Editor’s note: Many fine-fiber animals—including cashmere goats, yaks, vicuñas, and guanacos—live in high-mountain regions where water that melts from glaciers is essential for these herds to survive. As glaciers around the world disappear due to climate change, these special animals and the communities that raise them face disastrous risks to their survival. The UN has named 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation to acknowledge the important role that glaciers play in both the local regions in which they exist and the global climate as a whole.
To raise awareness for this issue and the fiber animals we all hold dear, Long Thread Media and Wild Fibers have launched the Cashmere on Ice competition. We hope you'll spin, stitch, or weave along with us! Simply make a project with 50% or more cashmere content to participate, and you'll find all the contest details on the Cashmere on Ice website.
Cheers!—Spin Off editors
As a brand-new spinner, I couldn’t resist the temptation of buying a luscious pile of cashmere top. I was too intimidated to start spinning it, so it sat tucked away in my stash for several years until I thought I was “good enough.”
With dreams of an Orenburg-style shawl, I sat down with Galina Khmeleva’s courses, Spinning Gossamer Threads: The Yarns of Orenburg and Orenburg Knitting: Knitting Gossamer Webs. After an initial panic that the entire spinning course would be spoken in Russian without subtitles—one of Galina’s delightful jokes that pepper the course—the hours flew by as I learned a new way to spin yarn.
Although I usually consider myself a wheel spinner, Orenburg spinners typically use a supported spindle. Without gravity in the way from a drop spindle, or tension from a wheel’s takeup system, there’s plenty of time to add twist to the short, soft cashmere fibers. A bonus is that this is a very portable way to spin, and my supported spindle followed me wherever I went!
To spin cashmere in the Orenburg style, use a supported spindle and a long draw.
Orenburg Plying
After filling a supported spindle with singles, it was time to ply. Unlike every other cashmere yarn I’d ever encountered, Orenburg spinners ply their cashmere with commercial silk. This trick turns out to be expeditious, given Orenburg’s location on the old silk roads, plus you only need to spin one single. But it’s also doubly luxurious to combine these two fibers, as the silk’s soft shine complements cashmere’s fuzzy halo.
In another twist, to ply your Orenburg-style cashmere yarn, you wind a strand each of your cashmere and silk onto a large plying spindle, then add ply twist as the yarn comes off the spindle! To store the plied yarn, you’ll wrap it around a small cardboard disc. It’s a little mind-bending to think about, but it really works!
Once your yarn is plied, you need to set the twist. Galina shows how this is done too, with steam and no need to skein the yarn—absolute magic!
Get a closer look! Click on any image below to view it in full-screen mode.
Knitting Orenburg-Style
Sometimes just learning a new spinning technique is reward enough. But nothing can compare to joy of knitting with this soft and delicious fiber, so don’t let it sit in your stash for too long!
Galina's second video, Orenburg Knitting: Knitting Gossamer Webs, covers the ins and outs of knitting an Orenburg-style shawl. My version—sure to be an heirloom—is already offering me many more delightful hours as I knit each stitch with this soft and luscious handspun yarn.
Knitting with handspun cashmere yarn is pure delight.
Meet Galina
For just a taste of Galina's skill and knowledge about Orenburg spinning, check out this short video! She explains the importance of removing gaurd hairs from cashmere down and then demonstrates spinning the singles on her supported spindle.
We hope you'll spin, stitch, or weave along with us for the Cashmere on Ice competition! Simply make an original project with 50% or more cashmere content to participate. You'll find all the contest details on the Cashmere on Ice website.
Resources
Pamela K. Schultz is the content editor for Spin Off. She spins, knits, weaves, and gardens in coastal North Carolina.