Some of you already know this, but we used to own two samoyeds.They were big, white, fluffy dogs. Actually, the dogs were B's before we were married. They required a lot of brushing and shed a lot of hair. Eventually I started saving the hair. I had bags and bags of it. I thought I would learn to spin so that I could make something for B. It has been TWELVE years since we have had either of the dogs and since their death I have learned to spin. I practiced and practiced on prepared wool. I didn't want to practice on the dog hair because I only have a limited supply of that.I still have not made anything from the dog hair becuase as first I didn't think I was good enough at spinning to make nice yarn from the hair. Also, if I were to start saving hair from brushings now I would do things differently. I would only save hair from a CLEAN dog and only save the hair from the neck and chest. I have a lot of wirey guard hairs in the fluff I have saved. Maybe someday I'll do all the prepwork and spin enough fluff for a scarf or something. In the mean time I'm enjoying spinning wool.When I spin, I usually just make plain vanilla yarn. I spin a single and then ply it to itself for a simple two ply yarn. I thought I'd share my lazy spinner approach to simple yarn. I start with a big pretty ball of fluff that is already prepared as a roving or top.
I fluff out a section of the ball and make it ready for easier spinning. When that bit is spun I'll unwind a little more from the ball and fluff it up.
I fill a bobbin with a single ply of spun yarn.
Then, I wind that single ply onto my ball winder creating a center pull ball.
I ply this back on to the bobbin pulling from the inside and outside of the ball at the same time.
I know that the yarn will fit back on the bobbin because the single ply fit and it is the same amount of wool. And I don't have to worry about the singles being the same length, I just spin until I come to the middle and end at the fold!
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