Newfoundland Dog Wool
Wool is produced from Newfoundland dogs without causing them any harm ! You would be amazed how many people think that I have skinned the dog to make a hat ! Really , as if anyone would even dream of doing that to such a loving, gentle creature and member of the family !
You will see below a series of photos showing the steps I have taken to make the wool hats. Below that, you will see the names and a photo of a dog ( check the name against the one that came with your hat ) with links to pages of information about that dog so you can see photos of the dog/dogs that produced the wool that made YOUR hat.
I hope you enjoy this site, and if you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me at :
This is the process of brushing the dog, in this case, my Newfoundland Dog, Bowdoin. This is done each and every day. this can take upwards of half an hour or so, and produces a fair quantity of fur each time. In the Spring and in the fall it produces a lot more as he sheds his coat and grows a new one for the season ahead.
The fur is stored in Large ziplock bags until i have enough of it, and enough time to do the washing process. One bag comfortably fills a large mesh bag made for doing "delicate" clothes in the washing machine. The dog fur though is washed by hand in the sink, NEVER in a machine.
I load about three of four bags into a sink full of very hot water with dish detergent in it. I gently sink the bags into this soapy water by doing one or two gentle sqeezes of each bag, then let it sit for 15 minutes. Then they are transeferred to a sink full of very hot plain water, where they sit for a further 15 minutes, and again to a third and sometimes even a fourth sink of very hot, clean water. this washing process takes about an hour and a half all told from the packing of the bags to the end of the washing process.
After the fur is washed it is then taken out of the bags and placed onto a large towel and rolled up and has the excess water squeezed out of it. Then it is placed onto another large towel and allowed to air dry. this can take a couple of days.
These are what are called "Carders", they are used to brush the fibre ( wool or fur...whatever you want to call it ) to line up the fibres parallel so they can be spun.
once the fur has been carded it forms "rolags", light fluffy rolls of fibre with the strands all running in one direction and ready for spinning. This is the most tedious part of the entire process, but is one of the most important as it eliminates the knots from the fibres as well as removes foreign objects like twigs, leaves and straw that the washing process did not remove.
This is a hand cranked,carding machine. It does the same thing as the carding brushes, just a little more quickly and without as much effort. Instead of producing Rolags like the carding brushes do, it produces roving, or batting.
This is Roving or batting that is produced by the carding machine.
Finally the spinning can begin. A coloured thread is placed on the bobbin and the bobbin loaded onto the spindle and then you pull the thread through the orifice of the spinning wheel and attach the end on a rolag to it.......
then gently pulling the fibre off the rolag and feeding it into the orifice while controlling the twist of the thread by keeping the wheel spinning at a slow and constant speed with your foot. The wheel spins in a clockwise rotation for this.
once you have spun two bobbins of single ply, you then load them onto a "Lazy Kate" and then spin them together in a counter-clockwise rotation which helps bind them together and gives the two ply wool a greater strength.
The bobbin with the two ply wool is then removed from the spinning wheel and then placed back on the "lazy Kate" so it can be wound off as a ball of wool.
Each ball of wool takes approximately two hours to spin, and it takes anywhere from two to four balls of wool ( depending on the pattern ) to knit a hat.
( Minimum wage in Newfoundland is now $10/ per hour..... remember that at this point we still have not even talked about the person who knits the hats and their time. They are able to produce one hat per day. So I now ask what SHOULD a hat made like this cost if minimum wage was charged ? )
I Do spin wool / fur from other dogs for their owner's if requested. I suggest you have atleast one grocery bag stuffed with the fur, and that it be naturally shed ( or brushed out ) fur, NOT CLIPPED. If you are interested in having wool or a hat made from your own dog, please contact me : info@tropicalnewfoundland.com
The Dogs themselves
