IxCHeL Fibres, Yarns & Art: Fibre of Emperors

Bendigo sheep and wool show, or as I like to call it “The Ultimate Splurge Weekend of the year”, is only two weeks away !!! the dyepots and me have been busy, lots of fluff is braided and labelled already, even custom orders have been finished (well almost all of them) and packing of all the bags and tubs for safe transport to the show grounds is almost done as well.

I only have three more blends to dye but, like I mentioned in earlier blogposts, due to the unfortunate encounter with the kitchenbench and floor and the subsequent diagnosis of the electrical faults in my heart, I have been taking it a lot easier. I had to, because let’s face it, unlike all the years before where I totally ignored myself, I can’t ignore the fact this year that the only motor I have is being naughty and I …just….can’t. It was a huge slap in the face. Not that I needed that with my concussion due to the benchtop, but for someone like me who was always on the go go go!!!! , to recognize that I can’t go-go-go at lightning speed anymore was a bit of a shock (understatement of the year..lol).

The bruises have all gone, the internal bruising on my hip bone is still lingering though and the doc says that will take a while to heal. I feel less like a modernist painting now though, so that helps immensely.
The hospital is so far behind and has a huge backlog so the cardiology department tells me, so chances are extremely slim that the heart operation will be before Bendigo or at the same time of the Bendigo show.

A totally positive thing is that my skyrocketing blood pressure is now under control!!! A big hoorah for that one !! I am now a mere 128/90 which is a huge improvement from the extra terrestrial reading I had before of 199+ / 145. It’s a wonder I didn’t explode ..lol

So, the short of it is, I will be at the Bendigo show again this year with my ears on as usual, although my friends tell me they’ll strap me to a chair to keep me quiet. Yeah right, I can just see that happening ….lol

Thank you so much to all of you who sent me messages and offered their help ! I cannot thank you enough !

Like I said before, I will have less stock overall, but there will be amazing treasures to be found and I am doing my ultimate to make this Bendigo Show a stand out ! By the way, I did a calculation and it is my 14th year at the Bendigo Show !!!!! How amazing is that??!!!!! Still here, still hopping, still enabling and still having fun with fluffy stuff !

There will be an awesome selection of very different fibres and yarns available and to make it easier for all I will have an IxCHeL Shopping list on next weeks Friday blog ! I cut it a bit too close to get the list ready and besides, there are a few things I am still adding ! So don’t miss next weeks blog !!!

For this Friday I thought I would share a rare blend : A vicuna blend that is so amazing you have to feel it to believe it ! I was going to only show it off at the Bendigo show, but I do not want anybody not going to miss out on an opportunity to play with this fibre so I have a very limited amount available for you tonight. Here is what the Vicuna is all about : The Vicuna belongs to the camelid family, like the alpaca and the guanaco, but lives in the wild at an altitude of more than 4000 meters above sea level. You can find vicunas from as far north as Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. The vicuna is the smallest of the 4 south American camelids (Vicuna, guanaco, alpaca and llama). The colour of their fibre is caramel in colour with a white bib below their face. Their height is between 1 to 1.3 meters and they weigh approximately 35 to 40 kilos. Their fibres are classified as one of the most finest in the world with a micron count of appr 9 to 12micron with a staple length of about 3cms. You can find the vicuna in three kinds of social groups: the polygamous groups with 1 male and 10 females; a group of males and then there are the solitary males. The gestation period for vicunas is about 10 to 11 months.

Centuries ago, the Inca harvested prized vicuña fibre by harmlessly shearing the animals, which they considered sacred. The exquisitely soft but ultra-warm garments created from vicuña wool were reserved for rulers/emperors, under threat of death for violators.

When the Spanish arrived, they were equally entranced by the fibres, but in keeping with their violent conquest of the Incan Empire in the 16th century, they simply killed vicuñas to access their wool. That method persisted until the 1960s, when just 10,000 vicuñas remained.

Realizing that the species was in danger of imminent extinction, conservationists and vicuña range-state governments began scrambling to save it; first by protecting the animals and outlawing trade in their wool; then in the 1990s and 2000s, by launching programs that harkened back to the old way of doing things: introducing community-led efforts to harmlessly and sustainably shear vicuñas and manage populations.

