A Bit of Nalbinding, and a Status

I have done nothing relating to costuming this month.  Mostly that's because I've undertaken a temporary job, working for the US Census Bureau.  It has left me with zero time and energy to do anything extra.

But I did find a video that mentions an insole with nalbinding on it.  The video is by the Medeltidmuseet in Stockholm, and as you might expect, it is in Swedish.  However, it gives a look at a leather sole with a bit of nalbinding along one edge.  This find is dated to 1300-1400 CE.  The link can be found on the Nalbound blog, here, which is in English and gives a bit of perspective on the find.  (Kudos to Anne Marie Decker, who writes the Nalbound blog.)

Was this bit of nalbinding part of an insole?  Or is this evidence of a nalbinded sock with a leather sole attached?  The blogger at the Nalbound blog thinks it's an insole because the "row [of nalbinding] appears to follow the edge of the leather sole. That direction under and along the arch does not match the row direction that I see in contemporaneous nalbound socks."  It's an interesting look into a different way that nalbinding might have been used during the medieval period.

An Inspiring Needle

Back in April, I reviewed two books by ChronoCopia Publishing:  A Handbook of Men's Clothing and Handbook of the 15th Century and A Handbook of Women's Clothing of the 15th Century.  Daniel Serra of ChronoCopia Publishing also asked me to review the following book about nålbinding:

Pasanen, Mervi.  With One Needle:  How to Nålbind. (ChronoCopia Publishing AB 2019).

Mervi Pasanen originally published this book in Finnish. When it came out, I lamented the fact that I wouldn't be able to read it, even if I could afford it.  With One Needle  makes that content available to English speakers, and I have been sent a free copy in order to write this review.  

I am always on the lookout for new books about nålbinding, because I have struggled for some time to learn the art, and am continuing to struggle to do so.  Though I have learned enough to nålbind an undistinguished cap for myself, I have failed several times now at making mittens or socks, and every time I take the craft up again after a hiatus, I have to re-learn the basics nearly from scratch.  So when I was asked to review With One Needle, I hoped that Mervi's book would finally help me reach the level of understanding I need to succeed at retaining basic nålbinding skills once and for all.

The first thing one notices about this book is that the production level is very high.  The paper is glossy and of good quality, the font is attractive and easily readable, and there are many clear and beautiful color photographs.  The cover photograph shown above gives a good idea of how much artistry was devoted to the photographs in the book.

As I read the book, I tried to look at it in terms of how it would be viewed by a total novice to nålbinding, which was not difficult since I'm not that far from being a novice anyway.  And although Mervi's book includes a tutorial for several different nålbinding starts, it's not really the best source available for teaching people who are new to the art how to begin nålbinding. Why?  Largely because there are not enough photographs of every step of the process.  If, like me, you have trouble telling right from left when looking at an object and also have poor visualization skills, you will find that Mervi's photo essay on nålbinding starts does not give you *quite* enough information to advance your game.

But even though Mervi's book may not be the best way for a total beginner--or even a serial beginner like myself--to learn nålbinding does not mean that the book is of no value to nålbinding enthusiasts.  To the contrary, there are many useful things a discerning reader with an interest in nålbinding can take away from Mervi's book.  Here are some of my takeaways from the book:

1.     Inspiration.  With One Needle is packed with dozens of clear, full color photographs demonstrating techniques and interesting projects.  Just finishing the book made me want to get my needle out and start looking for colorful yarn to attempt one of her projects.

2.     Useful Techniques.  From Mervi's book I gleaned the realization that the same basic technique can be used to put a thumb onto a mitten or a heel on a sock.  Mervi also gives the best photographic description I have seen of how to do a Russian join, which is a technique for incorporating a new piece of yarn onto the working yarn.

