Hemptique Hemp Cord Review and Pride Pattern collab
I’m so excited to bring you my first yarn review and introduce you to a new favorite yarn to keep in my stash. I learned about the yarn brand Hemptique at this year’s H+H. After the show I continued to talk with them about trying some of their hemp cord out. They were generous enough to send me some samples to play with! Prior to this I hadn’t worked with hemp fiber before.
To celebrate pride month I picked out the Rainbow colorway and the Taffy colorway. I was sent both the small spool that comes in size #20 or 1 mm and the big spool that comes in #10 or .5 mm. I played around with both the yarn weights and created a handful of some jewelry ideas as well as a small pouch design. I enjoyed the experience of letting the yarn inform my pattern designing process and exploring my thoughts about the yarn, too.
Firstly, I love natural fiber (no hate to acrylics, we don’t do yarn elitism over here). Trying out this hemp cord gave me a chance to try a new natural fiber yarn. When I think about hemp cord I think of durability. Hemptique’s H+H booth was full of samples of their yarn and cords worked up into a variety of projects. I was especially impressed with the difference in the newer projects to the older ones, because the hemp gets softer the more you use it but doesn’t lose its strength or stretch out. Making it a very appealing fiber to work with. The colorways I saw on the show floor were great and I enjoyed hearing more about the different ways people were already using the products. Bookbinding was something that came up that absolutely piqued my interest and took me back to my time in university binding books for class. That project would be for another day, but I do have left over cord…
Hemptique has an excellent website not only to purchase their yarn from, but to also learn about hemp and get inspired. While my head was already buzzing with ideas of my own to try, taking a look through the Learn & DIY section on their site was delightful. Needless to say, as a fiber nerd, I adored all of the information on hemp yarn they provide.
I could easily fill this page with hemp yarn facts, instead I’ll share the ones that stood out to me the most and why it appeals to me as a fiber artist. Hemp is a compostable and biodegradable fiber. I know fiber artists especially can be enamored with the idea of their work being heirloom pieces, passed down from one generation to the next. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, my family has blankets my great grandmother made that we love. However, I don’t believe all of my work needs to be on this planet forever. I’m okay with making things, loving them, and then returning to the planet. There is a poetry in this life cycle to me just as much as being able to reach through time as you hold something stitched by somebody who died years before you were born. Expanding on the fascination with yarn being transformed over time, I want to highlight again how hemp yarn will soften as you wash it again and again. Lastly, as a crochet cosplayer who is notoriously self sabotaging when it comes to choosing breathable or at least non-heat stroke inducing costumes, it excites me that hemp yarn can prevent odor and is resistant to bacteria growth. I haven’t had any odor or bacteria related issues with my projects, but these are still much appreciated traits as a person regularly sweating their butt off in yarn outfits.
Let’s dive into my thoughts after making a pattern collection. It is a pride themed collection thanks to the beautiful yarn doing the heavy lifting by being the lovely colors they are. The Rainbow colorway clearly represents the iconic rainbow flag used by the LGBTQIA+ community, while the Taffy colorway reminds me of the lesbian flag colors. The designs themselves can be made with different yarns, but I would suggest that hemp for these pieces actually contributes quite a bit to their design and function. I will have separate blog posts for the sets of design which you can find here:
I hope you enjoy these patterns!
I’ve been crocheting for over 13 years at this point, I could probably count the number of times on one hand I’ve written a pattern and honestly do the same for the number of times I’ve read them. Testing two colorways simultaneously was a great help to figure out key details and tweak the patterns as needed. It was also twice the time to test out the yarn.
To start, I’ll delve into what impressed me with this hemp cord. The spools of hemp may look small, but I was able to make much more than I anticipated with the yardage. Both the #10 and #20 spools are 62.5m of cord. The yarn was smooth on my hook and did not fight me once I got a solid tension set up. The hemp holds its shape really well, so if you stitch with a looser, more open stitch it is easy to work back into. A yarn that has a sense of structure to it allows me to create shapes knowing they won’t get stretched out. I feel comfortable making projects like jewelry and bags with hemp for its ability to be washed so easily. Both cords were lightweight, the #10 being the finer of the two, which meant I could make larger earrings without worrying about adding too much weight. Finally, the blend between colors on each spool is seamless. Working with variegated yarn can be dreamy when you are lucky enough to see a dye job as nice as the Hemptique Hemp cord in Taffy and Rainbow.
Although it would be fun to exclusively list stellar things about the yarn, I want to be honest and thorough in my review, so it’s time to delve into challenges I had with this yarn. Firstly, I mentioned above that the yarn can be smooth to work with, yet I would still caution somebody very new to crochet with this fiber. Understanding how to adjust tension is something that takes practice. With some fibers you can adjust a stitch after you’ve made it by pulling the yarn a bit to resize it, but this yarn did not have the same forgiveness. For that reason, this yarn may not be the most beginner friendly. Outside of this, I did encounter instances in each spool where the yarn had been knotted together or starting to fray. This is not unusual, and I encounter it in most yarn I work with so it didn't bother me too much. Lastly, this hemp yarn is stiff and after a long span of time stitching with it my left hand where I was holding the yarn got uncomfortable. I’d still consider this yarn safe for my sensory preferences, but I would be sure to take breaks when my hand felt uncomfortable or wear a compression glove on my left hand as well.
Overall, I would highly recommend this yarn. This yarn is great for a project you want to take out into the world and last you a while. The lasting quality of hemp makes it an appealing fiber to work with. Hemptique offers a great selection of hemp yarn, along with other fibers, too. Not only is their yarn gorgeous and great to work with, their brand offers a clear enthusiasm for educating others about hemp and its uses. It shows when a brand cares about being a supportive part of the fiber community, and Hemptique has left me thoroughly pleased. I’m so grateful to have been able to review their hemp cord for my first yarn review! We have discussed how hemp could be an extraordinary fiber to use in crochet cosplays for its versatility as well as ability to create structured stitches. Rest assured this was the first but certainly not last time that Hemptique yarn will be making an appearance in my work.
If you would like to get 10% off of your order on Hemptique’s site you can use my affiliate code SCARLET10
It is important for me to reiterate that this is my first time writing a review of yarn. I will do my best to convey my thoughts on the yarn, but I would welcome feedback if there is something more helpful to include in my reviews going forward!
