Alaska trip

Knitting in Anchorage

After sleeping in this morning, we went back to the Co-op store today to go through their library (stored, ironically in the bathroom). More material than I can wrap my mind around. I took a lot of notes, and made a list of things I'd like to photocopy if I can later this week.

Also stopped at the Heritage Museum and Library at the main Wells Fargo building at Northern Lights Blvd. and C Street. Nice place, a good selection of native art & artifacts, and a large collection of books. Unfortunately, I was too brain dead to take in much information.

Our final stop as at The Knitting Frenzy at 4240 Old Seward Highway today. A great store, bigger inside than it looks outside, with a great selection of yarns, books, needles and other supplies.

I was pleasantly surprised to find raw qiviut fiber to spin and bought a bag for $30. I don't know how much it weighs, but I just wanted to try it out on my mini drop spindle, and this is just enough to play with, even if I can only make a bookmark with the yarn. I think the fiber comes from Canada because it has a lot of guard hair in it, which probably means it was shaved from the hide of an animal taken in a hunt, rather than combed the way the fiber is removed from live animals at the farms here in Alaska.

They also have some qiviut yarn there, natural colored and a beautiful rasin purplish. The lady working at the shop thought both colors might be natural, but I can't believe the darker purple color is not died. Although the Canadian sub-species is a darker color than the Greenland variation, it's still a taupe-brown color. (All of the wild musk ox in Alaska are transplants from Greenland. The indigenous animals were hunted to extinction in this state in the 19th century when the hides were used to make robes, similar to the buffalo robes popular in the lower 48.)

At any rate, the shop had lots of other wonderful yarns ranging from economical Brown Sheep yarns and Plymouth wool-acrylic blends, to the fun and funky novelty yarns that are so popular. I also found a surprise for my mother, but I can't say what it is in case she read this blog entry. (Don't get too excited mom, it's fun but not extravagent!!)

If you're in Anchorage and you knit, you don't want to miss this place!

Tomorrow, on to Fairbanks first thing in the morning. We are driving so we can see the interior of Alaska and may stop at Denali National Park on the way back on Thursday for a picnic. No time for more sightseeing. :sad:

I hope we can get online there and continue with the daily posts. If there's a problem, I'll catch up on Friday before returning home.