The mill gets going before it's light out. By the time we got there the looms had been running for an hour, and the whole floor hummed so low you felt it in your chest more than you heard it.
Four generations of the same family have woven there. They still check every bolt by hand, running the edge under one bright lamp from end to end.
We went to sign off on the season's crepe. We came home with three extra samples nobody asked for, little experiments the weavers had tried on a slow afternoon.
One of them turned into our cashmere jacket. That's the best kind of surprise, the one you didn't even know to ask for.