Buffalo Gold "Lux" yarn

45% Bison

20% Silk

20% Cashmere

15% Tencel

 

This is the lace-weight yarn I'm using right now.  I LOVE it!  It's made by Buffalo Gold, although at the moment I don't see it on their website.  For those of us who are allergic to wool, buffalo down is a magical option, as it looks and behaves similarly.  There is less stretch in the fiber, but looking at the finished product, you'd never guess it's not a wool or wool blend.  The resulting fabric is silky soft, impressively strong, and has terrific stitch definition pre-washing.  The swatch I laundered got a lovely soft, dense halo around the original strand, making for a cashmere look.

 

This yarn is skeined pre-bloom, and does still have some of the manufacturing oils left on its surface.  This is slowing down the action on my hardwood needles, but not much.  I've decided to wash the finished garment instead of the skein to give it a fuller effect than knitting post-bloom would.

 

I'm making a solid color version of the Ruffles for Lisa scarf, and my particular yarn is a sagey green.  It's skeined at 330 yds, which I think should just do it.  If I come up short, I'll scour Ravelry for another skein.

 

When I was in Yellowstone recently, the bison were shedding their down.  It was fascinating to my fiber-crazed brain that this soft, billowy down was one of the fibers used in my yarn.  This is not an easy way to obtain fibers!  My understanding is that they only shed their down once a year. I know the Yellowstone herds are wild, but I have a hard time picturing a fully tamed buffalo.  I wouldn't enjoy being responsible for gathering the shed down, or for giving a buffalo a comb-out.  Maybe I'm just a wuss.  Do any of you gather buffalo fibers?

 

Anyway, pictures will follow, and when I'm sure I'm finished tinkering with it, so will the pattern.  If you've made anything with Lux or with buffalo yarn in general, I'd love to see it and hear about your experience!