Knit City!

So, I'm a dork who forgot her camera, so I don't have any actual pictures from Knit City, Vancouver's fiber festival (now in its second year, and even more awesome this time around). It was lovely, though we didn't stay too long, because Munchkin was sleeping peacefully and we wanted to make it home before she woke up and got grouchy. I did a wander-through, hung out at the guild booth, talked myself out of saying hi to the Yarn Harlot (I have met her, but only briefly at a book signing last year), and found something cool, which I do have a picture of.

Qiviut. Real qiviut.

I have this policy with spinning fibers right now. If I haven't worked with it before, then I can consider buying it. Ancient Arts Fiber Crafts was doing 30% off their exotic fibers. This included 25 gram bags of raw qiviut, originally at a dollar per gram. That's right. I have qiviut.

Qiviut, from the Artic musk ox, is one of those horrendously expensive fibers. It is soft, fluffy, the animals shed it in small amounts, and there are relatively few Artic musk oxen running around. This contributes to qiviut yarn frequently costing $60-$100 a ball. The stores in the area that carry it keep the stuff locked up in glass cases by the cash register.

My qiviut is a brown-grey, and is liberally sprinkled with black guard hairs. It's raw fiber, not processed, which is partly why I could justify buying it.

This will be less than 25 grams once I finish winnowing out the guard hairs. I plan to spin it as fine as I can manage, since this is best as a lace-weight yarn (it goes farther that way). Once I know what my yardage is, I'll make a decision on what it will be. In the meantime, I will bask in the glory of having qiviut, and curse those pecky guard hairs.