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Alright, so often when hemp comes up I hear about the textile uses. Personally, I sew a bit and love textiles, but I've never quite understood the allure of he

by kxyvr 7y ago

Alright, so often when hemp comes up I hear about the textile uses. Personally, I sew a bit and love textiles, but I've never quite understood the allure of hemp fabric or, at least, the best use for it in textiles. For making button shirts, long stable cotton such as sea island cotton is amazing. It's soft and has this amazing crispness that other plant fiber textiles such as hemp and linen do not have. In terms of suiting cloth, it seems like largely wool is king. There are tropical wools for the summer and thick tweeds for the winter; it's an amazing material. This brings us back to hemp. To me, hemp feels similar to linen, which has its uses, but it's more of a niche fabric. Now, there multiple ways to produce a fabric and I don't contend to know all of them, but what is the killer application for hemp fabric? As a related aside, there's been a lot of evolution of textile technology over the last several thousand years. In the American southwest, cotton supplanted native fibers over a thousand years ago. We can make cloth from yucca, agave, jute, etc., but we largely don't because cotton is generally better. That's partly why I'm curious about hemp. Other than a fad, it seems like cotton and wool won the textile game. For those curious, here are some older papers discussing textiles in the Americas: https://arizona.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10150/324750/azu_td_box703_e9791_1933_24_w.pdf https://arizona.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10150/32... https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1586&context=tsaconf https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

jelliclesfarm 7y ago
Wool is animal product. Terrestrial land mass shrinking due to higher human population. Hemp is a good rotational crop between corn and alfafa. It restores marginal and tired soils. It will fit in beautifully in American Ag.
- kxyvr 7y ago
  Candidly, I don't know much about the sustainability of hemp versus the many varieties of cotton, so I will defer. That said, it's not clear to me that sustainability will be the ultimate decider for what textile people use. People need to want to wear a garment because it provides the qualities they desire, which is largely look and feel. To me, hemp looks and feels like linen, which has largely lost out to cotton as a material of choice. As such, it's not clear to me that hemp will be more desirable than cotton. Now, again, maybe hemp really is the best material for some application like upholstery or bags, but I've never heard a good argument for that, which is why I'm asking. As far as wool, it has very different characteristics from plant fibers. It felts; it can be warm or cool; it insulates when wet. People in cold climates use wool and other animal textiles for a reason and I don't see how they will be easily supplanted. Anyway, my point is not to argue that hemp is bad. Really, outside of the environmental factors, where would I want to use hemp apart from linen, cotton, or wool?

by kxyvr 7y ago

jelliclesfarm 7y ago

Wool is animal product. Terrestrial land mass shrinking due to higher human population. Hemp is a good rotational crop between corn and alfafa. It restores marginal and tired soils. It will fit in beautifully in American Ag.

kxyvr 7y ago
Candidly, I don't know much about the sustainability of hemp versus the many varieties of cotton, so I will defer. That said, it's not clear to me that sustainability will be the ultimate decider for what textile people use. People need to want to wear a garment because it provides the qualities they desire, which is largely look and feel. To me, hemp looks and feels like linen, which has largely lost out to cotton as a material of choice. As such, it's not clear to me that hemp will be more desirable than cotton. Now, again, maybe hemp really is the best material for some application like upholstery or bags, but I've never heard a good argument for that, which is why I'm asking. As far as wool, it has very different characteristics from plant fibers. It felts; it can be warm or cool; it insulates when wet. People in cold climates use wool and other animal textiles for a reason and I don't see how they will be easily supplanted. Anyway, my point is not to argue that hemp is bad. Really, outside of the environmental factors, where would I want to use hemp apart from linen, cotton, or wool?