Vicuna fiber - A little taste of luxury

As part of my fiber sampler project, I got a small bag of vicuna fiber from Wingham Wool Work. I spun it on my tiny spindle into a tiny, lovely skein.

These creatures were once extremely endangered; at one point there were reckoned to be fewer than 6,000 animals left. However, the vicuna is making a comeback. Even so, my little cloud of fiber came with a CITES document proving that it was imported legally!

At about £8 for 10g, it doesn't come cheap, of course. For a little perspective, if you don't buy fiber: It's about six times pricier than cashmere, and a whopping 50 times more expensive than a common sheep breed's wool. However, 10g of vicuna is a surprisingly large amount - I managed to spin 101 yards of yarn out of it.

This is noil, which means it's shorter than most vicuna fiber - it's probably a byproduct of spinning for commercial fabric. But actually, I didn't find it too hard to spin. The fibers are short, but they drafted easily and I didn't find my yarn breaking often. I used the double drafting technique to keep the yarn even. The end result was unbelievably soft, with a rich natural cinnamon brown color.

~Joyuna