3.    Helpful Facts.  When I was first exploring nålbinding, I found a photograph of an archaeological find of a thigh-length, nålbinded stocking, and I wondered how such items could be made since nålbinded works are not very stretchy compared to knits.  It turns out that you have to take a lot of precise measurements of the various parts of ankle and leg that the sock must fit and thus tailor it to the wearer.  The book also says that certain stitches are stretchier than others, and thus may be more appropriate for high socks.  Mervi also provides useful measurement and proportion information for the construction of socks in general.

4.   New Stitches.  Mervi's book contains tutorials for learning a number of different variations on Finnish stitch that I've never seen anywhere else.

5.   Expert Techniques.  Have you ever seen photographs of modern nålbinded garments that appear to have a braided edge?  This book contains directions how to do that technique as well.

In short, I recommend this book most strongly for nålbinders of intermediate level--people who have made enough garments using nålbinding that they are looking for new projects to expand their skill with the technique.  However, even for people like me who are still struggling, the book is a fun and thought-provoking read, and an inspiration to increase my skills so that I can try some of the more challenging projects in the future.

A Pleasant Surprise

Here's a little surprise for my readers--and me as well!

Daniel Serra has asked me to review some books from Chronocopia Publishing.  These are the books in question.  The links go to the page for each book on the Chronocopia website, though the books may be obtained from various booksellers as well.

• The English language, paperback edition of Mervi Pasanen's book on nålbinding:  With One Needle:  How to Nålbind.

• Anna Malmborg & Willhelm Schütz's books:  A Handbook of Men's Clothing in the Late 15th Century and A Handbook of Women's Clothing in the Late 15th Century. 

Daniel is one of the co-authors of another Chronocopia book: An Early Meal: A Viking Age Cookbook and Culinary Odyssey, which discusses the reasons what Viking food was probably like and why, and provides defensible period recipes for modern-day people like us to make.  I reviewed An Early Meal on my food blog, here. That review may be the reason why I've been asked to review the Chronocopia books mentioned above.

Chronocopia is being good enough to send me review copies.  After I have received and read them, I will be writing book reviews of all three for this blog.  Watch this space!

Change in Projects

Now it's November, and although I've slowed down on the nalbinding project, I've finally gotten two mitten cuff edges that are tolerable in appearance. Not perfect, just tolerable, as you'll see from the picture.  I may yet re-do the one on the right, which has more mistakes, and more obvious mistakes, in it.

The beginnings of two mittens!

I finally decided to deal with the issue of changing threads (piece of yarn, actually) this way.  I work each thread until the working thread is too small to take a stitch without falling out of the needle.  At that point, I pull the needle off of the piece of yarn, thread a new piece onto the needle, and start my next stitch without taking the last loop off of my thumb.  After I have completed the stitch, I pull the thread through until only a short piece is left outside the body of the work (about 2-3 inches/5-7.5 cm). Then I take a second stitch, in the same place as before, and in doing so drop the loop off of my thumb in the normal manner.  My new working thread is now anchored in the work, and forms the new thumb loop.  From that point, I go on working as usual. This leaves a pair of 2-3 inch pieces of yarn sticking out of the work for each new piece of yarn I use, but they can be clipped off later without significant ill-effect, so far as I can tell.  

The next step is to change yarn color and begin working the appropriate rounds, decreases, and increases, as specified in the mitten pattern, but I prefer not to push on too far too fast--that usually results, for me, in a bad mistake and a re-start.  I will give it a day or two before taking the next step.

The next time I start a nalbinding project, though, I'm going to take more care to make certain that I have 100% wool that is not "superwash".  My local Jo-Ann's fabric store carries a few nice colors of 100% wool yarn of the Patons brand, and even though it costs about twice as much as the yarn I bought for the mittens, it may be a better choice for nalbinding.

In the meantime, it's now November, and the current Historical Sew Monthly theme is "Red."  Since my sprang yarn is pink, this may be a good time to re-start that project, especially since work is very slow for me right now.  The good news about sprang is that, once I have a sufficiently good sense of what I'm doing, it should go very quickly.  With luck, I'll have at least a progress photograph for this blog before the end of the weekend.

