cashmere and lace

lace

and cashmere

in the same sentence have been,

up until this point, a combo that causes me to back quickly away

in a frantic search for oversized circular needles and weightier yarns.

that was before i met june cashmere’s lace weight.

if you remember, i adored their dk cashmere

and i continue to be excited about their business model

which involves teaching kyrgyz shepherds living on small family farms

how to how to properly collect and sort their fiber by quality grades.

warms my heart that june cashmere is

supporting the families who raise the animals

whose fibers make their lovely yarns!

when my skein of scarlet june cashmere lace weight arrived

my curiosity quickly overcame my trepidation about lace weight yarns.

look, the color is gorgeous, no?

i could see immediately

that they’ve got the twist just right

as it easily keeps the yarn from being sticky or frail

(which is the downfall i’ve experienced with other lace weight yarns).

i cast on

almost immediately

to start a pair of elegant ‘the woman’ gloves

(from ‘sherlock knits‘ by joanna johnson).

their lace stitch is easy to remember, so i can sit back and really enjoy the knitting

and the feel of the sweet cashmere softness

between my fingertips knowing it was

grown on the backs of well cared for goats

in the vast mountains of kyrgyzstan.

‘shepherds’ taken from 46:32 of genesis.

note: now for just a little of the nitty-gritty.

i was given this skein of june cashmere lace to review,

but, you know me, a free skein of yarn (even if it’s cashmere)

isn’t ever going to make me say i like what i don’t.

i’m much too stubborn and pig-headed for things like that.

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june cashmere

on small family farms

in the mountains of kyrgyzstan

nomadic shepherds tend to the elite goats

whose soft cashmere undercoats are used to make yarn.

and what a yarn this is!

it’s an example of the world’s harshest environments

producing the very softest natural fibers.

img_5911cashmere is, of course, known for it’s softness.

what surprised me about this yarn is its amazing stitch definition.

just look at how the cable motif

from amy van de laar’s

”beeswax mitts’

pops!

img_5922i’d rank this new to me cashmere yarn

right up there with my leslie wind cable necklace

and indian lake artisans’ hexagonal wooden needles

(and if you know my taste at all, you know that’s high praise).

want a skein for yourself?

follow this link and enter to win.

i’m ending here, as this lovely yarn is just begging me

to hunker down and knit a bit more before bed…

note: now for just a little of the nitty-gritty.

i was given this skein of june cashmere dk to review,

but, you know me, a free skein of yarn (even if it’s cashmere)

isn’t ever going to make me say that i like what i don’t.

i’m much too stubborn and pig-headed for things like that.

‘soft’ taken from 65: 9-11 in the psalms.

mondays with mrs. crosby: five

the thing about yarn is that we get to tell it what to do

one stitch at a time.

that is not the way that most of life goes,

at least not my life,

and it feels very, very good when something allows me that much choice

and ultimate control.

along those lines,

this week was all about swatching.

last week i pictured hat box in ‘new leaf’ and this week i’m testing ideas

(mostly gauge related) with a bit in the colorway roasted chestnut,IMG_2536-1but, it’s the same lovely fiber mix of

merino, silk and cashmere

(can i get an excited ‘oooh’ and a happy ‘aahhh’?).

such drape and my fingers

are overjoyed at being ‘forced’ to touch

this lovely yarn over and over again.

‘fingers’ taken from 8:3 of the psalms.

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ is an ongoing series of posts

(to be posted on mondays, of course),

detailing a current collaboration between mrs. crosby yarns

and me. stay tuned.