June Cashmere Yarn Review

Hey everyone, it's Deja from Crochet Ever After. Today I'm doing a review of some June cashmere yarn and this yarn, this hank that I received, I received it for free for an unbiased review, but this is such a cool yarn. Usually when I get product to review I just get the product and then I go ahead and do a project and review it. But when they sent me the yarn, they also sent me a color card that I'll show you the colors that the yarn comes in, but also this really cool brochure that kind of tells the story of the yarn, where it is. Where the goats are raised and how it gets to be in this hank and the families that actually raise these goats. It's really cool. So I'm going to show you a few pages in there and some interesting facts about the yarn. So this is 100%. Kyrgyz, I'm trying to make sure I say it correctly. Kirgies. cashmere from Kyrgyzstan, so I looked up so I'd make sure that I pronounce it right, hopefully I still am, Kyrgyz cashmere, it's a DK weight, they have a DK which is double knitting which is a little bit finer than worsted, so it's a little bit finer than worsted. They have DK weight and they also have a lace weight. This one is 50 grams and you get 150 yards so this is good for a lacy cowl if you're crocheting or a beanie if you're knitting. You'll be able to get at least a small accessory out of this but usually that's kind of what you make with cashmere. You don't really go and make a whole sweater because usually the price of it is so high. That unless you are rolling in money, you're usually getting the cashmere for some nice next to your skin accessories. So if you have enough to get enough for a sweater, more power to you, but for the rest of us, this is good for at least one small project for each hank that you get. The lace weight is 308 yards, so you can get a good lacy shawlette probably out of it if you wanted to do that. Okay so this is my color card. It's very beautiful, nice thick stock. The June cashmere of course comes from the cashmere goat. It's gathered in Kyrgyzstan, spun in Scotland, and finished in Maine USA. And the colors that they offer are very beautiful. They seem very rich so a lot of cashmere that you find is more on the natural color side, so it's rare for me at least that I have seen colors such as like this pumpkin, this one's called pumpkin, this pink which is called mulberry. These are. Usually colors you don't find in cashmere, maybe a blend you would find it, but like 100% cashmere. So this really makes this company stand out for me when usually when I find cashmere, it's a lot more natural colors. You know, just regular beige and tan, kind of like these colors up here, but we get some really pretty decent... range of colors from them. There's 12 in total and they're available in each weight. So again, there's a 50 gram DK and there's a 50 gram lace. So depending on what you are making these will work very well for most accessory projects, even if you want to make a sweater. You can make a sweater. So very good range of colors. Alright, for my favorite part of my shipment, besides the yarn of course, is the catalog that they sent with me. It's not really a catalog, it's more of a story of where this yarn comes from. So it's made in Kyrgyzstan. This is a picture of the Kyrgyzstan countryside. They're 10,000 feet elevation and this is one of the farmers and I love his little traditional hat there. You'll see a couple more of those inside. But it gives you kind of how the yarn, oh boy so cute, how the yarn is made. They have the comb for the goat, the roving. This is the founder of the company, Sai. His last name is I hate saying names that I don't know the actual pronunciation to because my name always gets butchered so I always feel bad if I butcher anybody else's name. Hopefully I'm doing a little bit of justice. So these families Grow the goats, and the goats get the cashmere undercoat from the very cold winters in this 10,000 foot elevation. So then spring comes around, they can comb out that undercoat and create the yarn. The yarn, the name June, so where the name of the company came from, June, is the Kyrgyz word for animal fiber. So it's kind of cute that the actual name of the company is a Kyrgyz word, even though it's a word we all use because it's the month of the year. But it's very neat to see that. This little boy with the baby goat is so cute. So here is... Oh, also, which is really interesting and cool, is that they... June Cashmere will go to Kyrgyzstan and buy the yarn straight from... or they buy the wool straight from the farmers. Which gets them 30-35% more money. So they get more money by going to the farmers, not June Cashmere. The farmers get more money because they go direct and buy it straight from them, which allows them to have a better life, you know? They get more money, which is very good. So then, here is our map. Cool here. So one, here is our Kyrgyzstan. This