What makes a fiber expensive
Three things, and they compound. Fineness. A fiber's softness is mostly its diameter, measured in microns: a cashmere down fiber is 14 to 19 microns, an extrafine merino 17 to 19, a baby alpaca around 20 to 22, a good adult wool 25 to 30. Below about 20 microns a fiber stops being felt as a prickle against the skin, which is why cashmere and the finest merinos are the ones that go next to the neck. Yield. A merino sheep gives several kilos of fleece a year; a cashmere goat gives a couple of hundred grams of usable down, combed from its undercoat in spring, and a yak less. Processing. Cashmere and yak down grow mixed with coarse guard hair that has to be mechanically dehaired before spinning, and what is left is short and slippery and hard to spin into a strong yarn. Silk is a different case: a continuous filament unwound from a cocoon, with no spinning problem but a lot of labor. Add a hand-dyer's time on top, as with Artyarns, and a skein can cost what a sweater's worth of wool costs. The premium yarn guide covers the general case; this one is about the top of the range.
The cashmere lines we stock
Two things to read in this table: the share of cashmere, and the price per hundred yards, which is what you are actually comparing. The per-yard figures are from our prices at the time of writing, rounded; the yarn pages have today's.
| Fiber | Skein | Weight | About, per 100 yd | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artyarns Cashmere 1 | 100% cashmere, hand-painted | 50 g, 510 yd | Lace | $13 |
| Artyarns Cashmere Eco | 50% recycled cashmere, 50% virgin cashmere | 50 g, 164 yd | DK | $26 |
| Artyarns Ensemble Light | 50% silk, 50% cashmere, hand-painted | 80 g, 400 yd | DK | $17 |
| Artyarns Merino Cloud | 80% merino, 20% cashmere, hand-painted | 100 g, 436 yd | Fingering to sport | $10 |
| Lang Cashmere Light | 88% cashmere, 12% nylon, airy | 25 g, 93 yd | Worsted, light | $40 |
| Juniper Moon Saxony | 75% cashmere, 25% merino, tweed | 50 g, 120 yd | Worsted | $25 |
| Malabrigo Caprino | 80% merino, 20% cashmere, hand-dyed | 50 g, 164 yd | DK | $11 |
| The Fibre Co Arranmore Light | 80% wool, 10% cashmere, 10% silk, tweed | 100 g, 328 yd | DK | $7 |
The lace is the bargain: Cashmere 1 is pure cashmere, and because a 50 g ball holds 510 yards, a whole shawl costs what two skeins of a worsted blend cost. The worsted cashmeres are the expensive ones because a cowl eats yards.
What a blend gives you
A yarn that is 20% cashmere is not a fifth as soft as pure cashmere; it is most of the way there in the hand, because the cashmere sits on the surface of the strand and blooms with the first wash, and what you feel against the skin is the bloom. What it does not give you is the warmth-to-weight of pure cashmere, which is mostly the merino's. In return the merino holds the yarn together: a Caprino or Merino Cloud sweater keeps its shape and pills less than a pure cashmere one would, and costs a quarter as much. For a sweater, a 20% blend is the sensible luxury. At 75% (Saxony) or 88% (Lang's Cashmere Light) you are buying the fiber itself, and those are hat, cowl and collar yarns, where the yardage is small and every stitch touches skin.
Silk-cashmere, as in Ensemble Light, is a different animal: the silk gives drape and a glow and takes dye differently from the cashmere beside it, so the strand is two-toned. It has no bounce at all, which is lovely in a shawl and a liability in ribbing.
The other luxury fibers
Silk. Blended with merino it makes the best-draping sweaters on the shelf — Juniper Moon Findley is half silk at lace weight with 798 yards to the ball, Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool is the DK everyday version, Schoppel In-Silk the worsted — and with alpaca it makes Blue Sky Metalico, an undyed sport weight with a sheen. Silk is strong dry and weak wet, so it is hand wash and no wringing. Suri alpaca. The lustrous, long-fibered alpaca, in Blue Sky Suri Merino and Prairie, Plymouth Suri Stratus and Juniper Moon Iris; it drapes like silk and halos like mohair, and the alpaca guide explains what it will not do, which is bounce. Yak. Finer and warmer than merino, and in Plymouth Yakima the 15% share makes a merino single noticeably softer. Kid mohair with silk. The haze on half the sweaters in a magazine, and a 25 g ball goes a long way because it is held with something else; the mohair guide has the lines. Baby alpaca. Not expensive by this table's standards, which is the point: Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande and Juniper Moon Herriot are the soft, warm luxury that costs what a good wool costs.
Where the money is worth it
Small things that touch skin. A cowl, a hat band, a pair of fingerless mitts, a baby hat: a hundred and fifty yards of a cashmere blend, one skein, and you feel it every time you put it on. A lace shawl, where one ball of Cashmere 1 is the entire project and the fineness is the whole point. The collar and cuffs of a sweater knit in something plainer. A gift for someone who will notice.
Where it is not: socks, which need nylon and a hard twist and will wear through cashmere in a season; a child's sweater that goes in the wash; a big blanket, where the yardage multiplies the price and the softness is lost on a lap; and a pattern with heavy cables or ribbing, where a soft, drapey fiber will not hold the shape the stitch needs. For those, the fiber comparison has the better choice.
Buying it
Buy by the yard. The skeins are small — 25, 50 and 80 g — and a 50 g skein of worsted cashmere is 120 yards, not the 200 you may be used to, so the calculator on each yarn page matters more here than anywhere. Buy the whole project at once and from one dye lot; we match lots on every order, and the hand-painted Artyarns skeins each differ a little, which the hand-dyed guide explains how to work with. And swatch, because the drape of a silk or cashmere blend changes the gauge a pattern written for wool expects.
Care
Hand wash in cool water with a wool wash, no rubbing; press the water out and dry flat, never hanging, because these fibers stretch wet and do not come back. Cashmere pills where it rubs, more than wool; a sweater comb takes the pills off, and they come back less each time. Moths prefer cashmere to anything else in the drawer, so store it clean and sealed. The care guide has the rest, and it is the same for every fiber in this guide.