Nalbinding in Unexpected Places

"Tailor's" buttonhole stitch.
Original graphic by Grace Christie,
"Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving",
 downloaded from Wikimedia Commons

Open buttonhole stitch.
From "Ancient Danish Textiles", p. 284 

Now it's October, and I'm still working on nalbinding at odd moments.  I have no news to report on that project, but while looking for more information about nalbinding I learned a few interesting facts that relate to nalbinding and that may not be commonly known.  In particular, simple nalbinding turns up in textile finds where I did not suspect it existed.

The one that surprised me most is that the neckline of the Skyrdstrup blouse is decorated with a few lines of nalbinding.  I learned that from Susanna Broome's booklet, Nalbinding from Finds. The stitching is what we know of today as "buttonhole stitch."* However, if you work buttonhole stitch along a line of previously worked buttonhole stitch, or along a loop of thread, instead of through fabric, the result is a very simple form of nalbinding.  Ulrike Claßen-Büttner, in her recent book "Nalbinding - What in the World Is That?: History and Technique of an Almost Forgotten Handicraft," (Books on Demand 2015), calls this technique "simple looping"(page 21) and classifies it as a simple nalbinding stitch.

Twisted buttonhole stitch.
From "Ancient Danish Textiles," p. 284

In "Ancient Textiles from Bogs and Burials", Margrethe Hald discusses the Skrydstrup blouse and other instances of buttonhole stitch that were used as ornamentation.  One might deduce from this that the humble "buttonhole" stitch had many decorative uses in antiquity and the early medieval period.  Hald notes that at least one find of a cap worked in open buttonhole stitch has been found.  More interestingly, a scrap of textile worked in twisted buttonhole stitch, a variation of buttonhole stitch, was found at Ordrup Mose and has been dated to the New Stone Age (Hald, p. 283).

Another interesting use for buttonhole stitch involves using it to create loops for a button, toggle, or similar fastener.  On her blog, "Research Dumping Grounds", Mistress Sylvie la chardonnière discusses Penelope Walton Rogers's analysis of 6th century CE Kentish finds which indicate that Kentish women fastened their long coats with a brooch though such loops, worked in linen thread.

The lesson here, as is so often the case in examining archaeological textile finds, is not to import one's assumptions into the examination.  Many of us do not think of buttonhole stitch as embroidery, let alone an art that can create a textile, but it's clear from early finds that it has been used that way, and that use of needle looping (which is what the term "nalbinding" means) goes way back into the distant past.  Clothing technologies change, and any study of pre-modern costume must remain alert to that fact.


* Some people equate "buttonhole stitch" with "blanket stitch", but the two stitches, though very similar, are not the same. This site has a good explanation of the difference.  By the definition provided on the Nordic Needle, Hald's diagram of buttonhole stitch on p. 284 of "Ancient Danish Textiles" is actually blanket stitch, which is why I have not reproduced it here.

A Random Insight

After wasting some more of my precious green yarn, I have succeeded in starting my second round on a green starting chain with reasonably even stitches.  The chain is kind of twisty-looking, but I think I can straighten it out.  This is fortunate for me, since I have yet to find the tapestry needle I could swear I've seen no more than six months ago.

Here's a more interesting nalbinding tidbit about nalbinding.  This costume blogger suggests that nalbinding may have come about as a way to use up loom waste--odd bits of thread cut from a loom during the cloth weaving process.  Her suggestion may not be provable, but if one considers it in light of the importance in early times of carefully using every bit of handspun thread possible it makes a certain amount of sense.  I intend to think about it some more.  

Starting Up Is Hard To Do...

Last night and this afternoon, I made more attempts to work on nalbinding stitches.

I think I do have the idea of how to work what the "Nalbinding From Finds" booklet calls "modified Dalby stitch", but I have trouble starting a chain in a way that does not fall apart after I start to work the stitch.   

So I've tentatively gone back to using Mammen stitch, and I've opened my green wool skein and attempted to work the starting bands for the mittens.  Several times.  It is very lovely yarn, both in color and feel. However, it is washable, which I didn't realize when I bought it.   I haven't tried felting joins in it yet (for reasons I'll get into below).

