Mainly, I suppose, because it seems an awful lot of people have said I should. As the title suggests, this blog will mainly be about dogs -- and that will include my passion for the fiber arts: spinning, knitting, crocheting, and to a lesser extent weaving and felting, primarily using dog hair. I've been doing custom spinning for over a decade, making yarn and keepsake objects for people from their dogs' hair. The idea isn't new: the Victorians practiced something similar, with braided keepsakes from the hair of deceased loved ones. I know how the Victorians felt: I have a lock of my father's hair, clipped from his head when he was a year old in 1912, and it's the only physical connection to him that I have.
I learned to spin for that reason: so I could have a tangible, physical connection to my shelties when they "went to the Bridge" as dog people say. I've been knitting for almost 60 years, and crocheting for almost as long, and I thought why not learn to spin so I can make things from my own dogs' hair? Anyone who's lived with even one sheltie knows they shed like mad, and it's all downy soft undercoat, which most people bag up and toss in the trash. Spinners call dog hair "chiengora" because it's almost as soft as the bunny version (angora). The best breeds are the double coated ones, the herding dogs and the BWDs ("Big White Dogs") like Great Pyrs, the northern breeds (Samoyeds, Malamutes, Siberians and so on) but there are plenty of other breeds -- and a lot of mixed breeds as well -- that spin up beautifully.
Eventually I'll take the time to post some pictures of some of the beautiful yarn I've gotten from shelties across America (it helps to belong to an e-mail list!) and some of the items I've made from it. But for now, just getting the blog up and running will have to suffice.
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