June Cashmere // Beeswax Mitts

Over the Thanksgiving holiday break, I really wanted a quick, small knit (the Star Wars sweater is at an unwieldy intarsia part and all of my design work is at the "big decision time" part), so I used a skein of June Cashmere DK in Mulberry to make a pair of Beeswax Mitts. I've been moderately obsessed with this pattern since it was released (along with what feels like most of the rest of the knitting world), but I don't often have DK on hand, and I'm almost always short on non-design knitting time. The stars aligned over Thanksgiving and now I have either a beautiful little luxury Christmas gift or a new pair of mitts for me. Not sure which yet.

The June Cashmere is lovely. It's quite soft, as you'd expect from a 100% cashmere yarn. Love the color selection- great jewel tones + neutrals. Perfect for colorwork projects, perhaps? The skein is half size (50 grams, 150 yards), so that's definitely something to keep in mind if you plan to knit with it. I used nearly all of the skein (40 grams) to make these (short-ish) mitts. I don't think I would have had enough to do mittens. 

I like that this yarn is responsibly sourced in Kyrgyzstan and is transparent about where it's processed. Ever since I saw this John Oliver segment about sweatshops I've been trying hard to know where my clothes (and clothes-making materials) come from. The more free time I have, the better I feel about it, because more free time = more time to make my own clothes. Since we had to move into this apartment after the house flooded, I've sewn one single garment. There is simply nowhere to sew, and no place to store sewing stuff. I hate that. I've made a bunch of knitted stuff, so at least that's something, but I hate not being able to sew. I just want to move back into my house, please. 

Anyway. Back to the yarn. The yarn is made up of many, many tiny plies, which means that it does split easily. Once it splits, it's a bit hard to make the stitch look pretty again, so it's best to try hard to not split the yarn. I find that paying slightly more attention and using sharper needle tips helps me not split stitches, but I know other knitters swear by blunt tips. As always, you do you. 

Full disclosure: I was given this skein of June Cashmere in exchange for a review. I bought the mitts pattern because it's important to support indie designers like myself.