I’m pretty well addicted to cashmere, silks, qiviut, baby camel and yak, bison, guanaco, vicuña fibers… you get the idea. If it’s under a total average of 16 microns in fiber fineness and has near zero guard hair, it’s my gig.
Anyone who works with super-extra-fine fiber knows that if it gets mixed with a fiber that’s rough, the good stuff loses all its softness in amongst the less pleasant fibers. So I don’t know why I thought that the Mongolian sheep breeds would have rough fiber…. They DON’T! This combination of natural color sheep wool with a small amount of recycled cashmere is HEAVENLY and I ended up ordering some of the undyed 100% wool. It’s not as soft as the low-micron merino that’s more expensive than cashmere… but it’s equivalent in softness to extrafine 19 micron merinos that are my common staple fiber. With the cashmere, it feels just like cashmere. Without the 15% cashmere, it feels like any fine merino (or cormo or Rambouillet).plenty soft enough for socks, gloves, cuffs, even collars for 99% of folx (people without sensory processing problems with wool and without lanolin allergies).
If you can’t afford the cashmere, consider saving up for this mix instead. This was my third participation in the Kickstarter, and I get happier with the options and quality every year… plus it helps a small network of rural herding families carry on the nomadic traditions they’ve had since time immemorial, so it does good stuff for other humans too.