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Got pet fur? Then you can have pet yarn (if you aren’t disgusted by the very idea)

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What’s a bereaved pet owner -- who just happens to have hoarded their deceased pet’s fur for a period of years -- to do? If that pet owner is Washington-area dog trainer Cindy Briggs, she’ll have the collected fur of her deceased golden retriever spun into yarn and knitted into a decorative afghan.

Briggs’ original idea was to drape the finished product over her couch -- but, like Carly, the dog whose fur was used to make it, the afghan sheds. Instead, Briggs placed it on top of a table and covered it with a piece of glass to keep the fur from escaping. Still, ‘I can touch it any time I like,’ Briggs explained in an interview with our colleague, Deborah Netburn. From Netburn’s story:

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Because most pet owners do not have access to spinners (they are quite hard to find), [pet-yarn entrepreneur N’ann Harp] has set up two websites to connect the two. For the spinners -- usually stay-at-home mom hobbyists -- she founded the Critter Knitter Guild, a loose association of spinners who get paid to spin yarn.

And for pet owners who have been hoarding dog, cat or bunny fur, she founded Pet Yarn Chic: You send her $49.95 and she sends you back a handbook, shipping supplies and hair collection instructions.

Prices for professionally spun pet-fur yarn start at about $10 to $12 per ounce, and not all dog or cat fur will work, according to Harp. (Long-haired cats’ fur and the soft undercoat of double-coated dog breeds are ideal, she says.) And Harp cautions that dog fur tends to have a natural, unpleasant odor due to oil in the animals’ skin.

Pet owners, what do you think? Is pet-fur yarn creepy, clever or a strange amalgam of the two?

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A purse made from cat fur? What will they come up with next?

-- Lindsay Barnett

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