A recent issue of TAKS TALKS included reviews of two books on spinning dog hair. In response to the request in "Editor's Notes", I asked Jennifer O'Toole if she thought you would be interested in hearing from a spinner and the co-owner of two Keeshonden. With the encouragement of Jennifer and Carolyn Shaldecker, I took notes as I prepared and spun the hair (I call it "Keefur") from our Kees into a sweater.

The first thing you should know about wearing Keefur is that it is WARM! You will never fully appreciate the discomfort a Keeshond endures in the summer until you have walked a mile in his fur. My husband cannot wear the 100% Keefur hat I made for him for any length of time unless the temperature is below zero.

Obtaining the necessary amount of Keefur is an experience that reminds me of the first line of a recipe for Hasenpfeffer: "first catch your rabbit". Some Kees take to combing more easily than others. Our two Keesies are rescues, found at local shelters a year apart, and they have their prejudices toward being handled, which we will never fully understand. The female, Keisha, hates to be combed and absolutely refuses to allow her rear end to be groomed. This makes it a two-person job. The male, Timmy Tango, convicted child-biter, rolls onto his back and makes it almost impossible to get anything but tummy hair. Another two-person job.

What you are after when you comb is the soft undercoat, but you will notice that you have collected some of the darker guard hairs as well. It is a matter of personal taste as to whether you pull them out, a laborious job, or leave them in place. If the Keefur is to be dyed, the guard hairs will be unnoticeable. If it is to be used in its natural state, the appearance of a few darker hairs adds texture.

The amount to collect for a project is also a matter of taste. You should decide first if you intend to use the Keefur alone or if you will blend it with other fibers. For the hat, I spun pure Keefur and the result was beautiful. I knitted the headband in pure wool so that it would absorb perspiration and not mat. For my first larger project, a Christmas sweater for my husband from his two devoted dogs as a thank-you for having rescued them, I decided to blend the Keefur with lambswool.

The choice was made for two reasons: first, after several hours of traveling around the kitchen floor on my knees trying to coax the skittish Keisha to part with her hair, I decided that harvesting enough Keefur for a complete sweater was out of the question. Secondly, and more importantly, I felt that the addition of wool would offer greater support to the Keefur, especially in areas where there would be constant abrasion, like across the stomach, under the arms and around the neck.

If you choose to blend the Keefur with wool, your next decision will be the proportion of Keefur to wool. My preference is one-third Keefur and two-thirds wool. This sounds like a lot of wool, but you will be surprised at how the Keefur takes over. A proportion like this will make the finished article sturdy yet still create a beautiful 'halo' of Keefur - a fabric like nothing you have ever seen before!

As to quantity, that of course will depend on the item you intend to make with your Keefur yarn. You can blend two or three ounces with wool for a hat or mittens, perhaps six or seven ounces for a luxurious scarf. For a sweater - be prepared to comb and comb! Your sweater will probably weigh 26 to 30 ounces. That means a minimum of ten ounces of Keefur to twenty ounces of wool. If that doesn't sound like much, wait until you weigh that downy stuff on a scale. Yours is going to be the best-groomed Keeshond that there ever was by the time you have enough Keefur for a sweater.

Your choice of wool is important. We raise registered Romney sheep, a breed prized for its handspinning fleece but whose wool is often on the coarse side. We are fortunate that our animals yield unusually soft wool while still giving us the benefit of the longer staple - anywhere from 5" to 7". For my husband's sweater, I used the wool from a Romney ram lamb. It was soft and fairly long (for a lamb) about 5" average. For the sweater I am now making I used the wool from a friend's flock, crossbreds that have exceptionally fine-gauge wool with a shorter staple - 2-3".

Both wools have turned out lovely yarn, but the longer Romney fleece seems to have allowed for a denser 'halo' than the finer fleece. By that I refer to the way the tips of the Keefur work out of the twisted yarn to create a soft fuzziness. I think the new yarn will also become fuzzier after it has been handled, knitted and washed a few times.*

Once the fibers are assembled, preparation begins. When spinning Keefur alone, I have spun without washing it first. Unless your dog lives a very rustic life, his undercoat will not be dirty or unpleasant to handle. If the Keefur is to be blended with wool, I suggest washing. If it is going to be dyed then it should definitely be washed first. In any case, the finished yarn will be washed before knitting, and, no - if you get caught in the rain you will not smell like a wet dog. There is no smell at all after the fiber is processed.

