I just saw an add for yarnmarket.com featuring a 217 yard ball of yarn for the bargain price of $299 - that's something like $14 a yard (if my calculations are right and they might not be).

Talk about pressure to pick the right pattern!

I'm not questioning the value of the yarn - it's Muskox Vicuna from Windy Valley. From what 've read, this is a very difficult thing to obtain so it might very well be a real deal at $14 a yard.
After all, these animals live only high up in the Andes and produce just 4 oz of harvestable fiber in a year.

But still...

What hat could be good enough? What scarf elegant enough? What mittens worthy enough? What if (gasp) the item were too big or (horrors) too small! At that price, it would have to be absolutely, stunningly perfect, right? Just think of the agony an error would bring. To say nothing of how devastating it would be should the knitted item wander off. If you leave a hat in a movie theater (for instance) you're not happy about it, but replacing it isn't such a big deal. But a $300 hat? One that not only cost that much but took hours to make? Could the joys of knitting with such an exotic fiber really be worth the potential downside?

At least there is free shipping...