Organic and Eco-Friendly Products

Knitting is a fun and creative hobby while being practical and productive. Hand knitted garments makes great presents that really show that you care.

Today knitters have many choices of yarns to use other than the traditional sheep’s wool. Take Pearl Yarn for example. Peal Yarn is a unique blend of 80%Bamboo fibre and 20% Yak Down with a thread of lame. The blend of these two fibres makes for an incredibly soft wool that is very gentle on the skin. This beautifully smooth yarn creates fabulously elegant hand knits with incredible stitch definition. Yak fibres are sourced from the exotic Himalayan regions, bringing you the same warmth that protects the yaks at sub-zero temperatures.

It is remarkably soft to touch and is available in a variety of colours to suit your knitting needs.

Pearl Yarn is machine washable (in garment bag) in cold/lukewarm water for easy care of garments (alternatively garments can also be dry cleaned).

Pearl Yarn knits up to four stitches per inch and the recommended needle size for this yarn is US9(5.5mm). It is spun in a 2 ply, lace weight yarn.

Pearl Yarn can be purchased from Ettitude (a clothing company that specializes in organic and environmentally friendly options). For more information please click here.

Down is found under exterior feathers on birds and are a finer and softer layer of feathers.

Down feathers are used to make quilts, sleeping bags, pillows, comforters as well as other products. Down products have a very popular soft, snuggly feel to them which makes them very popular.

Down is a textile that has one of the best thermal heating qualities. Down has great lofting characteristics which enables it to trap little pockets of air easily, helping to contribute to the thermal qualities of the product by creating a thermal barrier.

Advantages of Down Products:

• Good thermal and heat retention properties
• Light weight
• Easily comprisable

Where can I buy down product?

Ettitude is a textiles company that carries a large range of down products, even including yak down products. They are an environmentally friendly company who believe that we can all make a difference to reduce effect we are having on our planet.  All Ettitude products are available in a quick, convenient, online shopping cart system which enables you to order then in the comfort of your own home.

Wild Yaks

Yaks are thought to have been domesticated in Tibet during the 1st millennium BC, and are now quite common around the mountains of Central Asia (around 12 million). Domesticated yaks are generally smaller than wild yaks, which can weigh over 1000 kilos and reach a shoulder height over 2 metres. Wild yaks are very well adapted to high altitudes, with huge lung capacities for extracting oxygen from the atmosphere of the highlands and blood cells about half the size of those of cattle and with at least three times more, increasing the blood’s capacity to carry oxygen. It can also survive extremely low temperatures (as low as -40°C), through a dense undercoat of matted hair and long shaggy outer hair that almost reaches the ground, further assisted by a low number of sweat glands to conserve heat.

Unfortunately for the last decade wilk yak populations have been decreasing as a result of uncontrolled hunting and now poaching, further compounded by the loss of habitat to pastoralists, hybridisation, and disease transmission from domestic yaks. From the 1960s to 1994 wild yaks were considered an endangered species, from 1994 to the present they have been rated as vulnerable by the IUCN. In fact, it may extinct in Nepal already. Compared to its once populous numbers covering China, India, Bhutan and Nepal, it now is likely to have a population less than 10 000.

General Yak Information

Wilk yaks are found mostly on treeless alpine uplands and mountains, grazing on grasses, herbs, mosses and lichens. As running water is infrequent at those heights, they survive by crunching ice or snow for hydration. They feed mostly in the morning and evening, travelling long distances according to temperature and food supply.

They organise themselves as herds, mostly consisting of female and young yaks, although male yaks may congregate in smaller groups. The herds usually travel in single file in the snow, with each yak carefully following in the hoof prints of the lead yak. Yaks give birth to single calves in alternate years, depending on food supply, and the young become independent after about a year.