I wash Keefur in hot, soapy water with a minimum of handling. It will not mat like wool, since it is hair, but it is so fine that gentle care is called for. If it is to be used in its natural color, spread it out on a screen, teasing it apart carefully to separate, and let it air dry. If it is to be dyed, just squeeze out all the rinse water and proceed to the dyepot.

Books and books and books have been written about dyeing and we can't really cover the subject here. I always dye in the fleece, never finished yarn, and the only tip I can give you now is to dye the Keefur in a separate pot, preferably contained loosely in a nylon net bag. I mix enough dye to process both the wool and the Keefur at the same time and divide it between the two pots, in the same proportion as the amount of fiber (in my case, one-third, two-thirds). This way I get the same color for each fiber.

Carding and blending the Keefur with the wool is going to take time and there is no getting around it. Successful blending depends on getting the same amount of each fiber in each batt or rolag. I use a drum carder but hand cards will work if you have the time to spend.

First the Keefur and wool should be carded separately. The wool is easy. The Keefur is messy; it flies everywhere. Wear an apron. Pile the Keefur into a plastic bag as you card but don't pack it down. Keep it airy.

Before beginning to blend, take a handful of Keefur and two handfuls of wool that together will add up to the size batt that works best on your carder. A total of half an ounce is a good rule of thumb. Place these handfuls at the end of your worktable. These puffs are the 'controls'. Then take Keefur and wool in amounts that look about the same size as the controls and put them through the carder.

In the first stage it is only necessary to put the fibers through the carder twice. This distributes the fibers fairly well. When the entire amount of Keefur and wool has been carded together, split four batts in half and lay them out. Split four more batts in half and lay a half on top of each half of the first split batts. Recard these into four new batts to complete distribution of the fiber and correct any problems with color variation.

If the planets were against you when you did your dyeing, you may need to do the splitting/recarding operation again to assure yourself that your fibers and color are distributed evenly. This is the place in the operation where you can expect to spend days! Or many, many days! Please don't try to save time on this step unless you are willing to accept big blotches of lighter or darker shades in the middle of your sweater front. Trust me - they never get lost in the ribbings or the turtleneck - they are always right plunk in the front!

Once the carding is done to your satisfaction, you are on the downhill run! And you get to sit down. When spinning your Keefur/wool preparation you may be unhappily surprised to find that it does not draft as easily as all wool or wool mixed with other fibers. In fact, you may find it a chore. After a while you will find that you've overcome the balky drafting and don't even notice it. When it comes to spinning technique or yarn diameter, these are choices you will have to make for yourself. They will be based on the influence your selection of wool has had on the Keefur and what type of article you intend to make with the finished yarn.

The only spinning suggestion I will make is that you do not run the fingers of your orifice hand along the yarn as it is twisting to coax all the fiber ends into the yarn. This is a nice technique for smoothing wool yarn, but your intent here is to let the ends of the Keefur poke out of the wool to create the fuzzy 'halo' you are looking for. Just draft out the fibers and let the twist run into them unaided.

When all your yarn is spun, knit it up as you would any other yarn. The only difference is to use a very simple stitch pattern or no pattern at all. A textured surface or an Aran stitch will soon disappear as the Keefur asserts itself and the knitted fabric becomes fuzzier and fuzzier with use. A stockinette stitch or a simple rib will show the Keefur to its best advantage. Don't be disappointed if your finished yarn does not look as fuzzy as you expected it to be. Handling during knitting, and wearing and washing, will soften and 'fuzz-up' the yarn. If you are impatient, take a very soft hairbrush - like a baby's hairbrush - and gently brush the finished knitting to release the ends of the Keefur.

If you are not a spinner and still want a garment from the hair of your beloved pet, you can hire a spinner or a spinner/knitter to do it for you. Be sure to provide the spinner with only the best Keefur you can comb, leaving out the very short bits around the legs and the coarse parts across the rear. Ask the spinner to make a sample of about two ounces so that you can knit it up and see how it looks. Be prepared to pay the spinner for that work because she (or he) will need to go through all the preparation steps before spinning and they take time.

No matter how you go about it, a garment made with the fur of your Keeshond will be soft as a cloud, cuddly and warm. Just like your Keesie!

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*It did. It is just as fuzzy as the Romney blend yarn.