We finally have all the colors!
over 2 years ago – Mon, Nov 08, 2021 at 10:11:44 AM

Hey Everybody,

A bit of a mixed bag in this update, as we're on the last leg finishing up the spinning, but we ran into an issue with the natural dyed baby camel wool on Friday and we're going to need a couple days to figure out a solution there. But first with the good news and lots of pictures!

Colors

We've finally got all the colors back! Everything is in different stages of processing at the moment, so for some items there are skeins/hanks, some it's just spun singles, and some it's fiber. Fiber can be a bit harder to show the true color, but bet that the spun yarn will pick up a bit of depth and richness compared to just the fiber pictures

Cashmere

Yak Wool

When I saw the antique ruby fiber first, I thought it looked fine, but once I saw it spun up the natural yak wool base under the dying really adds an interesting depth to it. Very happy with how it came out and excited to see what other colors we can come up with in the future!

Baby Camel Wool

The camel is the last yarn being spun, so I don't have any yarn to show yet. I did my best to get proper photos of the dark harbor fiber, but it's finicky! But definitely beautiful  and is close to our target color.

I'm very interested to see this when it's spun up, as I think it's going to bring out an extra layer of depth and richness like the antique ruby yak did. The brown bases for the dyes adds a really interesting effect!

I posted this in a previous update, but just wanted it here so we could have everything together. The fiber and small hand-spun piece is from this year, compared to the skein from last season.

Sheep Wool and Blends

A lot of new things to show here! The navy is the last color we're waiting for, but here it is at the beginning of the carding process!

For the other colors, and our newly added sheep/yak blend, here are some hanks that I grabbed! I haven't had a chance to swatch them up and play with them too much, but the sheep wool in general has a really lovely hand to it, and the cashmere blend adds a really nice touch. Whenever these get washed up they will be favorites for sure. The socks will be finishing up shortly that are made with the yak blend!

Natural Dyed Baby Camel Wool

Unfortunately we ran into a rather large problem here with the natural dyed yarns on Friday. Everything was going as planned as we got the ochre out of dyeing, but things hit the fan (literally) whenever we were starting the spinning process. 

At the beginning of the spinning process, the fiber is more or less mixed with spinning oil in a room with a large blowing fan. For reasons not yet clear, this caused a large plume of yellow dust to fill up the spinning factory. To say the least, management there was less than pleased, and they are refusing to spin the natural dye colors now.

I'm working with the dyeing factory to figure out what happened and a way to solve this problem and work with another spinner so that we can still get this completed soon. That being said, I don't think it's likely this will make it out with the rest of the yarn. I need a couple more days to get some final answers about the best way to handle it, but the options of swapping orders for different colors, waiting for delivery, or refunds will all be available. One way or the other, your purchase is completely guaranteed, we just need a few more days to figure out what our options are.

I'll update with more info as I receive it at the beginning of next week!

Honey

Aside from the colors, I also wanted to wait for the honey to get fully imported to the states before charging cards for it. The shipment left Mongolia on October 20th and it's currently waiting for the last local flight to Pittsburgh where it will go through customs. If all goes smoothly it should make it home this next week before charging cards! I'll be posting an update as soon as I get word that everything is cleared.

Charging Cards on Backerkit

A little unfortunate with the timing here because I need to figure out exactly what's going to happen with the natural dyed camel wool, but I'll post an update with what we find out on Wednesday and decide what we will do from there. With that being said, we will lock orders on Backerkit on Monday the 15th, and charge cards for addons on the 17th. This will give us plenty of time to adjust orders for the natural dye if need be.

If you'd like to get to Backerkit to adjust your orders, please follow this link to get to your survey.

Scheduling

Although I don't know if the natural dyed items will be in the main shipment, we're still on schedule to have stuff leaving Mongolia somewhere around the middle of the month. My ticket is booked for the 19th and hoping I can see the yarn off before I get on the plane. The estimate on my shipping quote has 10-17 days for delivery, although my honey is currently going on 17 days. It's shipping via air the whole way to Pittsburgh, but it looks like even air cargo is a bit slow at the moment. With some luck, things should be ready to move by the beginning of December.

