Putting On The Pood: Sharing the Warmth

Poodle People spend a good deal of their time grooming their friends, and even more time running their fingers lovingly through those soft, curly locks with great delight. An owner can spend a small fortune on professional haircuts, or do what my family’s done – buy a good trimmer and a set of blades and combs. There’s always the ‘extra’ grooming that needs doing (nail clipping, ear hair removal, bathing and brushing), but a basic kennel cut isn’t that hard to accomplish. Poodles are used to the attention, even enjoy it if you are fairly competent.

After a “shave the poodle” weekend at our homestead I’d end up with a couple of brown paper grocery bags full of soft, curly poodle hair I always wanted to spin into yarn for scarves and hats, but I don’t know how to spin. So it was that our poodles’ hair ended up as a flattened felt-like foot-wide mat covered with bark chips from the wood chopping block marking the garden fence line. It’s a pretty good mulch to keep weeds down, it eventually biodegrades, and is a surprisingly effective deterrent against deer, foxes and rabbits getting through the fence to raid the veggies.

After surfing around this past week, I am delighted to report that there are instructions for spinning poodle hair out there on the web, along with more than one enterprise that will spin your poodles’ hair into yarn for you, even do the knitting, crocheting and weaving for a fee!

Annie’s Attic has a page answering obvious questions and supplying instructions for collecting the hair, picking, carding and spinning all on one page. The International Parti Poodle Gazette offers an entire page devoted to spinning poodle hair into yarn.

Instructions are what I lacked for my dreams of a nice poodle scarf (I’m not much of a knitter, just the basics). Some states’ animal protection laws forbid any trade made from the hair of domestic pets, and these can be interpreted broadly enough to prevent buying yarns made of clipped or shed hair. These are the “Cruella DeVille Laws,” so check your state’s codes if you want to get someone else to spin the yarn for you.

VIP Fibers offers a good overview of the process of getting the best hair from your pet, and will spin hair that you provide into a variety of yarn types and blends. Woofspuns will not only spin the yarn for you, but offers to create mittens, scarves, sweaters, vests, teddy bears and even dream catchers out of it!

Handspun Hats offers a variety of hat styles and blending yarns for use with your poodle’s hair. They also have hats made with the soft hair of Malamute, Great Pyrenees, Samoyed and Afghan hound, mixed with llama, mohair, linen or silk.

If you like to curl up with your poods on the couch during long winter nights putting quiet energy into knitting or crocheting, saving your best friends’ clippings is something to be considered. The yarns aren’t cheap, though you could also get a spinning wheel and make friends with some poodle groomers who would love to give you their week’s clippings, go into the expensive yarn-spinning business yourself!

Just imagine how completely jealous all your friends will be when you show up at the luncheon wearing a spectacularly soft, well-cabled sweater [$895 and up] and tam [a mere $98] that exactly match your prize poodles! Or even a long, luxurious poodle scarf, only $345 knitted, $325 woven.

Or – my Dream Item – this Poodle jacket (thick-and-thin spin knit panels on leather or wool) that costs more than my car did. [Sigh...] I’ve just got to get a spinning wheel for Christmas, could make this for myself practically for free by the time I retire!

Links:

Annie’s Attic: Putting on the Dog

Detta’s Spindle: Woofspuns

What Not to Crochet: Poodle Hair Hats

VIP Fibers: Facts About Pet Fiber

Doggie Hats

Intl. Parti Poodle Gazette: Spinning Poodle Hair

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