Yet Another Animal Fibre

Yesterday at my knitting group, one of the gals, Lynda, had a bag of her Golden-doodle's matted undercoat fur with her. I don't remember why she brought it out to show us but as soon as I saw it I asked her if she would like to see what it looked like spun up. I was intrigued.

Once home, I pulled the matts apart to loosen the fibres up a bit and carded them

into lovely, fluffy rolags. Lynda bathes her dogs weekly so the dog fur was very clean.

It was nice to work with. It felt somewhat like a blend of angora and alpaca.

After spinning the singles, I thought Navaho plying (chain plying) would be a good way to ply it. This creates a stable, 3-ply yarn.

It looks like fingering weight to me but with a 47 yd. yield from 20g (pardon my mixed measurement systems), it works out to be DK weight.

I gave it a wash to set the twist, let it dry and used my 36" nitty noddy to wind it into a skein. Now it's ready to be knit! I think it would take dye really nicely. you can't tell from the white background but there's a very light halo to the yarn.

Lynda has 4 dogs, I'm sure she has lots of their undercoat matts that could be processed. I wonder if she would like more yarn made? I guess I'll find out next Wednesday at my knitting group