hemp - polyester blend

[Alan H]

OK, I'm wearing it. The kilt leaves on a plane for El Salvador on Friday.

Wow. This fabric is NICE stuff. It drapes well, it looks a bit like denim, but doesn't wrinkle nearly as badly as cotton twill. I mean, there's a world of difference beetween making a kilt out of this stuff and making a bull denim or 100% cotton twill kilt. The cotton wrinkles like there's no tomorrow....this stuff doesn't. I mean, yeah, it wrinkles, but not bad.. I expect that it won't hold a crease like wool, but that's what sewn-down pleats are for.

I'm using the 10 ounce stuff. The mix is 75% hemp, 25% recycled polyester. It's not cheap, but if you want to try it for your next kilt, here's where you can get it.

http://www.nearseanaturals.com/brows...gory=23&page=1

the hemp/recycled PET is on page 2. There's also hemp/tencel, which looks like a potentially very cool fabric as well. Tencel sounds very synthetic, but read here about tencel...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencel

Note that it is similar to rayon, and UK for "rayon" is "viscose". I always thought that "Rayon" was some horrible synthetic made form oil and dead dinosaurs. Not so.

I am using 10 ounce hemp/recycled polyester, which I've found wholesale, online but not retail. Then again, I only spent about 3-4 hours looking. It's probably out there, somewhere. The stuff from Near Sea Natural is 16 ounce...substantial stuff. NOTE that there's "plain weave" and "twill" listed on the site. I, personally make my contemporary kilts out of twill, in part because the traditional weave of tartan is also twill, but of course that's up to you.

It's not cheap but if you want to make a "green kilt" that drapes well and feels great, there ya go. I believe they also sell hemp thread...not sure.

[Jake_S]

Awesome! Thanks for the link Alan. I might get a few yards of the java color.


Jake

[Tartan Hiker]

I like that java color, too. What a great fabric.


Good luck as your project moves into the next phase.

[BEEDEE]

Looks really interesting and I've bookmarked the site. I presume the selvage is unfinished and needs a hem?

Brian

[AndresPapousek]

"The kilt leaves on a plane for El Salvador on Friday."

Hey Alan
I live in Honduras, so I'm very courious about that Kilt goingo to El Salvador (3.5 hours from here). Are there some lad in this forum from there? Probably we are the only kilted in Central America.
Post some pics of this Kilt please!

Take Care
Andres

[Alan H]

Looks really interesting and I've bookmarked the site. I presume the selvage is unfinished and needs a hem?

Brian

That's correct, the selvedge on the hemp/polyester stuff that I have is not a kilting selvedge. I have hemmed this kilt. That's not a problem on a contemporary, IMHO, though others may disagree.

Robert from R Kilts really likes hemp and after making a kilt out of this hemp/poly blend I have to say WOW...yes, it's *great* stuff.