The Manufacturing Process

The craft of handknitting a cashmere garment is highly skilled. The process listed below sounds quite simple and straight forward but the skills required to knit, bind and finish a garment take years to develop. Continue reading to find out more about the four main processes: knitting, binding, milling and finishing. 

Creation of a Garment

Step 1 - Knitting

Our garments are knitted on 12 guage (12 needles per inch) knitting machines.  The plain panels are knitted on a Dubied 12 needle V-bed (two rows of needles) handknitting machine. The sleeves and bodies are all knitted to shape by moving the stitches across the needles to narrow and widen according to the garment design and size. 

The trimmings (neck, cuffs and welts) are also knitted on the Dubied.    

The patterned panels are knitted on a 12 needle Protti Intarsia knitting machine. This machine has one row of needles facing the handknitter so that they have access to all the needles. This cashmere threads are placed over the needles to form the Intarsia pattern, then they are knitted in when the machine head is pulled across. Every single row is hand thrown making this form of knitting highly complex and time consuming but we can achieve higher quality and more complex patterns than modern automatic machines.   

Step 2 - Greasy Binding

The garments are assembled by binding them together at the sides, under the arms, across the shoulder and around the sleeve. We do this on a Complett binding machine which has 26 points to the inch. We bind the garment together while it is still greasy with the oils that strengthen the yarn. No part of the fabric is cut for greasy binding, as the garment has been knitted into the final shape.

Step 3 - Greasy Finishing

When the garment has been bound together, there are chains at the cuffs and shoulders of the garment that have to be secured. Before the garment is milled, these chains are hand-sewn into place.

Step 4 - Milling

Each cashmere garment is milled with the soft water of the Scottish Borders that makes Scottish Cashmere a soft, pliable fabric that is a joy to wear all year round.  Our milling (washing) process is what sets Scottish Cashmere ahead of the the rest of the world and is why Scottish Cashmere is sought after by customers all over the world. The softness and feel of the cashmere is second to none.

We wash the garment to remove the excess oils from the yarn, that are only required to strengthen the fibres so that they can be fed through the knitting machine. Each cashmere garment is washed with the soft water of the Scottish Borders in a specialised washing machine for approximately 18 minutes at a low temperature. The garments are then dried in an industrial machine at a very cool setting (not recommended at home!).

The garments are then pressed to size on a steam bed.

Step 5 - Clean Binding