Yarn Review: Himalayan Trail from Bijou Basin

Full disclosure, I was sent the yarn by Stefanie Goodwin-Ritter, of Stitchcraft Marketing.  They help coordinate online and promotional things with Bijou Spun.  I also spent a good 45 minutes talking to Carl (one of the owners of Bijou) at Rhinebeck, and was thoroughly charmed.

I decided to request two often problematic colors: a strong red and a strong yellow.  If there was any problem with dye bleed, I wanted to know about it.  I’m happy to report that I needn’t have worried.  The yarn is completely colorfast, and the colors are strong and vibrant.

Let me share with you what this yarn is and isn’t.  I was sent Bijou’s Himalayan Trail, which comes in a skein of 2 oz and 200 yards.  It’s 75% Yak Down and 25% Super Fine Merino.  It’s a 2 ply yarn, rather loose/medium spun (it’s not quite totally loosely spun, it it isn’t quite medium either), and hovers around a sportweight yarn.  The price seems to hover around $25.

Normally I’d be wary about two ply yarns not spun tightly; in my experience they tend to be rather prone to splitting.  Perhaps because of the down’s fuzziness, or the general properties of the yarn, I found the two strands liked to “cling” to each other.  That meant that they were a lot less prone to splitting than I expected.

Stitch definition is pretty good – again, something about the yarn seems to mean it deviates from the norm.  Part of this is because even though the yarn is a little “fuzzy,” the fuzzies are not overwhelming.

The yarn’s got a springy and lofty feel, and it comes across as sturdy and on the softer side.  The loft is amazing.  As soon as I got this yarn I knew it was destined for things that were warm and snuggly: garter stitch, brioche and ribbing all came to mind.  Stockinette doesn’t do the yarn justice.  Cables and colorwork are good options too.

Now, a couple of things to be aware of.  These are not quite detractors, but they are things to take into consideration.

When I made my pair of fingerless gloves, I did deliberately choose to seam them together.  I wanted to see how the yarn stood up to the stresses of seaming – as I had a sneaking suspicion that this yarn wouldn’t be the best.  My seams were about 3-4″ long, and while the yarn did hold up, it looked pretty worse for wear when I was done.  If I was seaming up a sweater or other garment, I’d probably choose to do the seaming in another yarn.  The Yak Down, being a shorter staple length, means that I’d probably break the yarn if I was working a long seam.  In fact, I can easily break the yarn in my hands, without even pulling that hard.  That isn’t surprising.  Yak Down is a very short staple length, and I’m sure the Merino is doing the bulk of the work holding the yarn together.

Also, I think it’d do well to one or two unravelings, but if you were working a project and you knew you might be ripping back a lot… this wouldn’t be the project to use this yarn.  I’d also be careful about which way you pull the yarn from the yarn cake: if you were going in the wrong direction, I could see you removing some of the twist from the yarn and that could be frustrating.  Still, I have that problem with a lot of other yarns, so it’s more something to be aware of.

I’ve been wearing my fingerless gloves for nearly a week and a half.  Pilling or shedding hasn’t been a problem.  I wouldn’t choose this yarn for something that was meant for rugged wear: neither socks nor shoveling mittens would be a good choice.  But things like hats, cowls, sweaters worn close to the skin, fingerless mitts, and shawls would be great choices.  Still, I think those detractors are a fair tradeoff, considering the other pluses.

An I will say this much, I’ve worked a couple of different design proposals in this yarn in the last couple of days, which means I like it enough to work with it!  And I’m picky!