Backerkit is open!
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 02:36:06 AM

Hey Everybody!

Finally got everything together and cleared to open up Backerkit, and you should get an email within 12 hours from this update with your invite. If you don't get an email, please check your spam/promotion folders to make sure it didn't get stuck there. If you still can't find it, please send me a message at [email protected] and we can figure it out. The invite will be sent to the same email you used to pledge on Kickstarter! 

If during the Backerkit process you ever lose your survey email, you can have it resent by going to this link and entering your email.

If you pledged on the Kickstarter campaign, please DO NOT follow the link on the main Kickstarter project page. That is for new pledges/preorders, and you will be charged twice if you go through that link. Please always access your survey through the invite email or this link.

Natural Dye and Recycled Cashmere/Wool Blend Upgrades

As for Backerkit itself, it should be pretty straight forward! One thing that I did have to switch around was how the upgrade prices for the naturally dyed camel wool and recycled cashmere blend work for the addons, but this will not be a problem if you directly pledged for these packages on Kickstarter.

 Do to how Backerkit works, I was not able to charge upgrade fees for the packages (e.g. in a 700g Baby Camel package, you could not mix 3 skeins of natural dye and 4 skeins regular dye.) Because of this, I had to separate them into two different items. If you'd like to mix the natural dye or cashmere/wool blend in a package, please select the upgraded item package and let me know after making your choices at [email protected] and I will assign credit for you on the backend.

For the variety add-on packs, there's less that I can do. If you plan to choose an upgraded skein, please select the 'upgrade fees' add-on and select how many skeins you will upgrade. That will add the charge to your cart.

I think that's about as clear as mud, but I think it will make sense when going through the survey. Sorry for the confusion here!

Colors and Lace Options

If you'd like one place to view all the colors, here they are! Lace will be available in the Plum Cashmere, Antique Ruby Baby Yak, Dark Harbor Blue Baby Camel, and Recycled Cashmere/Wool blend.

Other than that, rather smooth sailing over here! We're at a little bit of the calm before the storm as this week is Naadam, a national holiday here. Even though the festivities have been canceled, the country is more or less on break. Our cashmere is ready to be delivered to our spinning factory to start the dyeing process, and the camel wool has been washed and now needs to be dehaired. Around the end of the month/beginning of next month we're planning to start spinning. Next week, we'll also start shredding some cashmere clothes to prep for the blend!

As always, please holler with any questions, comments, or concerns! Backerkit usually runs rather smoothly, but please let me know if you see any mistakes or errors in the survey that I can fix quickly.

Thank you!

-Jon

Thank you everybody for another awesome campaign!
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jul 04, 2021 at 06:42:02 PM

Hey Everybody,

THANK YOU once again for an awesome start to a new fiber season. We've got a lot of new and interesting things happening over the next couple of months and I can't wait to see how everything comes out.

As for what's next, I'll send everybody their invites into Backerkit in 14 days. Backerkit recommends waiting until the payments are processed for the Kickstarter pledges before opening up the Backerkit platform to streamline the process. After you get an invite email to Backerkit (in 14 days) you'll be able to select your yarn colors, weights, and add on any other items you'd like. I'll also have some finished items (socks, knitted items) and spinning fiber for those interested!

Until then, just hang out! I'm hoping I'll have some more updates with fiber processing over the next week, and I'll share as many updates as possible with the progress. If you ever have any questions, feel free to holler anyway you'd like, whether it's on here,  ravelry,  facebook, or email at [email protected].

I'm looking forward to a busy summer!

THANK YOU!

-Jon

Down to the final stretch!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 02:33:59 AM

Hey Everybody!

Hope you're all enjoying the summer! As we're getting down to the last couple of days I wanted to update everybody with what's happening and what to expect. Still not a lot happening at the moment, but things should start getting pretty busy in the next few weeks.

Cashmere is undergoing the washing and then will head to a different facility for dehairing, which is where all of the thicker guard hairs get removed and leave just the fine cashmere. Here's a video of the washing in action. It's done on some old Japanese equipment! It has three different stages of more or less the same process, getting cleaner and cleaner as it goes.

Before it hits the water, it gets shaken out a little bit more to reduce the amount of soil dust in the cashmere.

In other news, we're making the final arrangements for the natural dyes we're going to be using for the baby camel wool! I know we haven't quite hit the $90,000 mark yet for the ochre camel wool, but I've already got to put the order in! Here's a bit more info about the dyes.