To my annoyance, I'm having trouble keeping a consistent stitch, and avoiding snagging my needle on previously worked stitches (and dragging the needle through a thread on a previous stitch).  

I'm also trying to work on joins, since joins were a big problem for me the last time I attempted nalbinding.  Spit joins are a problem for me (even with fully-feltable, no-wash wool), because I work at such a tension that they tend to come apart when I pull the joined section through a stitch.  So I've been attempting to do joins by placing both old and new threads in the eye of the needle, though that poses its own problems.

When I do succeed in working a section of stitching properly, the result is beautiful.  I really want to keep with this, in the hopes that once I conquer all of these problems, I will have mastered the basics of nalbinding and can go on to more interesting projects.  

In the meantime, I'm going to try another needle.  I have a metal tapestry needle around here somewhere that's significantly shorter than my beloved bone needle; perhaps that will help.

EDIT (9/30/2016):  I'm still making new starts.  I've started the first rounds of the cuff of a mitten several times now, but either twisted the chain or skipped too many connecting stitches.  Still forging ahead though.

The New Start

On Wednesday, both the nalbinding booklet I'd ordered and the yarn I intend to use for my first project from that booklet arrived in the mail. Clickable photographs of both appear with this post.

The colors of the yarn as shown in the photograph are close to their actual appearance. The gold yarn is a bit less reddish and the green a bit paler, but the general level of contrast between the two is accurately captured.

I was afraid that I would be unable to understand, let alone follow, the instructions in the booklet for how to work the Icelandic mitten or the Coppergate sock (the two items which I am interested to make my own versions of). However, the directions for both appear to be straightforward.   Best of all, it turns out that I don't need to know how to pivot to make either of these items. The mitten, in particular, merely requires you to do a chain of stitches of a specified length (determined by hand size), fasten the ends of the chain together with a stitch, and continue adding stitches around the resulting loop, increasing and decreasing (both pretty easy to do in nalbinding) as necessary. Fantastic!

The booklet includes instructions for three types of stitch I do not yet know how to do; Dalby stitch, York stitch, and Finnish stitch. Dalby stitch is used in the original of the Icelandic mitten I hope to recreate, while the Coppergate sock uses (naturally), York stitch.  I decided that I should at least experiment with both of these, using the remains of my snarled yarn from my false start at sprang, to decide whether I can learn the designated stitches quickly enough to use them for this project.  I should also practice making a ring out of a chain of stitches.

Making a chain of stitches in Mammen, the one nalbinding stitch I know pretty well, was simple enough, but understanding the authors' directions for both Dalby stitch and York stitch threw me, mostly because I couldn't see the starting position suggested for those stitches well enough from the pictures in the booklet.  So I turned to the Internet for pictures, videos, anything that might help.  So far I've found this video tutorial for York stitch which I think I can manage to use if I go through it slowly.

Late last night, after staring at the booklet instructions on Dalby stitch, I think I figured out what the instructions mean.  I tested my understanding this afternoon by doing a few inches of stitching.  It  was far from perfect, but appeared to be consistent with the illustrations in the booklet. I'll practice it some more, but I may end up attempting my first pair of mittens in Mammen stitch, just to be able to concentrate on the construction details for the mittens.

Progress is being made, though.  Onward!

Starting Over

It's no secret that I haven't managed to complete a historical costuming project yet this year.  Part of that is that this winter and spring were rough on me--I spent six weeks being sick, and nearly two weeks straight dealing with taxes (which took place while I was recovering from being sick), and then preparing for, and enjoying, our summer vacation. 

My first nalbinding project from years ago; a hat!  

Part of the problem was that at the time I got sick I didn't have a pending project that I could easily pick up and work on a bit at a time (which is how most of my costuming work, historically, has gotten done). So, in the hopes that something Brand New would inspire me, I decided to start a simple project, namely, a hairnet to be made using sprang, a textile art I'd never tried before.

