An adult yak will produce between 300 to 700 grams of down per year. In recent years, and with burgeoning demand in key markets, efforts have been made to cross-breed the domesticated yak with the wild ones (which increases the down yield). The characteristic long and much coarser hairs you can see on most pictures are used for felting (mainly tent insulation), while the medium-thick fibers in between are often used for heavy-use items such as sturdy blankets or ropes. A couple of weeks before, the herders will start combing (a very time-consuming process) the yak to harvest the down before shearing them for the rest of the wool. The animals lose their undercoat naturally with the onset of the much warmer summer months. Only the soft undercoat (called down) is used for clothing. While there are still some wild yaks to be found in Tibet (which are almost twice as large bulls sometimes weighing up to a ton) commercially available knitting yarn is harvested from their domesticated brethren and sisters. Especially in Mongolia, the incredibly high demand for cheap cashmere has sped up the desertification in certain areas tremendously. Unlike the native goats of that area, their hooves are not as hard on the ground, and their grazing method does not rip out the whole plant by the roots. But this is actually one of the big strengths of the yak. This, however, makes it quite hard to produce large quantities of yarn in a species-appropriate way. So far, all efforts to keep them penned up (thankfully) failed. In winter, they are able to weather temperatures as low as -40° Celsius. During the short summers in that area, you will often find them retreating to pastures on 5,5000 meters. They prefer the alpine tundra as their habitat and mainly eat grasses and sedges. You see, due to their warm coat, yaks typically cannot be found below 3,000 meters of altitude (9,800ft). I was lucky enough to experience these gentle giants on my recent trip through Bhutan. A herd of yaks above 3,000 meters in Bhutan (near Gangtey) The milk, leather, and meat of the yak are also highly-priced among the locals, while they also serve as beasts of burden. The bovine wool may be only a recent addition to the cornucopia of yarn choices available to modern western knitters (make sure to check out my list of over 100+ indie dyers) but nomads on the Tibetan Plateau, Mongolia, and the Himalayas have been harvesting the precious fibers for millennia. Have you seen a luxurious skein of yak yarn? And now you are wondering what it’s like knitting with it? How soft is it? And what about the stitch definition of the rare Central Asian wool? Is worth it? Well, in this little guide I’ll show you everything you need to know about yak knitting yarn! Sharing my experience knitting with yak yarn and everything you need to know about its properties and how to care for it.
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