All Hail Hemp. . .

Happy Earth Day!

I've been reading Adria Vasil's new book Ecoholic Body with great interest and some trepidation.  It's a bit scary to think of how many toxins and pollutants reside in products that we use every day.  Yesterday I went out and bought an eco-friendly, ceramic, teflon-free frying pan. I love the colour!

One of the chapters I've been most interested in is on clothing.  I'm trying to follow the Slow Clothing tenets this year and keep my purchases to those garments made out of natural fibres that are biodegradable. I've also cut way back on clothes buying (yarn purchases are a completely different matter!) and really digging into my wardrobe to rediscover clothes that I've had forever but still have plenty of wear in them.  When I read that hemp is "king of green" due to its low pesticide use and the fact that it utilizes much less water in its production than cotton, I really wanted to try knitting with the fibre.  Lanaknits is a Canadian company that produces hemp yarn.  I used several skeins of their fingering allhemp3 for my Grellow version of Color Affection.

I love working with hemp.  It's a bit rough to start (though not as much as some cottons I've worked with), but it softens up with washing and has a lovely drape.  I've been wearing this more as a scarf and I can attest that it's really cozy around the neck, without being too hot.  I think it's a lovely fibre for summer knits and so I've cast on for Flaming June, by Vancouver designer Cheryl Naimath.  It's knit also with the fingering hemp.  Off on a business trip later today - this will be great airport knitting!