Raffia Milano is an increasingly popular new product.
But I would like to start with a little clarification about raffia in general, since a lot of, to put it mildly, strange information can be found in the descriptions of this product. The authors' fantasies are simply limitless: palm trees, bananas, avocados... and there is a constant debate about who is more natural... but first things first.
The two most popular raffia options on our market are viscose and paper. If viscose on our market offers three or four options and the prices are all “biting” (while Ispie is the most budget option among them), then paper raffia has a wide range: both in price and in type: flat and twisted, thin and thick, soft and hard...
Regarding naturalness and palm leaves... natural raffia from palm leaves really exists and various products are woven from it. It is a truly natural fiber that is made from the leaves of a palm tree called Raphia farinifera. The leaves of this tree are up to 30 m long and are first collected, cut and separated into narrow strips, which are then dried to produce raffia strands. This raffia is quite hard, not uniform in thickness and its length is usually 10-15 meters.
All raffia paper, like any other paper, is made from cellulose, water and chemicals.
Viscose raffia, as the name suggests, is made from viscose. And what’s most interesting is that viscose, like paper, is also made from cellulose and water with the addition of other chemicals.
Thus, the initial raw material for both paper and viscose raffia is the same - cellulose, which is a fibrous mass obtained from plant materials - trees, cotton, straw, kenaf, reed and is a natural polymer.
Can paper or viscose raffia be called natural? Decide for yourself. I would probably say that this is an artificially created product made from natural raw materials. At the same time, we can say with confidence that neither viscose nor paper raffia have anything to do with natural raffia made from palm leaves.
And finally, we move on to our new product - a fundamentally new type of Milano raffia.
Raffia composition: polypropylene 85% and viscose 15%. The width of the tape is 5-7 mm, when unfolded it is about 30 mm, in reels 250 meters. The tape is smooth, of the same width and, thanks to the viscose in its composition, very soft and comfortable for knitting.
Raffia Milano does not need steaming; moreover, it does not react to steam in any way and is not afraid of water, which leads to high wear resistance of the products. But, because polypropylene predominates in the composition, you need to be careful with high temperatures: if the product needs to be ironed, then this must be done with a cloth and a not very hot iron.
Considering how popular polypropylene and polyester cord has won among our knitters for its wear resistance, I am sure Milano raffia will also occupy a worthy niche in our market. In my opinion, this is an excellent, and, importantly, more budget-friendly alternative to viscose raffia. This will be an excellent option for bags, now you don’t have to be afraid of rain or sea breeze, nothing will happen to it even if you decide to fish with it...)) It is generally ideal for embroidery on canvas thanks to the wide, even ribbon. At the same time, I would not recommend it for hats, since, firstly, it is still synthetic, and secondly, many hats need to be steamed to give them their final shape, but this raffia cannot be steamed. But this, as they say, is my opinion - in Turkey, for example, they actively knit hats from it.
Our store received the exclusive right to sell polypropylene raffia Milano from the Turkish manufacturer Hacı Kadin Mahallesi in Ukraine. The range of this raffia we offer is not so large yet - the manufacturer has just launched its production - only 14 colours are available for retail purchase, wholesale and new colours will also be available soon. We invite you to a new section of our catalogue - Milano polypropylene raffia.
Olha Hodunova
