Saturday, May 9, 2009

Possum Yarn!

Ever since I learned about yarn spun from New Zealand possum fur, I knew I had to have some. Luckily I have a nice friend, currently finishing up a sentence in the land of the kiwi, who was kind enough to be my latest enabler. Thanks Katie!

Edited to add:
This yarn is a possum/merino blend. Supposedly the possums are "hand plucked" which I assume is some sort of non harmful brushing process. The possums are way cuter than the N. American variety, but are an invasive species introduced ~150 years ago.

Edited again:
After more snooping, it looks like they kill the possums before plucking. I'm not a vegetarian though and have leather shoes, so I'm OK with it. I just didn't want to mislead anybody.

2 comments:

Christie Rowe said...

oh. my ... god. is that pure possum? and let me get this straight... how is it harvested?

K said...

Just to be clear, bushtail possums get killed left and right in New Zealand because they are a non-native species that is very destructive to New Zealand wildlife. Most of the ones that are killed are just thrown away. So, the possums are going to be killed whether people use the fur or not. It seems to me that using the hair from an animal that was going to be killed anyway is more respectful than not using the hair.