Mohair

Sweet baby Jesus.  I wrote a post way back in April and the next thing I know, it's mid-December and I haven't written anything in between. Bad, Natalie...

Since my last (let's be honest) filler post about knitting.  I've been doing a lot of, well, knitting.  Especially in the last two month.  Tis the season and all.  I got my hands on llama, yak, cashmere and qiviut.  And hopefully, I'll be writing about those things in the coming weeks/months.

Let's leave the past in the past and get down to the nitty gritty.  Mohair.

Mohair is made from the hair of angora goats.  Mohair is soft and lovely.  The little flyaway hairs in mohair don't bug me as much as llama or alpaca.  

Cool Mohair Facts:

• It is one of the oldest textile fibers known to man
• It takes dye very well
• It's diameter grows with the age of the goat; young goats produce fine hairs while order goat produce thicker hairs
• It is a great insulator

My Mohair Yarn: 
I picked up this skein of 100% mohair at the Colorfield Farm booth at last year's Shepherd's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival.  My favorite thing in the whole wide world about this yarn is that it came in sport weight.  I usually only see it in the lace/sock/fingering variety and as much as I love knitting sewing thread on toothpicks, I like this just *thismuch* more.

• Texture: It's smooth and soft and It feel a little bit like if corn and alpaca had a yarn baby.  Which is a good thing.  3.5 Yarngasms.
• Durability:  The actual fibers are very durable.  In fact, mohair is know for its durability.  The yarn itself, not so much.  See Frogability.  2.5 Yarngasms.
• Frogability:   I wouldn't unless you had to.  With the lack of twist in my specific yarn, it started to get very unattractive and unworkable very easily after frogging and ripping.  .5 Yarngasms.
• Drape:  There's not a lot of body to this fiber even in a sport weight.  2 Yarngasms.

My Project:
I had barely enough to make the Hermione Hearts Ron hat (Ravelry link), but I made it work.  The hat is a quick little knit for any HP geek.  Myself included.  I love that the yarn ended up self-striping although that was not my original intention.

Photo courtesy of Justin D. Gallo Photography

Sadly for mohair, I think it's one of those fibers I could probably live without.  I didn't especially have any issues with it and it didn't drive me any particular brand of crazy, but I also wasn't incredibly impressed with it.  It's soft and shiny, but that can be said about a lot of things.  It could be used for just about any garment that didn't require a great deal of weight, but again, that can be said about quite a few fibers.  While I really like the end result, overall, it was a fairly meh experience.