So I think that's it for today! I'm sorry about the news with the natural dye camel wool, but I'm hopeful we can come up with a quick solution to fix whatever is going on. You will be hearing from me soon once we get some more info and talk to a couple other spinners.

As always, please holler with any questions, comments, or concerns!

THANK YOU!

Jon

October Production Update!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 10:26:43 PM

Hey everybody,

Sorry for the radio silence over the last month or so. There were a lot of situations where I was waiting a few more days to get more info or colors to show and it kept getting pushed back. I was originally planning to wait for all the colors to get out before posting an update, but it looks like we're still going to need bit more time for that. Most of the fibers are dyed (except for the red yak and blue camel) but the we're still waiting for the cashmere colors (plum, zenith blue, charcoal) to get blended before we can see the final colors. The blending happens at the first step of the spinning process. There were some more COVID cases at the spinning factory two weeks ago, but are back to spinning again as of the end of last week. Hopefully we can keep moving at a steady pace and get everything out of spinning soon.

Natural Dyed Baby Camel Wool

For what I do have to show, we finally got the test colors for the natural dyed baby camel wool to something we're happy with. The ochre was particularly difficult, but this will be very close to what the end colors turn out to be. The test results also came back for the baby camel and it's 16.3 micron in fineness. That will make it noticeably softer compared to the camel from previous years and more comparable to cashmere in feel. I'm expecting the natural dye and the fiber in general to generate a bit of attention, so I definitely expect the price for baby camel wool to go up in the future if we can keep the quality consistent.

Some Cashmere Mittens

There are also some mittens under there made with the natural taupe DK (now renamed natural warm gray). Goes great with fall colors and gets me off the hook for a birthday present I owe somebody soon ;)

The cream and warm gray cashmere are skeined, labeled, and ready to go. Some of the natural yak was also finishing up this week.

Shipping Schedule

As for how I think the current shipping schedule looks, I'm hoping for things to get out of Mongolia around the middle of November and be ready for distribution around the end of the month or beginning of December, although this may still change. I had another quote for shipping, and apart from going up another 30%, the timeline went from 5-7 days to 10-17 days for delivery. This is air-to-air, not using ocean freight, but still a longer timeline than I was expecting. I know right now there are efforts being made to help alleviate the shipping backups at the ports in the US. Hopefully if they can straighten out some of the ocean freight issues, that could reverberate to reducing the burden that's now being put on air freight. Compared to last year, there are plenty of flights in and out of Mongolia, so it shouldn't be an issue to get space when everything is ready to move. I was told it's possible to get bumped 1 or 2 flights if the gov't needs emergency shipping freight, but that it generally shouldn't happen. I'm looking at a November 19th flight out of Mongolia back to Pittsburgh for my personal travels.

Charging Cards on Backerkit

I apologize for the continued delays here waiting for the colors to get out and then charging cards. In previous years, we've always had rather solid examples of the colors we would be making, but this year with the camel wool dyeing, yak wool dyeing, and blends, I wanted to wait to have real life samples before charging. I'd still prefer to wait as it's easier to make changes to orders before cards are charged, but if you would like for me to charge your order now, please leave a comment, write me a message, or send me an email at [email protected] and I will do that. Otherwise, my next update will be with the colors and a week notice for card charging.

If you'd like to update your survey and choices, please visit the Backerkit site here: https://herders-to-home-2021.backerkit.com/ 

That's about it for me right now. Sorry about the delays and lack of progress to show over the last month. One way or the other you guys will have another update by the end of the month at the latest! As always, holler at me with any questions, comments, or concerns.

Thank you,

Jon

P.S. I finally had a chance to escape the city for a couple day trips and finally have some new Mongolia pictures to share. It's definitely fall, turning into winter over here!

All of our fiber has arrived and spinning is underway!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 05:39:45 PM

Hey Everybody,

It's been a complicated few weeks here in Mongolia but everything is still on track with our yarn. After receiving our sheep and yak wool last week and our baby camel wool yesterday, we finally have all of our fiber!

