Knitter makes clothing out of her dog’s hair

By Sarah Ward via SWNS

A knitting has told how she makes clothes from hair belonging to her pet dogs.

Jane Crewe, 57, is devoted to her Samoyed dogs - a Siberian breed known for their thick white fur.

The innovative crafter collects the hair from her pets, Artemis and Phaidra, aged seven, and uses a spinning wheel to turn it into yarn. She then turns it into fluffy hats and scarves.

Jane, who works in the gift shop at Edinburgh Zoo, said: "It's a little bit of magic.

"You can do so much with it - using it for knitting, yarn or felt."

Mom-of-four Jane, who lives in Corstohpine, Edinburgh, Scotland washes the wool, dries it which takes two to three days, and then spins it into yarn, making around 50 g an hour.

She got fur sent from 100 Samoyed owners during lockdown to see if she could learn how to spin it, and sends the yarn back to people.

"I learnt to spin a year before lockdown but wasn't really practicing enough. I started during the first lockdown," she said.

"I went on Facebook and asked Samoyed owners to send me fur and I got about 100 responses in a day.

"I knew if I wanted to get better I would need to do it every day.

"I like the spinning but knitting takes a lot longer, I'm usually quite happy to pass it back to the owner. "

She is currently knitting a sweater - using single ply yarn, as using double ply would be too warm to wear - and plans to make a blanket.

"I've made all sorts of things - hats, scarves, teddies," she said.

"You wouldn't be able to spin Labrador or spaniel hair as there's no undercoat."

The undercoat is known as "the halo," while Samoyeds are sometimes referred to as "land clouds" due to their luminous white fur which is tinged with silver.

Karen Carpenter owned Samoyeds, and the trend for "chiengora" - the name for Samoyed knitwear - originated in America in the 1970s.

"It's not just me who does it - in the 1970s in America there was a woman who would spin and sell things made from Samoyed fur in her local market," Jane said.

"Some people thought it was disgusting so she put together the French word for dog, 'chinen' and 'gora' from Angora, and called it 'chiengora.'"

She added: "It's so much nicer than sheep wool.

"You could crochet with it, or do house insulation with it, or make a duvet from it."