Ravenwood Cashmere is an All American product. It is grown, processed, and designed right here in the Pacific Northwest. Finished items are knitted exclusively from our yarns by professional cottage knitters here in Washington State.

Ravenwood Cashmere is Naturally Processed! No harsh chemicals are used to wash or scour the fleece. Harsh chemicals are used by commercial operations to disintegrate dander and vegetative matter. This contributes to an even spin. HOWEVER, these chemicals also break down the ever so important quality characteristic of ‘crimp’ in the fiber. Crimp helps lock fibers together and traps air. That is what gives cashmere it’s high insulating quality and produces a very warm yarn. We are committed to retaining cashmere as it is meant to be.

Our animals are raised in a loving environment, They have free range of the woods late Spring and Summer, helping to reduce brush and noxious weeds while growing quality fiber. They are fed high quality grass hay during Winter, with alfalfa and grain when raising kids. We do not sacrifice the health of our animals to produce ultra-fine micron count. They are up to date on vaccination and trims. Contrary to what people say about cashmere raised in areas other than NE Asia, American producers can and do produce high quality cashmere without cost of health to their animals.

Our animals have their fleece objectively tested biennially to maintain the standard of 14-19 microns in their fleece. This also helps develop a good diet and breeding program.

We do not use kid fleece in our knitting/crocheting yarns. Kid fleece has the smallest micron diameter, but also has the weakest tensile strength. This contributes to breakage during processing and pilling and noiling. That contributes to eventual pilling in the garment.

We do not use second runs that are shorter fibers, following susequent runs through the dehairing machine, after Prime and First runs. These also contribute to shorter fibers that work their way out of the yarn, contributing to pilling in the garment.

Excluding these fibers from our yarns produces fewer skeins for us, but the highest quality, stongest yarn we can provide our customers.