Poodle fluff

Press, 8 November 1978, Page 16

Poodle fluff

Mrs Katherine Oliver, of Traverse City, Michigan, uses fluff from her poodle and fuzz balls from her collie to make clothes for her family because she can never find the kind of material she needs in yarn and fabric stores. Mrs Oliver said she taught herself to spin five years ago. She got the idea while staring at her poodle, George. “His fur was very much like a sheep’s fleece and quite waterproof,” she said. “I made a pair of mittens out of it for my son a number of years ago and they wore beautifully.

I also made part of an af" ghan with it, very warm. “My spinning wheel is always set up. You can make any material you want to, any colour you want to — it intrigues me.” When she first started shearing her pets. Mrs Oliver said, neighbours were “real interested.” “They were curious, thought it was part of the back-to-earth movement,” she said. Mrs Oliver said her spinning was just a logical outgrowth of her weaving, and not a skill passed down through the generations.

“My grandfather's grandmother was a spinner. That’s the only person I know of in my family,” she said. “J sent to New Zealand for the spinning wheel. It took four months for it to get here." Spinning wheels cost anywhere from $75 to $lO9, she said, and it is getting more and more difficult to find antique wheels. “People are using them for planters,” she said. “But I found a really beautiful one last spring. It is all different colours and beautifully carved and it works just as well as my new one.”