I did not spin it myself, though it sounds like a fun thing to try!
Before picking up crochet I was already a big fan of hemp. I’m a pot smoker first and foremost so thats where the interest stems from. I vaporize the plant for medicine, might as well see if I can wear its fibers too.
As I learned more about industrial hemp and its many pros as a natural fiber material, I became more interested from an ideological and material consumer perspective.
Hemp is stronger than steel in tensile strength, so anything you make with it is incredibly resistant to wear. Its a material that wears in like denim jeans so its fantastic for bedding sheets and clothing in the long term as it smooths and softens. This is incredibly appealing to me as a material property. I got so sick of all my cheap textile things from a store wearing down so its refreshing to make something with durability by my own hand as a “fuck it I’ll do it myself”. The hand towels are never going to seriously fray or come undone or turn rough and thinned out through normal wear.
I don’t like plastic fibers either. A lot of crochet yarn is either acrylic or a blend of acrylic and natural. I don’t want to introduce any more microplastics into my enviroment.
Hemp is a replenishing crop that heals the soil, puts nutrients in, captures a shit load of Co2, and grows like a weed without need for lots of water or fertilizer. compared to cotton which depletes soil, drinks water like crazy, and needs constant fertilizer. By buying hemp I’m voting with my wallet and saying I want to support ecologically friendly sources of my textiles which is a feel good kind of thing.
Hemp isnt a perfect material, though. Remember how I said its tough like steel? Its a real bitch to work with when trying to get a loop inside another loop in crochet. Absolutely no give at all which made it a real pain when the tolerances werent quite right. Lots of undoing and redoing the same loops. I imagine acrylic is much more workable and forgiving when trying to force it through.
Its also not a plush soft velvety texture. Its a rough and tough type of fiber that needs to get worn in before its really enjoyable to touch or use as a body scrub.
Sorry about the infodump, hope this helps you understand my reasoning.
Love a good info dump and really appreciate the explanation. I think you’d be quite happy checking out Sally Pointer on YouTube. She has a lot of info on working with natural fibers. Don’t think she has anything on hemp specifically but I think a lot of her videos are going to be applicable to hemp too. Things like slightly wetting the fiber before working with it are probably things that are going to be quite useful. But it might just be that hemp doesn’t crochet well. She also has many videos on different ways to make fiber into things that are a lot older than crochet and they seemingly all require less looping and bending. She does do a lot of infodumping too, but if you mind that you can always skip over those parts.
I did not spin it myself, though it sounds like a fun thing to try!
Before picking up crochet I was already a big fan of hemp. I’m a pot smoker first and foremost so thats where the interest stems from. I vaporize the plant for medicine, might as well see if I can wear its fibers too.
As I learned more about industrial hemp and its many pros as a natural fiber material, I became more interested from an ideological and material consumer perspective.
Hemp is stronger than steel in tensile strength, so anything you make with it is incredibly resistant to wear. Its a material that wears in like denim jeans so its fantastic for bedding sheets and clothing in the long term as it smooths and softens. This is incredibly appealing to me as a material property. I got so sick of all my cheap textile things from a store wearing down so its refreshing to make something with durability by my own hand as a “fuck it I’ll do it myself”. The hand towels are never going to seriously fray or come undone or turn rough and thinned out through normal wear.
I don’t like plastic fibers either. A lot of crochet yarn is either acrylic or a blend of acrylic and natural. I don’t want to introduce any more microplastics into my enviroment.
Hemp is a replenishing crop that heals the soil, puts nutrients in, captures a shit load of Co2, and grows like a weed without need for lots of water or fertilizer. compared to cotton which depletes soil, drinks water like crazy, and needs constant fertilizer. By buying hemp I’m voting with my wallet and saying I want to support ecologically friendly sources of my textiles which is a feel good kind of thing.
Hemp isnt a perfect material, though. Remember how I said its tough like steel? Its a real bitch to work with when trying to get a loop inside another loop in crochet. Absolutely no give at all which made it a real pain when the tolerances werent quite right. Lots of undoing and redoing the same loops. I imagine acrylic is much more workable and forgiving when trying to force it through.
Its also not a plush soft velvety texture. Its a rough and tough type of fiber that needs to get worn in before its really enjoyable to touch or use as a body scrub.
Sorry about the infodump, hope this helps you understand my reasoning.
Love a good info dump and really appreciate the explanation. I think you’d be quite happy checking out Sally Pointer on YouTube. She has a lot of info on working with natural fibers. Don’t think she has anything on hemp specifically but I think a lot of her videos are going to be applicable to hemp too. Things like slightly wetting the fiber before working with it are probably things that are going to be quite useful. But it might just be that hemp doesn’t crochet well. She also has many videos on different ways to make fiber into things that are a lot older than crochet and they seemingly all require less looping and bending. She does do a lot of infodumping too, but if you mind that you can always skip over those parts.