Boy, I sure do LOVE to come here and catch up with you all. Everyone sounds so busy and happy, even with all the frogging going on. Whenever I have to frog (and I do a lot of it sometimes) I always remind myself that I love knitting and the project will be better . . .

I went to Border's last week with a friend and whenever I do that I usually head right to the knitting section to browse. One of the books I picked up was called "Alaska Lace" and it was published in Unakaleet, Alaska and of course I immediately thought of OUR KnitSki.

You have probably already discussed this book, but it was very interesting to read and see the pictures of all the patterns (some quite rare). And the yarn called "quivet" (or something similar with a q) from a musk ox. Musk has always been one of my favorite scents, but I must admit have never used the yarn. It really is a small world after all.

I hope everyone is doing well and will have a safe and blessed holiday with their families.

My parents made a cruise trip last June and brought me a skien of quiviut and the same book. I just about fainted when I saw the price of the yarn. It is obviously going to be a gift, and it has to be for someone who can appriciate the value of the garment, and it looks like that would be either my mom Who had the taste and imagination to buy me the quiviut or my son, who knits. My son really really does not like brown. mom will be getting it, whatever it is. I love the book, read it twice and have set it aside until now, gift season.... it is in line in there somewhere.

The yarn from musk ox is very expensive. One needs to remember there is not many of them on farms. I was able to see some in the wild last year when we flew out in a Cessna 185 from the air. They really are a very prehistoric animal. Here they hunt them and usually have to fly north to hunt these animals.

The lady who wrote the book did come out to Unalakleet to interview some of the knitters. These ladies knit for the co-op in Anchorage. I have not read the book and I know I need to. I have seen it and looked through it several times.

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed when the author talks about how people in the villages don't speak their native language (this is from her web site). I found that a very naive statement. Unalakleet besides having the influence of the missions, and BIA Indian schools (who did everything could to kill the native language and make the natives WHITE), and had several illness that almost wiped out the whole village. Thus there is not much of the native language spoken by younger people in Unalakleet. The author only made it to Unalakleet which is the largest village here and has the largest population who has traveled away from the village. Had she made it out to any of the other areas here she would have found more native speakers and a traditional life style much like what is here in Unalakleet.

I felt she was expecting to walk back in time and not find kids with laptops, ipods, and now cell phones. We have all of that and yet everyone spends all summer putting up salmon, picking berries, sewing with skins to make clothing, hunting: seals, bears, birds, moose, beluga whales, and raising sled dog teams.

I find it a very interesting mix of cultures!

If you think yarn is expensive try paying $8.00 a gallon for gas and fuel to heat your house!

The yarn is beautiful, very light and soft, and yes, very expensive. There was a farm not too far from here that had musk oxen and I have seen them grazing in the field. Here in the lower 48 they have to be kept in air conditioned barns in the summer to prevent heat stress. Also, the fine underwool, which is what is spun, has to be retrieved from the pelts of dead animals or combed from the live animals. That is not a simple process since they are not domestic animals and have to be enclosed in a crush pen do be combed. I've seen the yarn at $95 a(small) skein which was well out of my price range

I am lucky as as much as I love the feel of the yarn . . . it is not my color! Thank goodness!

I have seen it in Alaska for about $65 to $85 a skein and like knitterb says it is a small skein.

The history of knitting out here is interesting. The income the knitters get from their work (at the co-op)is actually very high which is good as these families need it!