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A few words about some of the fibers I use...
Merino Wool - The Merino breed of sheep originated from the crossing of Spanish sheep with Berber races in the 14th and 15th centuries. The breed is known for having the softest finest fiber of all sheep breeds. Most Merino comes from "the land of sheep", Australia, where sheep outnumber humans by 6 to 1. Merino is underrated as a luxury fiber in my opinion. It is relatively inexpensive but top quality Merino rivals many cashmeres in softness. It is a wonderful fiber with which to work. Being naturally off white, it can be easily dyed to many rich colors. With a nice elasticity, good strength, and durability, it yields a fine garment at a moderate price.
Cashmere - If Merino is underrated as a luxury fiber, cashmere can be overrated. Top quality cashmere, the down hair of the Kashmir goat, is indeed the king of fibers. There is no such thing as a cashmere bargain. Top quality cashmere is rare and should be expected to be expensive. Unfortunately, being synonymous with luxury for centuries, it is frequently adulterated. Cashmere is often blended with other fibers and sold as 100% cashmere. As the quality of Merino has improved, it is also sold as cashmere and some dealers, when pressed, are now coining a new term, "sheep cashmere". I can think of no other purpose for this other than to deceive. Even when tested as 100% cashmere, I find the quality, fineness, and softness, of cashmere yarns to be quite variable. The best quality cashmere comes from Mongolia. The hair is combed from the animal during molting season. I spend a lot of time searching for and selecting cashmere yarn. I have every supply I purchase tested by the Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute to guarantee its purity and quality. You can read more about cashmere at the Institute's website at www.cashmere.org. Cashmere comes in both a natural ivory white and a natural latte brown. Generally, the brown is not quite as soft as the white varieties.
Silk - Silk exhibits the most unique properties of all the fibers I use. Silk is not really soft. It is smooth, it is lustrous, it is slippery but not soft in the sense that a fine wool is soft. Silk takes dyes very well. Because of its rich colors and lustrous sheen, I like to mix silk with fine wools to bring out the best qualities of both fibers. Silk can be difficult to work as its not elastic and, thus, not very forgiving. Also, silk wrinkles a bit more than other natural fibers so you should expect to press a silk scarf more often. Silk is cool to the touch because of its smoothness but exhibits all of the superior insulating properties of wools.
The best silk comes from China as it has for millennia. There are a variety of silkworm species but the most common is the Bombyx Mori which feed only on Mulberry leaves. Tussah silk or "wild silk" is produced by another species which feeds on leaves such as oak that contain tannin. The tannin imparts a lovely warm honey beige color to the silk.
Silk is processed in a variety of ways. Spun silk is processed by chopping the silk cocoons into manageable fiber lengths and carding and spinning the fibers in a traditional manner. Most of the silk I use is spun silk. It has good luster and is easier to work with. Reeled silk is a method which yields the highest quality, most lustrous yarn. In this method, perfectly shaped cocoons are actually unwrapped and joined parallel to each other. The fiber length can be as long as 12 football fields. I've begun recently to use reeled silk for some of my pieces. It is much more difficult to work with as it is very slippery. Silk Noil is a low grade product made up mostly of silk waste from the other processes. It makes a poor yarn with little strength or luster. I do not use silk noil.
Qiviut - Qiviut is the down fiber of the Arctic Muskox. It is one of the finest and rarest natural fibers available. It is softer than cashmere and 8 times warmer than wool. The muskox natural range is in northern Canada and Greenland but herds have been re-introduced to Alaska, Russia, and Norway. Worldwide population numbers about 125,000. There have been some attempts at domestication without much success. The muskox sheds its down fiber in the spring by rubbing against bushes and shrubs. The fiber I use comes from the Canadian province of Nunavut where the Inuit people of the region gather it. The only drawback of qiviut is that its natural color is a dull taupe grey/brown. Because of its dark color, it can only be dyed to a few dark muted shades. Bleaching it to obtain brighter colors harshens the fiber and destroys the wonderful soft properties of the wool. I use only undyed natural color qiviut. It seems appropriate to feature all of the fiber's wonderful properties including its natural color.
YAK - Yak down is the under hair of the Asian Yak. It comes primarily from China and Tibet. As with qiviut, it is combed from the animal or gathered and then de-haired to remove the stiff outer hair leaving just the down fibers. Yak fiber is a very short fiber but it has a lot of crimp. It doesn't make a very strong yarn but it has a lot of loft which yields a nice surface nap after washing. In terms of softness, it is comparable to a high quality merino (about 18 microns). Whereas qiviut is rather consistent in color, yak differs widely from a very light grey to a dark chocolate brown. A few rare albino yak have been known to exist but most white yak is a bleached fiber.
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