Baby Camel Wool

The baby camel wool arrived as expected, which is super lovely and what I still feel is going to be a great step forward. I'd still say the cashmere has the baby camel wool on softness by a bit, but it's getting pretty difficult to tell them apart. I'm still waiting on some test results that will tell us more, but I'm also curious about the length of the fibers and how the consistency of the length and thickness compares to cashmere. One way or the other, I think everybody is going to be really happy with it. This project is the first time that the SCU has done a wide harvest of baby camel wool with their herder groups, and I expect after the results this year this will become a larger part of their income and that prices will also increase. I'm happy we're a part of this!

The color is slightly lighter than the previous years (especially in the unspun fiber) and has a bit more of a luster. Here's a picture with it next to last year's yarn.

We also started some tests with the natural dying. The first round was a bit off due to having some different acids at first. After switching to citric acid and soda, I was told today the colors are more vibrant and in line with what our targets are, if not a bit deeper/more vibrant. At first the ochre didn't look much different from the natural color and the red was too purple, but I'm happy to hear everything is on the right track now. I'll have pictures of these in the next update.

Cashmere Colors/Yarn

The two natural cashmere colors have already been spun up and are waiting to be plied now. If all goes as planned there should be finished skeins starting to come out by the middle of next week.

I'm thinking we might want to change the name for the 'taupe' cashmere to something more descriptive. Any ideas here? Here's another picture of the cream and taupe cashmere fiber with the yak wool fiber from this year (and last year's gray yak for comparison).

The last color we're waiting on in the cashmere is the zenith blue, then all of the cashmere will be finished dying. All of the colors except the emerald green require two colors being mixed together, so the emerald and the natural colors are the only fibers I currently have finished shots of. The green is a bit hard to get a good picture of! In some lighting situations a blue hue also comes out... I think it might be until it skeins that the beauty really shows!

Yak Wool

Our yak is here and is as lovely as ever. We received all three colors this year but only the gray and the dark gray will be yarn colors. The light brown will soon be headed off to turn into our antique ruby, but there's still plenty of the light brown in stock if you'd still like that color.

Sheep Wool

No new pictures here, but the shades and colors are still exactly the same as when we got our wool a few years back so the target pictures are spot on. However, comparing it to the navy wool fiber I still have, the fiber this year seems softer. I got pretty nervous about the sourcing here as I was getting the run-around and was worried the natural brown would be hard to source in particular. But in the end, we made it, and happily impressed with the quality!

Recycled Cashmere Blend

Unfortunately, this is being switched to a 15% virgin-cashmere, 85% sheep wool blend. I've tried calling in favors, poking and nudging as much as possible but I can not find somebody to step up and shred the clothes for us. I'm hoping after the production season is over here I can get it done and be prepared for next season. But for now, it's important to keep moving forward for the timeline of things. There is also a chance we'll run into issues when doing this for the first time and might need more time to solve things, so best if it's not left to the end of a production season. So, unfortunately, this is being put off for a season. If the recycled aspect of the project was make-or-break for you, you're more than welcome to change your order to something else or request a refund. With any issues or questions there, please send me an email at [email protected]. 

Socks (Now with More Yak)

Because we have some extra yak wool this year, we're going to make the yarn with 80% sheep wool and 20% yak wool. The sheep wool is already super soft this season, but adding some extra softness, warmth, and uniqueness with the yak wool is going to be something really cool. There will not be any cost increase on these orders, but will increase slightly after the Kickstarter ends! 

Sheep/Yak Wool Blend Yarn

Surprising to me, the single ply that we need to spin for the socks is the same as the single ply we use in our yarn. Because of this, we're going to take some of the 20%/80% that we're using for our socks and ply it up to our DK and Fingering weight. I'll post more info (and pics) whenever this happens, but we'll definitely add this to our Backerkit before shipping things out!

Charging Cards on Backerkit

We're still a few weeks away here! Dying is very backed up and taking longer than expected, but I still want to show off all the colors before locking things down. Hopefully we can do this by the end of the month. We're getting close! I'll still give everybody at least a weeks notice before I send the charges through.

