Cardiff Cashmere is a precious pure cashmere yarn ideal for creating soft and warm accessories, sweaters and cardigans

Animal Yarns: Cashmere By Marina Carla Villa

The name cashmere (English) or cashmere (French) comes from the Indian province of Kashmir, where for the first time the Europeans , thanks to the East India Company, became acquainted with this highly prized product. The cashmere is obtained by processing the hair of the Hircus or Changthangi goat that lives in the wild in the Tibetan highlands of Chinese Mongolia, Ladakh, Iran and Afghanistan. There are also goat herds in the semi-wild state in the same areas. Since the 1990s, a number of Hircus goat herds have also sprung up in Italy for cashmere production. The thin undercoat hair, called duvet, which protects the animal from the high temperature range between the very harsh winter (down to -40°) that lasts six months and the scorching summer, is the fiber that gives rise to cashmere. When the rigors of winter temperatures give way to spring warmth, the natural shedding of Hircus Goats' hair occurs. If these are domestic or semi-domesticated animals, the cashmere staple is harvested by hand combing the fleece with combs and brushes. If, on the other hand, they are animals that live in the wild, the change in temperature causes them to rub on roughness in the ground, on shrubs or bushes to shed the undercoat, thus leaving tufts of duvet that herders collect by hand. The coarse (staple) however collected is divided by color, then cleaned of foreign matter such as plant fragments, seeds or dust. This fiber is corrugated and must fall within thickness parameters between 11 and 18 microns and can be up to 40 mm in length. The staple is then subjected to degumming, which involves separating the coarse, stiff hairs of the outer fleece, then washed and spun. The average cashmere production of an adult goat varies between 100 and 200 grams. The largest producer of raw cashmere staple is China (whose best-known center is the city of DongCheng), followed by Mongolia and Afghanistan. In contrast, it is Italy, particularly the Biellese area in Piedmont, which is the leading country for the processing of staple into yarn. Cashmere is a yarn with a silky and velvety hand, characterized by a high isothermal and hygroscopic index. Natural colors range from white to brown with intermediate shades of cream or hazelnut, as well as gray and sometimes black. Cashmere lends itself well to being dyed and blended with other wool yarns. Naturally, the higher the percentage of cashmere, the more valuable the yarn will be.

The abbreviation found in the 'mandatory identification labeling of textile products is: WS