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Hemp Fiber

© Lili Pintea-Reed

Hemp Fiber by Lili Pintea-Reed

Hemp is an ancient fiber used long before most other fibers for cordage and for textiles, baskets and netting. It is a weed so prolific it is found all over the world. It produces fibers for use with less problems than many other bast fiber plants like flax. Much of the ancient *linen* found in old grave sites upon more recent scientific investigation proved to be hemp. Unfortunely, this useful fiber has been lost to us in North America because of the drugs that can be derived from the medicinal version of the hemp plant. Fiber Hemp has little or no medical properties.

Recently, prodution has been approved in Canada for fiber, seed, and oil. Hemp oil is very rich in some essential nutrients, and also shows great promise as a renewable source of pulp for paper, thus preserving our forests. A fine weed indeed. Check out these Canadian sites:

Fibrex Canada http://www.fibrexcanada.com/ and Another Canadian Hemp site http://www.hemptex.com/

For hand spinners, fiber can be bought in this country for hand spinning. Most is produced in the Orient or Cananda. It has a softer hand than linen and is less harsh to handle than flax fiber which can cut ones fingers as it is spun! Cotton has a softer hand, but does not grow in northern climes where both hemp and flax thrive. I suspect in the past this was one reason to select hemp over flax for spinning. Its just softer to the touch without all the pounding and soaking linen requires to soften it.

Hemp is processed for fiber exactly like linen. The plants are pulled in late August and let to rot either in water or out in heavy dew. When the outr covering of the plant is rotted soft (it smells!!!) the plants are washed and dried. Then the bast fibers which lie just under this outer layer are pounded loose from the woody plant core. The long fibers left are hackled (combed) and wrapped for spinning so that they don't tangle.

To spin them they are either pulled into a long fluffy mass called roving or are dressed onto a distaff, and pulled down from the mass to spin into yarn. Like flax the yarn spins most easily when wetted either with saliva or water from a nearby water pot. The fibers adhere best with the spit treatment, but many modern spinners find this offensive, so water is a good second option.

Once spun reel the yarn off into loose skeins to dry so it doesn't mildew.

To weave handle like linen. Dampen the warp (in the old