When we released our merino/cashmere blend yarn Capra in the fall of 2010, we were really excited to see the response from customers – it was a hit!  After that launch, we immediately started work on developing a finer weight of cashmere-blend yarn that would make super-squishy socks and floaty, lightweight garments.  That yarn just launched – Capretta!

Capretta is a blend of 20.5 micron merino wool (for softness), cashmere (for that velvety I-can’t-stop-touching-it quality), and nylon (for durability).  The swatch in the image above is knit at a fairly tight gauge, 8 stitches to the inch, and it feels cushiony and plush with a slight halo.  I’m personally dying to try it out using a looser gauge on some lightweight sweater patterns like Pas de Valse by Marnie MacLean or Hannah Fettig’s Breezy Cardigan. 

A note on naming – when developing a new yarn line, we tend to use yarn “family” names for blends that use the same fibers and have the same structure.  Wool of the Andes is a great example, and our 4-ply 100% Peruvian wool yarns all share the WotA name (and why Palette, a 2-ply 100% Peruvian wool yarn, has a different name).  With Capretta, however, we weren’t just making a finer version of Capra since we needed the nylon to help the yarn work for sock knitting.  So, after we finally found a blend and spin that we all loved, we came up with a name that was related to Capra but not exactly the same.  That’s how Capretta (“Little Goat” in Italian, named after the cashmere fibers) was born.