is where goats live, comb it out. Then it goes to Belgium, number two in Europe, to be scoured. So it gives you a little picture of the wool being scoured. Then it goes to England, where it's de-haired. That's where they take out the guard hairs and all of the regular top coat, which is not as soft as the undercoat, so that you only have the cashmere undercoat. Then in Scotland, number four up here, is where they spin the yarn and then five in Maine, I'm not in Maine but I'm in the U.S., um it's organically dyed so here's a little all of the colors together so it's good that we know that it's organically dyed it's amazing they can get such bright colors from that but it's an awesome thing the back of this picture this hat they're so cool um a little bit more on It shows you the weights. But they give you some patterns that they have available on their website. It'll tell you how many skeins of each of the yarns that you need to complete them. So this one's like a one skein of lace. That's a very good size cowl. Hat right here is one skein of lace. Two skeins for a scarf. So not that bad you know. Not that bad so that you can get some really nice projects without I'm going to take out a whole lot, just one skein of Decay. So a lot of good projects that you can get with not too many skeins. The most any of these projects has is three skeins, so this would be probably, this might not even take all three, but it's got three different colors. So another one that would take three skeins is, oh I saw one, here's one, this cabled cowl, so it's very dense, very thick with cables, and that's three skeins of DK. This long scarf has three skeins, and this shawl has three skeins. So not that bad. You know, everything is three skeins or under for the patterns that they offer. So I think I'm going to make a lacy beanie out of this, is my idea, in knit. I'm not sure if I could get a full beanie in crochet unless I made it really lacy. So I want to do, because I really want a beanie in cashmere for the winter coming up, so I'm going to do it in knit. The ply on this I wanted to mention is really nice, like you can see that it is plied very well. So I think that's really gonna help with the wear and tear on the yarn. Usually cashmere might have like Like, uh, you. ply, they might even just be a single ply a lot of times when you find cashmere yarn. Because they want to keep this as soft as possible. But I would rather have it be a really nice ply that's not going to pill over time. So I don't think this will create those little fuzz balls that you get the pilling. I don't think this is going to pill up as much as some other cashmere that I've used in the past. So I'm excited to see how that works out. So I'm going to go wind this and start on my project. And once I finish, I'll come back and show you and tell you what I think about it. Alright, I finished my beanie. You can see that even though it's a lace pattern, it's still very thick, it's very dense, so it's not super holey. So the 150 yards was plenty. I even had a little bit left over for an adult size beanie. The yarn itself was very easy to work with. It was a great cashmere in it in that when I had to make my gauge swatch because of course I'm not going to make a gauge swatch and like cut it off from the yarn because this yarn is you know so precious and so expensive I'm not going to have just a piece of cashmere sitting around so I had to frog it out so that I could use it ...for Beanie, and it frogged out perfectly. Perfectly, it did not get caught up one single time, and I attribute that to the really good ply on this yarn. Of course, being cashmere, it is super soft. It's not very halo-y, like as if some cashmere, when you're working with it, it already has kind of a halo to it. Possibly once I wash it or block it. I didn't block it because I think I like how it looks just as is, but I'm not gonna go do an extra wash because cashmere is so delicate that you don't want to wash it just to wash it, you know. Just wash it when it needs to be washed, which is soaking it. Do not put it in a washing machine or you will have a beanie that will fit your doll maybe. The cashmere is super delicate, so you want to just soak it in your wash, and then pat it dry, and then lay it out so that it can dry flat. So I don't want to do that yet because I want this to last as long as it can, but I really like how it looks on. I'll have a picture of it. This is called the Grace Beanie, so it's available in my shop. If you look down below, you'll see links for the yarn and you'll also see a link for the pattern so you can see what it looks like on the head since I'm behind the camera. But it was a great yarn. Very soft, very easy to work with, very easy to frog, which is super important to me and probably a lot of people. And if you have any questions or if you've used June cashmere, tell us about it, tell us what you think, and thank you for watching.