Knit Stars | September 6, 2026
🧶My $5,700 sweater 😱
BY SHELLEY BRANDER
It had been quietly sitting in a plastic bag on the bottom shelf for 7 years.
Seven years.
And every time I saw it, it spiked my adrenaline. Guilt churned together with fear in my gut.
“I know I should knit something with it…but what?”
Every few months I would see the plastic bag out of the corner of my eye, then spend hours searching through Ravelry…but I could never find just the right pattern.
After all…what pattern would truly be worthy of this precious $5,700 worth of viçuna yarn?
They call it “the gold of the Andes” because it is so soft and so rare. The viçuna has the finest coat of any known animal – about twice as soft as cashmere. Each strand measures only 12 microns in thickness. Because each animal produces so little fiber, and because the animal is highly protected and cannot be farmed, a single viçuna coat can cost $20,000 or more.
So how did I come to possess $5,700 worth of this gold?
Well, back in Knit Stars Season 4 our theme was “Alpaca My Bag,” and we went to film in Peru – specifically, 15,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains where the alpaca and the elusive viçuna like to hang out.
(I’ll never forget when our little party stumbled upon a wild herd of viçuna just calmly grazing on the mountainside!)
And in the wake of that experience, I agreed for Loops (my then-yarn shop) to become North America’s sole distributor of viçuna from a company called Inca Tops. I still vaguely remember filming an un-boxing of the viçuna when I had the flu and was running a 104-degree fever – and selling out within hours.
I held back one box for myself with two tiny, precious skeins.
Then fast-forward five years later, when I decided to go from “selling the yarns to telling the yarns full-time” with Knit Stars masterclasses…we were cleaning out the store and I came upon a crate of damaged viçuna boxes. Inside were ball after ball of tiny treasure skeins – 17 in all.
So now I had a precious stash of 19 skeins of viçuna. And still, I was terrified to cast on. So they sat in the plastic bag.
Until finally, last month, when I was filming in Augusta, Georgia, with Adella Colvin of LolaBean Yarn Co. And she told the story of losing her mother and realizing the importance of using “the good yarn” – not later, but now.
Because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.
And so, dear friend, I finally cast on with my precious, precious yarn.
I chose the “Bella Blocking” pullover pattern by Anne Ventzel. My fingers shook as I worked my tension square.
The pattern began with “Judy’s Magic Cast-on,” which was unfamiliar to me. I thought about abandoning the project, placing the precious yarn back in its plastic bag.
What if I messed up the cast-on? What if it didn’t fit? What if I spilled coffee on it? What if what if what IF…?!
But instead I took some deep breaths…reminded myself “it’s just sticks and string,” and pressed on.
And it’s a revelation.
Pure joy.
So my wish for you – should you choose to accept it – is this.
Unearth your own precious yarn. The one that keeps winking at you from its plastic container.
Cast on something. Anything. Even if it’s just a gauge square.
Let yourself really luxuriate and swim in this amazing passion we all share.
You really do deserve it – not later, but now. 💛
xoxo,
P.S. Knit Stars Season 4: Alpaca My Bag is on sale starting today and through the end of the month. The opening documentary on Pacomarca – the world’s largest alpaca preserve – is worth the price of the whole Season, in my humble opinion. It could become your new “comfort watch” each time you sit down to work on your latest project.
