shop talk : fiber

So I was wondering what would happen if I tried to bleach fiber with the same bleach that I use in my hair. This is border collie fur, natural colored on the right, diluted bleach in the middle, full strength bleach on the left. I haven't carded any of it yet but there don't seem to be any problems on account of the bleach.

The original intent was to make the fiber take dye better and get more vibrant colors. I find with the keeshound I have to really work to get a saturated color, and I figured that since my hair takes dye better when I bleach the hell out of it, so maybe the same is true for dog fur, wool, etc.

I actually ended up really liking the bleached colors as is, a warm off-white with hints of honey and golden-brown. I think all three colors would look good blended together for a heathered look. I'm also thinking of dying a little bit of it (and some wool to blend) in reddish-brown and purplish-brown to blend in as well.

My biggest problem with planning dog fur yarn is that I don't know what the yarn would be for. I don't do any knitting with fuzzy yarn. And if I can't picture what it would be used for, it's hard to make decisions about what it should look like. Laceweight? DK? Navajo-plied self striping? Variegated with barber-poling? Subtle gradations in color or vibrant stripes?

Currently I'm thinking that I might be able to make it resemble a laceweight mohair, which I do like, so I'm going on the assumption that this should make a good shawl, which means gradations instead of stripes, and probably 2-ply to get the gauge.