Other News in Mongolia

Everything is open and moving for the most part here, but COVID is definitely a big issue. Down to #5 now, Mongolia was #2 in the world per capita in cases last week. Lots of people I know/teach closely with have come down with it in the last few weeks. After *very* close contacts with friends and co-workers, I was feeling a bit under the weather for a few days but never tested positive and came out the other end OK. That's kind of how it is over here at the moment and I don't expect any changes for a while. Me, pretty much everybody here, and especially all of those working in factories have had shots, so the symptoms are usually not severe.

I was hoping transportation would be a lot easier by this fall, but it looks like it will still be rather complicated as it's only charter flights in and out of Mongolia. I'm still betting on being able to get home to see my family and do the distribution personally in mid-November, but our backup plan is to use a warehouse system like last year if things get worse and I'm stuck here. I'm planning to fly things to the states as it still sounds like ocean freight is a complete mess without much optimism heading into the fall.

So yes, still in the hustling bustling city of UB! My countryside trip got canceled unfortunately, so I still don't have any new pictures to show. Maybe there's still a chance I can get somewhere before the end of the month and it starts getting a lot colder here.

As always, feel free to holler with any questions, comments, or concerns. If you need a link to your survey on Backerkit, please follow this link!

Thank you,

Jon

Some pics from my trip nearly one year ago today:

Mid-Late August Production Update!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 12:59:45 AM

Hey Everybody,

Sorry the long radio silence, but I'd been waiting for a few different things before writing and update but they kept getting pushed back, but at a point here where I have a few things to share!

The Not So Great

Unfortunately, we are still waiting for the rest of our fiber, which is our camel, yak wool, and sheep wool. The sheep wool should be coming any day, and the camel wool and yak wool will come at the end of next week/beginning of the week after that. I met with our spinning factory at the end of last week and we're currently in queue to have our cashmere dyed and start spinning.

Although the COVID situation has improved somewhat in Mongolia, there have been some delays at pretty much each step of the processing so far. At the washing, dehairing, and spinning facilities we use, there have been cases which requires shutting down for 7-10 days and a pushing back of schedules. All of the workers are vaccinated so they haven't resulted in any serious cases, but we still take a lot of precautionary measures. 

The Better

Even with the delays so far, I'm still trying to get everything to the states for distribution by mid-late November. Depending exactly on when things get finished up and what global logistics are looking like, we may end up flying everything to America instead of going by boat to save some time. It is a bit (lot) more expensive, but if that means everything is safely delivered and inventory is in stock for the holiday season, I think it makes sense to do so. Ocean freight still seems super congested at the moment and I'm not confident it's going to improve as we go into the fall and close in on the holidays. Last year missing the holidays and winter selling season was very difficult, so doing everything to avoid that!

The Cool and Good

-NATURAL DYES

I have *finally* received the natural dyes and mordant for our baby camel wool. This actually turned into a rather large problem as the mordant specifically got stuck in customs, but we prevailed in the end! I have a meeting set up on Wednesday at the dyeing factory I'm hoping to work with here to go over the process. Once I get our fiber I might bust out the pot and pans in my kitchen to have some fun! Here's some of the dye:

-SOCKS

Due to issues with batch minimums, in previous years I always split the batches with our spinning factory for socks. This year we're going to make our own sock yarn and do full runs of socks. This means #1 we're going to have a lot more inventory and #2 we can add our ULA+LIA logo on the socks instead of the generic markings we had last year.

Since we have full control now, I'm interested in adding a 10-15% yak wool mix to the sheep wool to soften/warm things up a bit. I wouldn't increase the price at all for those that have preordered, but wanted to put this out there as a slightly more unique and luxurious option that I'd prefer. I can't think of any downsides here except maybe darkening the color slightly, but if it's important to anybody that the socks are completely 100% sheep wool instead of the yak wool blend, please let me know and I'll find some solutions. It's also possible for me to do a run of pure yak wool socks in addition to the sheep wool, but I'd end up with A LOT of socks!

