Natural Cotton Raffia Yarn for Buckwheat Summer Sun Hat, Beach Bag, Rayon Crochet, Straw Knitting Materials - 280 Meters/306 Yards

A challenge to work sometimes when doing tight stitches, especially because my skin has issues in winter, but I must love pain because I plan to do several more projects with this stuff. It seems very useful, and it's the perfect material for coasters and placemats and market bags.A lot of people talk about the yarn being stiff, and it is if you don't wet-block it. Heck, even for a bag or something, I would spray it generously with a fine mist and let it dry. The yarn becomes floppy and more cloth-like while still retaining it's shape and firmness (if that makes sense ... my coasters went from hard, curled up flowers to floppy coasters that I can roll up into a tube without room for even a pencil to squeeze in).

This is the first time I try crocheting with raffia yarn. At first, it was a bit difficult to get used to. After a while, it was OK. Don’t expect to be able to crochet very quickly with this type of “yarn.”. I used a size 4mm hook for this hat, which is still a work in progress. Very good for making hats or bags, I think. Once finished, your hat will be quite flexible, but it will have a good, solid shape to it. There’s a lot in the skein. As you can see, I am almost finished with the hat, but I still have quite a bit left.

I bought this to use for crocheting a hat for my son. As I expected, it was quite stiff to work with. Overall, it worked pretty well for crocheting a hat, however, it was quite rough on my hands. I eventually turned to wearing a cotton glove on my left hand to protect it from developing blisters and abrasions as I worked the crochet hook with my right hand. That helped but, was a little bit awkward. Fortunately, one would not expect this type of yarn to produce something pristine so, the variations caused by having the glove slip around did not really impact the overall appearance of the hat I was making. There is definitely variation in thickness of the yarn as one works through the spool. Again, sort of expected for this type of fiber. The description says that two spools will be necessary for making a hat. The hat I made was very simple in design. It was inspired by the simple, gently cone shaped hats traditionally worn by people working in the fields in places like Viet Nam. The hat I made has a 14" diameter at its base. One spool would have been plenty for making this style of hat. I bought both a purple and a green spool. The dye from the green spool wore off onto the white, cotton glove that I wore. The purple did not appear to have this issue.

Crocheting a beach bag. Works nicely. Good quality.

It’s been years since I crocheted with raffia. I remember the raffia of several decades ago as being fairly pliable. This raffia is quite coarse. Very difficult to work with and keep even tension.

This raffia is amazing for crochet projects. There is a shallow learning curve for crocheting with this particular kind of raffia but once I figured it out it was a pleasure to work with. So far I have made this hat and bag. I love how they turned out and am looking forward to working on more projects in more colors with this raffia.

I’ve been on the hunt for a good raffia for summer hats. I’m an advanced crocheter, but I’ve had a hard time with the flat raffia. I tried a TON. This one is twisted to more resemble regular yarn, and instead of worrying what the flat part is doing, i can just count my stitches and get moving. The stitches are nice and regular, if you prefer that kind of thing (and I do). I LOVE IT!Raffia is a little harder on the fingers than regular yarn, so I’m using a bandaid on one of my fingers for now, but have a silicon thimble on the way.The cord is about 2mm thick. It is really soft and flexible. So far I can tell this is going to be a hat i just throw in my suitcase and not worry about crushing. I’m still on the crown, but my guess is if i do my increases properly, the brim will not flop around. It’s soft but has some body. I’m a traditionalist, so chose the natural color, but there is a wide variety of colors for any taste. I rated five stars for durability because I had a few stops and starts where I had to rip out a bunch of stitches, but when worked again they had no weakness and you can’t tell where they were (hard to do with the flat/tape like raffia).I’m doing this one as a wild brim, but am already thinking ahead of the visor I’m going to make for when my hair is in a bun on top of my head.I stopped in the middle of my project to write this review because I had almost given up on raffia altogether. Then I found this. I don’t think you will be disappointed. Happy hatting!(The picture above shows my crown in progress. I’m using a 3.5mm hook, which seems to be a good size. Not too big for the material, but big enough to work up quickly.)

I bought this to crochet a hat. When I pulled my magic loop closed it tore right off. I tried again with the same results. I wasn’t pulling super hard either. I am disappointed.