the first hemp

My first contact with hemp fabric

A few years ago I got the idea of making a natural bean bag, the way Fatboy successfully had done, but now made of breathing (and non static electric!), ecologically produced nice materials. I fell for hemp - it grows like weed (literally...) without fertilizers and pesticides, makes a strong fiber (used in rope since centuries) and nice fabric in many qualities. There is no Swedish hemp fabric, but I found eco hemp at Ecolution in Rumania...
...and here is the first sample I received, marked with the type name "Brod". To be added to the chair.

And the product that we since then make from hemp, the Flour Fellows

This is what the fabric looks like in the final product,
Flour Fellow by Green Furniture Sweden

#1 and 2, first weaving

One leg of the pair of jeans

What: My favorite but worn out jeans. Size 32/36. Light yellow/green-blueish.

How: Cut into two pieces. On the second piece I removed a pocket to make a thinner ending. The length was just right for going from left to right and back again which makes a very good attachment. I fold the weft (the woven fabric) so that it makes a pocket on the bottom side and press the ends into the pocket (Oh, that sounded complicated, I think I need to make a photo of this some time...).

Reflection: Somewhat thin maybe... It's nice if the fabric 'flows over' the grid a little bit sidewise when weaving - the jeans could have been larger - not slim fit :-)  - and I could have folded them to a wider band (now I tried matching the grid size of 5 cm). Maybe I could even have use both legs together and than have cut off part of the waste where there is more fabric?

Weaving. I cut of the label and pushed it in afterwards,
we'll see how it goes with its coming neighbors 

First thing to add

We store a lot of old fabrics at home, I went out to check if anything really could be called waste, and be used as a first T-shirt Chair part...

...and I came back with The favorite jeans - the-once-far-to-expensive-but-oh-so-nice-Lindeberg-slim-cut, that I wore till they couldn't take more, then coloured yellow and they became my 'designer-outfit-jeans' :-) (the colouring was a success - the mix of the pale shifting blue jean with the yellow creating a yellow and green mix...!), and then wore till they virtually fell into pieces...

I am now glad I saved them...! Here they are ready to make a first milestone:

My first memory to weave into furniture

The grid of the story

The first T-shirt Chair frame from production,
ready to be roles out by Green Furniture Sweden

Test weaving with with sofa fabric leftovers

Together with Maria Westerberg, the designer of the T-shirt Chair, I visited Glimåkra in southern Sweden today - the place where T-Shirt Chairs will be produced (or rather woven, stuffed, upholstered or however you decribe somthing new like this).

Task: Examining the first production T-shirt Chair frame + testing upholstry with fabric waste from sofas + instructing on how to weave a chair and how to make nice colour mix from waste fabric...

Nice colour mix!

Outcome: The pieces of fabric stay in place due to that the fabric waste here comes in full role width (usually 140cm), sizes for different fabric types set, and Peter nailed to dig into being a T-shirt Chair artist - choosing nice fabrics and weaving the chairs in production.

Other outcome: Well there were two frames made, I ended up with the faulty one (too stiff and heavy) in the back of my car...
...and now it stands here on my living room floor asking for attention...  :-)

Fabric waste to use