Glossary

Armhole

This is the distance between the shoulder of a sweater and the armpit of a sweater. It is the opening in a sweater where you put your arm through.

Cashmere

The fine hairs found in the soft undercoat on the belly of the cashmere (or Kashmir) goat, a mountain-dwelling breed of Asian goat who have adapted to the extreme temperatures of the Gobi Desert. Most cashmere is from goats found in Mongolia and China. 

Fully-fashioned

A method of knitwear construction whereby each piece of the knitwear is individually knitted first into a specific shape before being hand-linked together. Much like a bespoke suit, this makes the finished garment more well fitted and wrap more naturally around the body. 

Gauge

In knitting, this term refers to the number of stitches per inch, for example, 12 gauge means there are 12 stitches per inch of fabric. Therefore, the higher the gauge number, the more stitches there are per inch and the more finely knitted a garment is. Gauge is closely related to the fineness of the yarn being knitted as the finer the yarn, the higher the gauge (and therefore the tighter the knit) should be. Conversely, a thicker yarn will require the garment to be knitted more loosely, hence a lower gauge number. As a general rule of thumb, the higher the gauge number, the thinner a piece of knitwear will be and the lower the gauge number, the chunkier the knitwear will be. 

Hand-linking

A meticulous process by which each tiny knit-loop at the end of each piece of the sweater is linked together by hand. This ensures that the seams are the smoothest, straightest and strongest, to prevent the garment from losing shape despite years of regular wear. 

Ply

This is how many individual strands of yarn are twisted into a single thread which is then knitted into a garment. This means that the higher the ply number, the more strands of yarn are twisted together to make a single thread of yarn, making the yarn thicker. For example, a 2-ply cashmere yarn means that 2 individual strands of cashmere yarn are twisted together to make a single thread of yarn. Broadly speaking, the higher the ply number, the thicker the yarn is and the chunkier the knitwear will be. 

One point to note about our products is that given the fineness of cashmere yarn compared to superfine lambswool, a 2-ply cashmere yarn is the same thickness as a 1-ply superfine lambswool yarn. 

Rib-stitch

This is a method of knitting by which columns of vertical stripes are created on a garment. This allows more air to be trapped, making the garment warmer. 

Sleevehead

This is the connecting point between the shoulder and the sleeve of a garment. 

Superfine Lambswool

Lambswool is wool taken from the first shearing of a lamb, at around six or seven months old, so it is relatively fine and soft compared to wool that is taken from subsequent shearing. Superfine lambswool is the finest (and therefore softest) of lambswool varieties, being around 18.5 microns in diameter when most lambswool is around 21 - 24 microns in diameter. 

Yarn

A continuous length of thread made of fibres that have been spun. For industrial knitting, yarn is often wrapped around cones.