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.