessed it, wet sheep. Lots of people like that sheepy smell, I think they call it lanolin, but from what I can tell lanolin is just sheep skin oil, and oil protruding from a farm animal’s skin doesn’t sound like something I want to smell (or at least when you put it like that). [inserting funny thought - people say fresh-from-the-farm yarn moisturizes your hands, and i guess it does, cuz it’s sheep follicle oil. but could you imagine doing it for even another human? 'excuse me, my hands are dry, i’d like to run them through your oily hair for the extra moisture, do you mind?]
It’s like I said in the other thread, do you mind smelling a little like wet dog if it gets wet? Do you mind, in fact, smelling a little like wet sheep when your wool stuff gets wet?
I’m still getting my bunny’s hair spun, one of these days. I think it’s easy to feel offended when people laugh, cuz you’re basically being told you’re creepy for completely illogical reasons. But that’s what culture is, I guess. :doh:
I was thinking the very same thing!! :cheering: