Saturday, May 21, 2011

The Nalbinding Project Changes Once Again...

As the errors--and holes--pile up on my attempted pair of nalbinding socks and my yarn supply diminishes, I have, once again changed my objective!  

The state of the mittens, as of today.
I've decided to go back to making a pair of mittens.  The driving factor behind this decision is my difficulty in dealing with increasing and decreasing on the body of the sock--and extrapolating to what it will be like trying to fit heel pieces  onto what I've already done.  

On the other hand, I think I can pretty easily nalbind separate thumb pieces, and nalbind them onto each piece...ur, sock...that I have.  They may not look very nice, but I think I can complete them, and the next pair I attempt will have to be better.  Right? 

To the left is a picture of the pieces of the project to date.  Honestly, don't those look more like mittens than socks to you?  Me too.  At this point, I just want to finish them as something, and then go on to trying to make a pair of socks with different yarn--probably after buying a book about nalbinding socks (Larry Schmidt's book leaps to mind) first. 

4 comments:

  1. Oh, so you are doing the thumbs separately? When I do mittens I continue down whilst making a suitable hole for the thumb, and then making the thumb directly where they'll be. The same goes for socks - you don't have to make the heel separately and later attach it. I at least find it much easier to leave a hole in the body of the sock, large enough for the heel, and needlebind it directly into that hole. Sounds a bit weird though, I hope you understand what I'm trying to explain... If you're interested I am working on a tutorial on how to make both socks and mittens my way, it'll turn up in my blog pretty soon if all goes according to plan! =) Good luck with the sock-mittens! :D

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  2. Thanks for the good wishes.

    The method you describe is the way everybody says how to make thumbs (I've seen more variety for heels) but honestly, I can't visualize how to actually do it! On the other hand, I can imagine just how I'm going to (try) nalbinding on my thumbs here. So I'm trying it my way, and I'll report on what happens.

    I think the Internet can use more tutorials on how to do socks, mittens, everything! After all, if a tutorial doesn't work for one person, it may well be just what somebody else needs. And I still don't really know how I'd put heels on/into socks. So please, if you're thinking of doing tutorials, post them! Every bit of shared knowledge helps, and you may succeed in showing me just what I need to do a pair of socks at last.

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  3. I'll drop you a note when I've posted my tutorials! Since I am planning on showing photos for each step in the process I just have to make new socks/mittens just for the sake of the tutorials... I am aaaalmost done with my needlebound sweater though, and such a tutorial will most likely appear in my blog first. =)

    I learned just like you do right now, by experimenting and thinking up solutions of my own... No-one actually taught me how to do it, and I'm sure you'll figure out a way to do it as well!

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  4. Yes, I'd appreciate a note when your tutorials are posted, thanks! I'd also love to see a picture of your nalbinded sweater.

    I learned just like you do right now, by experimenting and thinking up solutions of my own... No-one actually taught me how to do it, and I'm sure you'll figure out a way to do it as well!

    You've put your finger on why I blog about my efforts, however dismal. It's partly a search for advice, but it's also meant to inspire others. "Well, if *she* had the nerve to do *that* and blog about it, I can certainly try it!"

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