Question: Why is cashmere yarn
so expensive ?
Answer: The true
cashmere comes from goats (Capra
hircus) who have
adapted over centuries to the extraordinary climate of the
Gobi Desert in the northern provinces of China and the
southern reaches of Mongolia. Efforts to breed the goats
elsewhere have been unsuccessful. A cashmere goat grows only
four ounces of fiber a year and that is enough to keep it
warm through the severe winters of the Gobi Desert. That's
why cashmere sweaters provide warmth without weight. It
takes the fleece of four goats to make one sweater. Each one
has to be combed by hand and then the fleece has to be
sorted by hand for color and fiber length.
Question: How can I distinguish a
good cashmere garment ?
Answer: If you are new to cashmere the only
guideline that we can recommend is just to touch and see
whether you love it. A good cashmere should feel hefty and
substantial even if it is lightweight. If a cashmere garment
doesn’t feel smooth, soft and luxurious, don’t buy it. The
other critical factor is density/weight. Pull the sides of
the sweater apart and then let them go. The sweater should
snap back to its original shape.
Question: How long will last my
cashmere sweater ?
Answer: That depends on how you ware, how you take
care of it and of course on the quality of the sweater. A
fair quality garment will last many years.
Question: What causes pilling ?
Answer: Pilling is caused by the abrasion of short
fibers into small balls on the surface of the fabric.
As a guideline, some pilling usually occurs in new sweaters,
especially if you ware them under other garments. But the
problem will not persist in a sweater after the initial
cleaning. Continuous pilling can be result of a high
percentage of short fibers combined with a loosely knit
fabric. Low quality manufacturers use shorter fiber because
it is cheaper. They also knit loosely reducing the amount of
used cashmere to a minimum. To make these low quality
garments feel better, they are produced with a significant
amount of surface fiber which leads to pilling troubles in
long term.
Question: What is pashmina ?
Answer: Pashmina
is a term applied to the wool, and products made from the
wool, derived from the undercoat of the Capra hircus goat, a
domestic breed raised primarily at high elevations in
Central Asia, particularly Mongolia.
"Pashm" is an old Parsian
word for fine wool. "Pashmina" is derived from Pashm. The
common Pashmina shawl is a luxurious mix of the finest,
softest Pashmina cashmere and silk. The cashmere comes from
the the underbelly of Capra Hircus goat, which grazes high
in the Himalayas. The wool is spun and then hand woven with
the silk, and finally fringed with twisted silk tassels.
Pashmina can only come from goats raised in the Himalayan
mountain region. The Himalayan goats produce such exquisite
wool because of the elevation at which they live. It is an
interesting occurrence in Nature, that the animals which
live at higher elevations have much finer and more delicate
fiber coverings. These fine fibers, which are protected by
coarser exterior hair, are in fact the greatest insulators
one can find.
Question: What is a Single Ply,
Double Ply
Answer: Years ago, yarn was referred to by the
number of strands (plies) twisted together. This wasn't a
problem at the time, because crocheters and knitters
understood that a two-ply yarn would be much thinner than a
four-ply yarn. Today, however, yarn sizes can range from the
finest gossamer threads to extra-bulky yarn. Ply refers to
the number of strands twisted together to make a particular
yarn – it no longer describes a weight or class of yarn. The
diameter of these plies is what determines the weight of the
yarn. A very fine yarn can consist of several tiny plies,
while a heavy yarn may only consist of one unspun ply.
Question: What is Gauge ?
Answer: Gauge
is the number of stitches per inch and the number of rows
per inch a crocheter or knitter gets when stitching with a
particular size of yarn and a specific crochet hook or
knitting needles.
