Fur

 

Fur

Roxy's fur is a much darker chocolate than it appears here, and Gilbert's is a darker yellow. The undercoats of both of them are lighter than their top coats.

No matter how many times a day we sweep or vacuum, there always seem to be drifts of fur on the floor, which is not really surprising, with two each of dog and cat. I regularly decide to start a daily routine of brushing and regularly fail, but this time I have accomplished it for three days. Roxy has tufts of fur on her hind quarters, which beg to be plucked and I usually do that in the woods.

It has been  warm and sunny recently and Roxy loves to lie out in the sun, which isn’t very sensible with her dark coat, but she comes indoors after a while and lies and pants to cool down, silly girl. Naturally, as she was getting some attention, Gilbert decided to join us and then Herschel came out, too, because, where the dogs are, so must he be. On the third day, Jellicoe appeared as I was brushing, so some of his silvery fur joined the pile, which was swiftly blown away when the wind sprung up.

Most of the fur I brushed out with my Furminator is Roxy’s, but I did a few sweeps across Gilbert and a couple of passes over Herschel. Thus, the pile of fur, which would be so useful to the birds if they were still collecting nesting material, is a mixture of chocolate, yellow and a minute amount of creamy silvery white. The photograph above shows the result of about fifteen minutes' brushing. 

If only I were a spinner and weaver, I could achieve some wonderful material. I saw a video clip about washing and felting collected dog fur, but I haven’t the inclination to do that, though there are some interesting items on Etsy, a felted heart, for example, selling for £25. 

I could just use the lint from the tumble dryer and the contents of the vacuum cleaner – they are mostly dog (and cat) fur!

I lay in bed last night, pondering what I could make with felted fur. The answer, I fear, would be 'not very much.' Maybe I'll try.