From Wikipedia, these are the differences between qiviut and cashmere wools.
Qiviut is the downy undercoat from Muskox, and it is stronger and eight times warmer than sheep’s wool, and softer than cashmere wool. Wild muskoxen have qiviut fibers that are approximately 18 micrometres in diameter. Females and young animals have slightly finer wool. For some reason I was picturing animals about the size of a Woolly Mammoth but they are significantly smaller (not even as large as a buffalo). Still a large enough animal with sharp horns and tons of attitude, to make handling them a risky business.
Cashmere wool is produced by a cashmere goat; the average diameter of the fiber of such wool product does not exceed 19 microns; and such wool product does not contain more than 3 percent of cashmere fibers with average diameters that exceed 30 microns. There is nothing cuter than a baby cashmere goat, and if you have a bunch of them, the cuteness quotient is off the charts.
Qiviut has a peculiar issue when spinning, less forgiving than cashmere to spin, and it needs to be plyed the same day it is spun, not left on the bobbin overnight. So I’m going to end up with a lot of smaller skeins of yarn but the upside is when I have some spun I can knit them the next day. Spin/ply one day, knit the next. Theoretically I won’t get sick and tired of either activity.
I have ordered some hand-dyed silk yarn 120/2 from Treenway (a two-ply silk thread), that I will use to ply with my single thread of spun qiviut. If I’m careful with watching my thread diameter when spinning, my finished yarn will be 60/2 which means sixty wraps of the finished yarn around a pencil, per inch. My dark walnut silk yarn will be here tomorrow if the post office does their thing properly.
So today I’m getting set up for spinning.
This is a one-ounce bat of qiviut fiber, ready for the spinning process to begin.
I separated out a smaller bat, easier to work with.
Interesting enough, the table this is sitting on is about the same color as the silk yarn I’ve been waiting for, the past month.
One of my spinning tools, a brass dizz which has three hole sizes, which determines the amount of fiber than can be pre-drafted through each size of hole.
I’m using the smallest hole, which is very tiny indeed.
Pulling the fiber through makes a nice light fluffy roving from which to spin.
A completed roving.
Since today I can’t do any spinning, I’ll simply make a bunch of rovings in preparation for spinning tomorrow.
Only 4500 yards to go.