Cashmere

[moosefly]

Christmas is coming and the wife wants a cashmere sweater! why is cashmere so expensive???

[Cetti]

This gives you an idea why it's so incredibly pricey - Cashmere is the down shed annually by goats living in the high, dry plateaus that stretch from northern China into Mongolia, surrounding the Gobi Desert. In order for these goats to survive they have coarse outer hair that repels the weather. Beneath that external coat lies a much finer fibre, cashmere, which insulates these animals from the bitter cold. It takes each of these rare goats four years to produce enough cashmere for one sweater. In order to collect the cashmere, each goat is combed by hand every spring. The fleece is then collected and sorted by hand. In addition, the sweaters are usually knitted on hand-operated machines. http://www.cashmere.com/html/101/101.html

[5029]

If it helps, George at Asda are doing them for about �45