Mohair or not mohair

Angora goooaaat

That is the big question!

It's so soft, warm, light and, and, and...you'd love to wear it at all time but to be honest, it's a pain in the ... to work with it.

First of all, I crocheted a scarf and a flower for the matching hat (here). It was really difficult to choose a crochet pattern to work with mohair as not any lace pattern would do for my taste, so after racking my brains for a while I decided to work flowers on a mesh base.

As the mohair fibres tend to tangle up with each other it was a slow process; in addition the hook wanted to get tangled with the fibres too (naughty, naughty hook!)  and once, just once, I made a mistake and it was incredibly painful and maddening to have to frog the entire row without breaking any fibre and rework it (not to mention all the spitted out swears and the firm oath to Clon that I would never, ever touch mohair again).

Kid mohair from Sara's yarns

But...when I finally completed the scarf I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again and tried my new work on in front of the mirror: for Clon's sake, I didn't know...if I knew...I loved it!

Now that I've reconsidered my opinion with respect to mohair I've started knitting with it and, although it's easier than crocheting due to less manipulation of the yarn, it's still a slow process- at least slower than knitting with other yarns.

Conclusions:

• I still love mohair in spite of the first difficult encounter.
• I will make some mohair garments for the next Autumn/Winter for sure.
• And the last one but the most important my dearest grasshoppers is that by crocheting/knitting with mohair my level of patience will be upgraded a few notches. That's good for the karma... and for Mrs. Soft Kitty and Little Romulan too (substitute Mrs. SK and LR for own your children, hubby, family, friends…), you know.

Questions:

• What's your experience with mohair yarns? 
• Which technique is the easiest for you, knitting or crocheting mohair? 
• Do you have any tips that you'd like to share with all the K&C (Knitters & Crocheters) Earth beings?

That's all for today which is no small thing!

Catch you next Friday!