The epiphany came to Morgan Hill resident Victoria Pettigrew
while she was brushing one of her pet dogs, a chow. The hair that
built up on the brush seemed just too pretty to throw away, so she
began to save it instead.
The epiphany came to Morgan Hill resident Victoria Pettigrew while she was brushing one of her pet dogs, a chow. The hair that built up on the brush seemed just too pretty to throw away, so she began to save it instead.
When her husband later asked what she was doing, Pettigrew told him she intended to learn to spin the soft hair, whose color and texture she felt rivaled anything available through commercial distributors.
“He went out on his lunch break and bought me my first spinning wheel,” said Pettigrew, who draws attention at knitting shows these days with a custom-made wheel that depicts her six dogs and a booth full of unusual items from a pillow of Himalayan cat fur to a shawl of golden retriever.
Pettigrew started off spinning alpaca fiber for local ranchers, and VIP Fibers was born. But the company took a decided shift when her beloved Lhasa Apso, Karly, died in 2001.
The dog was 16 years old, but Pettigrew needed time to grieve her loss. To keep a piece of her furry companion with her always, she decided to spin Karly’s fur, winding up with enough to create a small neck scarf.
“It was very comforting,” said Pettigrew, “and so I thought other people might like having the same service. We contacted breeders all over the country for fiber samples, and I spun and reworked my technique so I could spin just about any fiber.”
Today, a large portion of Pettigrew’s business still comes from grieving pet owners struggling to let go of their animals. But years of word-of-mouth advertising, and knitting and dog show appearances have begun to earn Pettigrew a following.
“The results can’t be immediate because most people aren’t going to go home and shave their dogs. Instead, many pet owners collect their sheddings over the course of a year or more before turning them in to Pettigrew for spinning.
April Hechter, an accountant and computer technician from Oakland, dropped off a collection sample from her cat, Buffy. Much to her chagrin, the cat’s hair will not make very strong yarn, but she’s hoping to knit it into a decorative panel for a sweater.
“I had heard about spinning dog hair, but I don’t think my dog would do that very well,” said Hechter. “He’s a short-hair, so I started collecting from Buffy after I heard about a book. Better to wear a sweater from a dog you love than a sheep you’ve never met.”
Dawne Hornung, a merchandiser from Half Moon Bay, also dropped by Pettigrew’s booth at Stitches West, a knitting show, to turn in fur from her 6-year-old golden retriever, Kallie.
“I’ve come to Stitches for years, and I saw her and kept thinking, I’ve got to let her spin my dog’s hair,” said Hornung. “She’s part of the family. The idea is a novelty, but we love our pet.”
Not everyone is so enthralled with Pettigrew’s work. The booth is crowded, but for each person who comes in there is another who stands outside and stares with apprehension – sometimes even disgust.
“It’s original,” said Renée Stokes, a convention visitor. “I love animals, but I would never dream of putting on a sweater I made from my dog or cat.”
Still, in the world of knitting, it’s not far from what many already do. Kathy Brassill, a tour guide from Tacoma, Wash., learned to spin from a woman who used the hair from her angora rabbits as material. Why not dogs?
Spinning some of the fibers pet owners bring Pettigrew can be challenging, though. Animals with shorter hair are more difficult to spin, as are animals with what is called single coat fiber.
That means certain breeds do not have undercoats, similar to a bird’s down, but rather, must be clipped in order to have their fiber spun.
“Single coat animals have hair that’s more like humans’,” said Pettigrew. “It’s soft and it’s sleeker, so it doesn’t hold together the way another yarn might. Part of what makes a fiber like wool so strong is that the sheep’s outer coating has a barb so it, so it hooks to the other fiber.”
For a price of six dollars an ounce, Pettigrew and her part-time staff will take bags of loose brushings, card them and spin them into custom yarns, complete with personalized skein tags featuring a picture of your animal.
For an additional $8 to $200, she will also knit everything from mini pet stockings to totes, scarves, pillows, shawls and blankets.
“One thing people don’t realize is that dog hair is 80 percent warmer than wool and about 50 percent lighter, so I don’t really encourage them to make sweaters out of it, but I do a lot of scarves,” said Pettigrew.
All of the pet yarn is deodorized and softened through a process involving special shampoos, enzyme treatments and conditioners that remove all odor and dander-based allergens and that Pettigrew claims as trade secrets.
For more information on Pettigrew’s home business, call her at (408) 782-0515 or visit www.VIPFibers.com.
