That's right. If you are a member of my family, this is totally the point of no return, and you should run away swiftly. We are talking about Christmas spoilers here!
I'm waiting...I'm serious folks. No, you really need to roll.
Whew! I thought they would never leave. So now that its just us chickens, I can tell you about my masterful plot for the gift that keeps on giving. (If you just happen to like fuzzy things and you really, really, really, love your dog.)
So, last night I get a call from the lovely and talented G-ma Genius, who in this blog shall be forever known as "the Betty". The woman is a seamstress of massive skills, and oh god! the baked goods! The jam! The woman is BIG TIME talented...And sweet...And wonderful. Not even fair really :)
...So I was talking to the Betty, and she informs me that "my mean old aunt Sharon" (who is neither mean, nor old, but is truly my aunt) is going to be at the house for Christmas.
(*My mean old aunt ended up with that nickname a million years ago after convincing me that she was the wicked witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz, come to the house in full "flesh colored" makeup as a disguise so she wouldn't be recognized-She looks enough like her that its not much of a stretch for a 5 year old with an extremely overactive imagination).
M.O.A. Sharon is amazing. She's one of my favorite people on the planet, and this means that I need to come up with a most excellent gift and times-a-wasting!
So, the brainstorming started. There is not enough time left to knit something of the high degree of quality and intricacy that she deserves (Hemlock Ring Blanket, I'm talking to you.), and I am still fresh out of car so I can't really go procure a gift outside of my walking radius. Walking radius gifts would leave me the options of the local grocery store (Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy your can of baked beans!) or possibly Big Lots. So, the gifting thoughts turned to what I can do with what I have here in the apartment. Hmmm.....
Then it hit me.
Girlfriend has a huge Malamute dog.
She LOOOVES said malamute dog.
Malamute dogs have nifty soft undercoats.
Hey! I can do a little blending and spin fibers from nifty soft Malamute undercoat and make a nifty soft something for the M.O.A Sharon.
How does one package such a gift for a satisfactory gifting experience you may ask? Good Question. Since I don't actually possess any of the doggie down, This is what I did.
I grabbed a nice little lingerie sized box, a "dog hair collection receptacle" (which is also known as a gallon sized zip lock bag for some strange reason), a pre-paid self-addressed mailer so the collected hair filled zip lock can be mailed to me for spinning at no cost to the giftee, and I made a little gift certificate explaining the madness of the whole thing.
What do you think? Is it madness? Or a stroke of eggnog induced brilliance? Who wants to wear some puppy hair? Tell the truth!
4 comments:
That is a really sweet idea, but you might want to add a $10 grooming tool that will get you the down, rather than down AND the guard hairs. It's called a rake, and that's exactly what it looks like.
Once you are done blending the fur with some similarly colored wool, and the spinning is done, you may want to wash the finished yarn in some tea tree oil dog shampoo. That way, even when it's wet, the yarn/finished item won't smell like dog. :)
Thanks for the helpful tips! I wouldn't have thought about the tea tree shampoo, and its such a great idea. Sounds like you have spun a little puppyfluff in your day :)
Awesome idea (eggnog sure does help!) No one ever believes it's dog hair! I agree about blending. I use about half dog, half wool. Also, I try to spin with a good amount of twist, to keep the yarn from shedding, unless you're making something that's more for decoration than wearing.
Egads! With all this terrific input I'm going to be spinning pup with the best of 'em. Thanks!
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