Over the winter I did a couple of custom spinning orders. The first job was spinning the fur of a lovely Sheltie called Maggie. I had the honour of meeting Maggie and she is a sweet dog whose best friend is a cat. Maggie makes a lot of fur and her owner is planning a knitting project with her yarn. That’s my cat Elfy above with Maggie’s yarn.
The second job was to spin some Ragdoll cat fur from two cats who live in Florida. Some of their fur had been spun by another spinner who unfortunately had to give up spinning so I had to match the already spun yarn. The fur had been stored compacted in a plastic bag and was felted into large lumps when I got it. It was several years worth of combings from the two kitties.
It took a lot of pulling and teasing to gently pull the felted clumps apart but most of it was usable. The customer wanted 100% cat fur yarn rather than blended with wool. I don’t usually recommend this as cat fur felts so easily and anything made out of cat fur yarn also tends to felt.
I hand carded the fur to make rolags and spun it long draw on my little upright wheel. The final two ply yarn was very soft.
