Marled Yarn Survey
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Jul 13, 2022 at 08:42:12 AM

Hey Everybody,

We're getting pretty close to opening up backerkit, but I need your feedback to select the marled yarn options. With all the color and fiber selections we have available, we need to narrow it down to 2 or 3 (or 4) options that people are most interested in. Here's a link to the survey! - https://freeonlinesurveys.com/s/fZ39vyQr 

You can choose up to three choices. I'd appreciate any feedback if you're interested in these options!

Available Colors

I made a little cheat sheet so choosing colors can be a bit easier.  It's definitely not perfect but it gets everything together in one place.

There are some swatches here that may change slightly by a shade or two, especially when you take into consideration the pictures of the swatches might not show the color perfectly. The pictures with skeins are going to be pretty accurate to what comes out as we've actually made them before. There is some discussion going on in our ravelry group about narrowing down the perfect shades from a number of different yarn samples (and what marled yarn choices would look best), so feel free to join the convo there if you'd like to get a bit more indepth! Also feel free to leave feedback here.

That's about it for me for now! There's a national holiday here (Naadam) this week and everything is shut down, but fiber deliveries will start in earnest starting next week and production/dyeing not long after that. You'll be getting an email/update from me around the end of this week with your invitations to Backerkit!

In the meantime, please holler with any questions, comments, or concerns and be sure to give feedback about the marled options you'd like.

Link to marled yarn survey -  Survey 

Thank you!

Jon

The sounds of the Gobi

Down to the last 36 hours, here's what happens next!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 01, 2022 at 06:40:42 AM

Hello Everybody,

Thank you for another awesome campaign! I'm hoping for a great finish as there have been a lot of people that followed the project and are waiting to see exactly where things end up and what color optins there are. Even if we're a little bit short of the stretch goals, it looks like we'll definitely make the cobalt blue and probably the dusty rose as well. There's usually a pretty good bump at the end of campaigns!

Backerkit

As for what happens next, after the campaign ends and the final colors and options are decided, I'll start putting together our project on Backerkit. After 14 days and the charges are finalized for the Kickstarter campaign, I will invite everybody to their personal Backerkit account via email. Here, you will choose the colors and weights of your yarn, as well as have the opportunity to add more items and yarn packages at the same prices as Kickstarter. This is also where you will provide your shipping information.

Marled Yarn

After the campaign is finished and all of the available colors are finalized, I'll sent out a survey so we can choose a few marled yarn colors. I'm not sure exactly how many we are going to make, but it will be the most popular 2 or 3 options at least. The options that use the same fiber will be available in your normal yarn choices. For example, if you chose a 700g cashmere package and we have a cream and warm gray marled option, it will be available as a color choice when choosing your weights and colors for the 7 skeins. If we blend camel and yak wool, they will be available in both the camel and yak wool packages as the price is very similar. 

*IF* we blend fiber (e.g. yak and cashmere or camel and cashmere) it will be a bit more complicated and we'll need to find a solution. It will most likely come as an upgrade fee on the yak wool or less expensive fiber, as a refund on the more expensive fiber will be a lot more difficult. 

All colors and fibers that we are producing this season will be available to make the marled yarn. From the yak wool, this will most likely only include the hunter green, as the other colors (Platinum Gray, Milk Choclate, Dark Chocolate) are being sent from 2021 stock. It's possible we will still do production runs of these colors this season if sales are high enough, but most likely not.

Wool/Cashmere Blend

I just want to make a clarification here that the cashmere we use in the blend will be from our SCU partners in the Gobi. I mistakenly added the label to the section on the wool blend as 'Recycled Cashmere/Wool Blend' as that was our original goal for last season's campaign that I was not successful in making. So just to be clear, this will be with virgin cashmere, not made from recycled cashmere. The materials I was planning to use for the recycled cashmere yarn last season are currently being used by a quilting NGO here in Mongolia to make finished items for sale, including hats, mittens, and scarves. I'm excited to share more pictures of these soon and will be available for order in Backerkit.

Fiber and Production Update

Some of our white cashmere has already been delivered, and we are expecting the other cashmere colors to be delivered in the middle of July. The camel wool is last in line and will enter the washing stage next week, which I'm planning to get some pictures and videos of. After washing comes the dehairing process, which is where the larger guard hairs are removed from the wools, leaving just the finest and softest fiber. Here is our white cashmere in the dehairing process. It goes through about 5 rounds of these machines before being completed:

The humidity stays very high in the dehairing rooms. There are misters constantly spraying water in the air:

But that's about it from me for now! I'll be in touch after the campaign ends to send out the survey for the marled yarn and to keep everybody updated on Backerkit. As always, please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns!

THANK YOU,

Jon

P.S. My appoligies for the multiple emails from me today if you're also on my mailing list! I'm sending out one last email before the campaign ends, so you'll be getting both this update and the reminder from my email list.

An Awesome First Week!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 10, 2022 at 05:48:26 AM

Hey Everybody,

Thank you for the awesome first week! We've already unlocked a few of our stretch goals and are almost at the marled yarn. I'm looking forward to that process as we'll have a lot of options to chose from and ply together. Cream and warm gray cashmere? Cream and aquamarine? Mixing up the fibers? We'll have to send out a survey near the end of the campaign when we know what colors we have to figure out what to make!

Here's what the updated stretch goal chart looks like:

As a reminder, all of the yarn weights and colors will be chosen after the campaign ends on Backerkit. For those that haven't been involved in one of our campaigns before, Backerkit is a website where you will enter your shipping information, choose your yarn weights/colors, and also add on other rewards if you'd like since Kickstarter only allows the purchase of one reward. About 10 days after the campaign ends, you'll get an invite to Backerkit where you'll make all of your selections.

I don't have a lot to update other than that, but we should have cashmere in UB starting the washing and dehairing process soon and I'm excited to share some pictures of that. If there's any other questions you have, please let me know!

THANK YOU!

-Jon

Definitely making stuff again, THANK YOU!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 03, 2022 at 01:18:04 AM

Hey Everybody,

THANK YOU ALL again for another awesome start to a campaign! I’m always about ready to pull my hair out before campaigns start but the support is always fantastic. I can’t thank you enough! I know we have some pretty big stretch goals to go towards but I’m confident we can get a much wider range of colors and we can always expand. If you have friends or family that you think would enjoy the campaign and the yarn, please do consider sharing this project with them!

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.

Thank you!

Jon