-RECYCLED CASHMERE BLEND

Similar to some of the problems I'm having with the natural dyes, I'm hitting some snags with the recycled cashmere blend as I'm being reminded how difficult it can be to do new things sometimes. The factories I'm trying to work with the shred my old cashmere clothes are giving me a lot of excuses. It's a *very* small ask that I have to shred the ~15kg I have to make our spinning batch, but I keep getting pushed off. I went for the nuclear option on Wednesday and called in a favor from the main director of one of the cashmere factories, so I'm hoping that will solve my problem without getting anybody particularly angry at me. But if not, the backup option I have is to do the blend with 15% of new cashmere (the natural taupe). 

This wouldn't increase the price for anybody that preordered, but I wanted to have this out there as an option in case I get completely stuck and run out of time. There will be plenty of time to change/refund orders if the recycled clothes aspect is make or break for you, but wanted to mention this incase things don't work out. There's also the possibility that the yarn created with the recycled fiber won't be of a working quality, and this would be the solution in that scenario as well. I still think we'll get it done, but wanted to be clear about the problems and potential solutions here!

Backerkit and Charging Cards

I'd still like to wait until dyeing is finished and we have the exact final colors to show until charging cards, which will be a few more weeks. I will give at least a 10 day notice of when I'm going to charge cards. If you would like for me to charge your card now, please send me an email at [email protected] and I can do that. If you'd like to add to or change your survey, please follow this link to get your survey.

OK, I think that's it for me! A lot of info here, so please feel free to holler with any questions. I have finally planned a short getaway to the countryside which will be starting on the 27th. I'm looking forward to hanging with some animals and doing a lot of knitting, so I'll hopefully have plenty of new pictures to share in the next updates.

Thank you!

-Jon

Our cashmere has arrived!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 30, 2021 at 11:20:12 PM

Hey Everybody,

Not a whole lot of progress to report quite yet but still wanted to send an update on where things are at. We have received all of our cashmere, but are still waiting for our other fibers. The sheep wool is waiting for delivery, and the yak and baby camel wool are in their final stages of processing. I'd be surprised if we don't have everything in hand within the next two weeks! 

When the cashmere shows up:

We received three natural cashmere colors this year for dyeing. Above is a light grey/beige used as the base for most dyed colors in conjunction with the taupe. We'll make undyed yarn with the cream and taupe.

The cashmere has definitely met my expectations and CANNOT WAIT to see how it spins up! The test results I have put the thickness between 15.5 and 16 micron depending on the color, which is really fine for Mongolian cashmere. Our previous years was usually around 16.5-17, although it would depend on the color a bit. I'm waiting on the schedule from the factory, but I'm hoping we can get the cashmere sent out ASAP for dyeing and start spinning in the next week or two.

Natural Dyes

In other news, the natural dyes from Germany are slated to arrive Monday. As long as there aren't any super goofy loops to jump through with customs here, that will get delivered to the dyeing facility on early next week when I meet with them. Unbeknownst to me, I actually know the person that I'll be working with there to do some testing and final dyeing, so it should be really nice to have fuller access to things. 

Recycled Cashmere

As for the recycled cashmere yarn, I've been getting the runaround a bit with trying to get the clothes shredded down. My first option has given me too many excuses and won't shred the clothes for me. Right now the clothes are at my backup option and are in queue. When I talked to the director there yesterday he told me it will be finished by the middle of August. This has been a bit aggravating for me because it's a rather small ask, but it really feels like a lot of places really don't want to try new things even if it doesn't impact them. I'll be beyond relieved and proud when there is something to show here! In the meantime I'll just keep poking people until it gets pushed through.

That's about all I have to update for now. I'm planning to charge cards for Backerkit sometime around the middle/end of August, but I'll give everybody plenty of notice before I do so. Ideally I'd like to have all of the fibers at least dyed to show off the true colors and give everybody a chance to make any changes. If you'd like to get back to your survey, please follow this link. If you're still haven't received your survey and the link doesn't work, please send me a message and we can work it out.

Thank you! Hopefully I'll have colors and more fibers to show soon!

-Jon