At first, the plan seemed to be working. Locals worked together to harvest the wool, which they then used to make handicrafts or sold to textile companies in Italy, Scotland and Japan. “The program started quite well, but for the past 15 years we’ve discovered a series of fundamental problems,” says Cristian Bonacic, currently a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and permanently based at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
Communities working directly with vicuñas, most of which are extremely poor, currently receive little profit for all their effort — “the smallest piece of the pie,” says Daniel Elias Maydana, a technical advisor for the National Association of Vicuña Fibre Producers who works in Bolivia and northern Argentina. “The money obtained from managing vicuñas is important, but it’s certainly not sufficient to lift families out of poverty.”

In 2014, for example, Peru exported 10 tons of vicuña fibre to Italy, for which all Peruvian communities combined received a grand total of $250,000. “That is ridiculously small,” Bonacic says.
A single coat, using just two kilos (4.4 pounds) of wool, can cost $50,000, he says, meaning that the fashion industry’s revenue from just five garments can equal the entire earnings that the whole of Peru’s vicuña-producing communities sees in a year.

Another tit-bit of information: there was even a political scandal called the “Vicuna coat Affair”: In 1958, Sherman Adams, President Dwight Eisenhower's forceful chief of staff, was one of Washington's most influential men. His career, however, ended abruptly after he accepted an overcoat from a textile magnate under federal investigation. The gift might seem innocuous enough, but the coat in question was made of vicuña—an incredibly soft, light, rare and very expensive yarn. It was alleged that Mr. Adams, swayed by such luxurious gifts, subsequently tried to influence federal agencies on the magnate's behalf. Despite the politico's protestations of innocence, he resigned in a scandal that some dubbed the Vicuña Coat Affair.

Now, the silky vicuna fibre sits at the nose-bleed-high pinnacle of tailored luxury. Each year, only 13,000 to 17,500 pounds of vicuña become available. The Italian tailoring house Kiton makes only about 100 vicuña pieces a year; an off-the-rack sport coat costs at least US$21,000, while the price of a made-to-measure suit starts at US$40,000. A single vicuña scarf is about US$4,000. There are only 30 vicuña suits produced per year. Each is numbered, and the most affordable model goes for US$46,500.

Handspun and handwoven vicuna and cashmere scarf, the price to the end consumer US$17.000 ,
the reward given to artists and poor communities ensuring the ethical shearing of vicunas:
a tiny, tiny fraction . spin and weave your own ethically

In 2008, a high end Italian fashion house established an eight-square-mile reserve to study the animals. And earlier this year, the company took a controlling stake in Sanin SA, an Argentinean firm that has the rights to shear around 6,000 wild vicuña living on a 328-square-mile territory in the country's Catamarca province. It's part of it's long-term strategy to establish large reserves where the local people can protect, breed and shear vicuña ethically.

Vicuñas are now listed as a species of “Least Concern” according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but most experts agree that there is cause for concern. Vicuña populations now hover at 400,000 to 500,000 animals, but their numbers have remained stagnant or — in the case of Chile — declined over the past two decades.

“It’s true that populations are large, but they’re far less than the 7 to 8 million that we should have,” Bonacic says. “I seriously think that if poaching continues to increase, some populations may go extinct.”

As in everything in this world, we as consumers and fibre artists have to be aware of where the fibre comes from but more than anything to realise that everything comes at a price: there is no way that handpicked, hand carded, fibres of a rare breed that is carefully hand sheared can be offered with low prices.

What we see happening all over the world is that the wealthy end consumer pays a huge amount of money of which only a tiny fraction goes to the preservation and the maintaining of the natural habitat and the poor communities that live off the land. We all have to be conscious that this attitude has to change.

I have been trying to do my bit with bringing rare breeds to you and trying to tell you the story of how important it is to preserve and protect. You may think how can 1 person change something? But I truly believe you can. We all can make a change together. So with this story of this truly royal and exquisite animal, I offer you a magnificent blend. Do your bit and help this amazing animal survive and make life better for numerous poor communities who are doing the right thing.

All my contact details and HOW TO ORDER can to be found at the end of this week’s blog entry.