my brain, it's bigger

I love learning something new. I always joke when a new tidbit comes my way, "Ok, I can go to bed now. I learned something new."

Well . . . yesterday I spent the afternoon with my knittah's, Cami and Rhonda. I do wish Rhonda would make a blog so I could hyperlink her too! What a perfectly lovely way to spend the day - knitting, laughing, eating bite sized pieces of cake, laughing some more, eating some more and oh, did I mention laughing? I always come away from Clementine's with a wealth of new information. Yesterday's brain growth still has me shocked!

On to the new factoid.

We got to talking about yarn (big surprise, I know) and I mentioned The Harlot (another shocker!). I'd just read her book, Secret Life of a Knitter where Stephanie writes about her love of the handiwork that goes into each ball of wool. There's no machine that shears sheep. Each ball of wool exists because of someones hands somewhere. I love that too.

The gifts were exchanged and the amazing Rhonda gave me the loveliest of gifts: hand-knit cashmere. Ahhhhhh. A scarf. Hand-knit. Is there any better gift?? Cami got one too and confessed today of sleeping in hers. HA! It's that nice.

Back to the yarn talk. The girls had a debate as to which was the loveliest of yarns. Camilla stated cashmere was so nice. And me? I don't usually think about where my yarn comes from. I don't feel my wonderfully soft scarf and immediately think of a goat somewhere. A goat. I cannot believe this light, fluffy, SOFT fiber came from a goat. Wait - it gets better.

One of them mentioned qiviut (kiv-ee-ute) and said surely this was the loveliest of all yarns. Me, being a new Knitter hadn't heard of this yarn. Here's where I about fell off my chair: it comes from the underbelly of a MUSK OX. Just so you fully appreciate the ridiculousness of this idea here's a little picture I snagged. The most wonderful fibre in the whole world comes from this:

It's true. And now I want to feel it. The yarn, not the musk ox. Can you even??