Sorry for the poor picture quality, but this is about the best I've got until I can get the dye and we can play around a bit more with the sampling. For the red, we're going to be using lac dye, which is similar to the cochineal I was originally planning for but this will give us a deeper red. The ochre will come from the plant that is called a lot of different things, but some of those names include weld/dyer's weed/dyer's rocket. According to Wikipedia this dye has been used since the first millennium BC, so really interested to see how this comes out! As far as I know this will be the first commercial projects using natural dyes in Mongolia, so I hope there can garner some interest in some local producers here as well. Maybe we'll even do some limited items with our dyed yak wool and natural dyed baby camel wool!

Other than that, not a ton to report! Mongolia is still struggling pretty hard with covid stuff, although we do seem to be trending in the right direction at least. Most businesses are still open here in the city, but traveling out to the countryside is still tough and I expect it to be for a while yet. We'll get there soon enough though!

OK that's all! You'll hear from me again when the campaign ends to talk about Backerkit and the next steps going forward. Thank you guys for the support! As always, please holler with any questions, comments, or concerns!

Thank you,

Jon

We're getting some cream! And some pictures of our cashmere
almost 3 years ago – Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 11:03:01 PM

Hey Everybody,

Nothing huge to report over here but wanted to put out a quick update to stay in touch. Awesome to see that we hit our stretch goal for the cream cashmere! Just eyeballing the golden/ochre camel wool at this point, and then maybe adding something else to push for depending how quickly we get there. Hopefully we have a great last few weeks of the campaign!

I went to visit the sorting facility today where our cashmere is undergoing the first stage of processing. Here, the cashmere is hand sorted/checked to make ensure quality and color. Checking the white is the most important as mixed colors are really easy to see and can cause a lot of issues. With the SCU, they grade each bag that they open and make notes about if there is too much dandruff, dust, twigs/leaves/debris, mixed colors, etc., and because each bag is marked with the names of the herders that provide it, we're able to improve quality or provide technical support if need be.

Here's a video showing the sorting process. From the SCU, the herders are already very careful about grading and separating their fiber, so this is a relatively quick process here.

Here's some of our light brown being sorted, with some interns from the technical university learning from the veterans ;)

In other news, not a whole lot to report. Mongolia is experiencing a lot of COVID cases at the moment, so getting to the (deep) countryside to visit herders that we procure from isn't looking likely in the near future. I'm still hoping to get out of the city to some nearby areas for some fresh air and knitting, but it might be a bit before I'm able to leave the province.

So still no new critter pics. BUT I did find a very friendly stray cat in a park near me yesterday:

OK that's it for me! Next updates will be when our cashmere starts to get washed and dehaired (where the remaining thicker guard hairs get removed). There might also be some updates soon with our recycled cashmere yarn. As always, holler with any questions, comments, or concerns!

Thank you,

Jon

P.S. I'm probably going to send out a very similar email to my full email list, so apologizes in advanced for if you receive duplicates of this both from Kickstarter and from me directly.

An awesome first 5 days!
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jun 06, 2021 at 11:46:39 PM

Hey Everybody,

Thank you for such an incredible first week! We hit all of our original stretch goals so I wanted to write an update with what's happening over here and set up a couple more stretch goals to aim for.

Our cashmere is already making its way into the city from the countryside. This week, our fiber will start to be processed and I'll be getting some pictures and videos to share. First it will be washed to remove dirt and other things that aren't cashmere. After the washing, it will be dehaired, which removes the cashmere guard hairs and thicker fibers, leaving us with just our pure, super soft down fibers. 

I also dropped off our second hand cashmere clothes for a deep washing before it goes in to get torn down into the cashmere fiber. After it gets torn down, we'll mix it with our sheep wool and start the spinning process. The washing could be done as early as the end of this week, and maybe after another week to tear down the fiber, our cashmere blend might actually be the first yarn we start spinning!

For more stretch goals to go after, we're going to bring back the cream cashmere ($75000) and another natural dye option for the baby camel wool in ochre ($90,000).  With bringing back the sheep wool this year and with all the colors we have, I've got to be a little careful to make sure we don't end up with too little demand for some of the options. I think going forward these will be the last new colors, but depending on where demand falls in some of the color runs, we might make some blends or marled options with colors that we have extra of.

 Here are the new stretch goals!

So everything is definitely starting to move. I think we might have another week or so waiting for things to ramp up and our fiber to get into the city, but I have a feeling things are going to get pretty crazy right around the time the campaign ends, which will work out perfectly.

That's about all I have to share for now! Hopefully next weekend I'll be able to share some pics and vids of our fiber and the processing! As always, please holler with any questions!

Thank you!

-Jon