Vetted

Sustainability

A few years back I learned how to spin yarn using a drop spindle.

I enjoyed the entire process. The hand-carding of fleece into rolled tubes called rolags. The spinning of these woolly cigars into natural fiber. The potential of sustainable use.

A technical knitter I am not. I’m more of an accident waiting to happen wielding two sharp needles. I am a freestyler, a full embracer of rogue knitter philosophy that any and all “happy accidents” become one with the finished project.

At some point, a Floridian needs only so much wool on hand.

But a Floridian traveling cross-country to South Dakota could use a few warm items.

I had a scarf in mind requiring an ample supply to card. Lucky for me, I had a go-to source on the property.

Our dog, Gino. A Great Pyrenees mix.

Chiengora is dog fur carded with a second wool to cling and catch and create a blended yarn. It is as warm as wool if not warmer and sheds just like a dog.

Gino shed so much, I would groom his every which way soft soft fur with an air vac. He loved the attention and for the scarf, I hoovered more than I’d ever need.

I wore the finished scarf on the trip once, maybe twice. Temperatures out west that autumn were some of the warmest on record.

Vetted was my first story published by Fictive Dream for Flash Fiction February, 2/7/2019.

We lost the big guy September of that same year, so Vetted is a special read.

Thank you, Fictive Dream.

Read Vetted here.

I recently came across the pillow case full of Gino fur not used in the making of the wild wild west scarf. I thought, what would Gino do?

Scoops of fur I placed in the nooks and crannies of the backyard he loved so, for the birds to make nests, but maybe for me to see every now and then, to remind me of just who rescued who.

Photo by Sheree Shatsky 2019