Unfortunately, my attempt to learn and work sprang occurred in late February/early March, and shortly thereafter was when I got sick.  

This  weekend, I finally decided to attack my costuming malaise by making a fresh start on something I find less intimidating--nalbinding. The motivation here was to be able to use a new booklet by Susanna Broome and Iduna Sundarp I have just ordered that contains instructions on how to nalbind your own version of three Viking Age nalbinded finds.  This would allow me (I hope) to eventually make my own Viking socks, something I've wanted to do for a long time now.  In fact, that was why I picked up nalbinding in the first place.  

Years ago (long before I started this blog), I mastered enough basic nalbinding to do a passable Mammen stitch, make a slightly wonky beret with a ton of mistakes, and attempt a pair of mittens.  When I picked up my needle again, I discovered that it was pretty simple for me to relearn how to start and how to do the stitch, but I ended up wrestling with the fine art of pivoting (turning your stitch around so that you can start connecting to the first set of stitches you've done).  Fortunately, the tangled mess of yarns from my sprang experiment is useful for attempting nalbinding, since nalbinding is done with pieces of yarn, not a continuous thread.

I think I've finally re-learned pivoting well enough that I can make some sense of instructions about how to construct a sock or mitten, and my stitching is more even than it was the first time around.   In the spirit of new beginnings, I've ordered some yarn for my new project.  Though I haven't decided whether I'm going to try to make mittens or socks, I found some lovely colored yarn that was on sale cheap at an on-line yarn store, and couldn't resist getting some.

I still intend to go back to my sprang project (especially if business continues to be slow for me), but I would like to finally complete my learning of nalbinding and celebrate it with a lovely project.  

Fuzzy Hose

Yucca utahensis (Photo:  Wikimedia Commons)

From a very good friend, I learned of several similar, fascinating archaeological finds from the New World.  The write-up, complete with excellent  pictures (some of which are zoomable, to show greater detail), can be found on the Arizona State Museum's website, HERE.

The finds were made in Arizona about a century ago and date to about 1100-1300 C.E.  They are from the Anazazi or Pueblo culture. They are a kind of sock made from two fibers; the main weave is an open-mesh cotton, to which animal hair was originally fastened, though little animal hair remains on the surviving socks.  The socks, in turn, were originally twined onto sandal soles, which provided better durability.  The animal hair made the shoe/sock/sandal combination warmer, which matters at night in the desert.  The sandal sole part is made from braided yucca leaves;  Yucca is now, as it must have been then, a plant easily available in and about the American southwestern desert.

According to the Museum's description, the mesh part of the socks was made by a "looping" or "knotless netting" process that sounds a lot like what is called nalbinding with regard to ancient European finds, though to my inexpert eye the pattern of mesh looks rather different from the nalbinding patterns with which I am familiar.  No attempt to identify the type of animal hair used to cover the mesh is made in the museum write-up.  It does not look like any kind of wool, but is fine and fairly short, like the hairs of a dog's coat, which makes me wonder whether it's coyote hair; coyotes are also native to the area.  The result is a very practical piece of footwear for an arid desert environment such as the American southwest.

These finds show that the fact that, even with limited technologies, people can devise, and have devised, items of apparel that are attractive and provide the kind of function required by the climate of the area in which they live.  Although I typically find European costume history more interesting, the ingenuity of these shoe-socks (as the Museum calls them) is impressive and should not be ignored by people interested in the history of clothing.

Eura Mitten Reconstruction

Former Finnish President
Tarja Halonen

As my fellow fanatics about early northern European costume can tell you, one of the more interesting early archaeological finds is the grave of a woman buried in Eura in Finland, around the year 1000 C.E.  For reasons I do not presume to understand, the recreation of this woman's costume became very popular in Finland, almost rising to the level of a folk costume; former Finnish president Tarja Halonen was photographed wearing a reproduction of the Eura woman's costume as reconstructed by Finnish archaeologists (see photograph).

What many people may not know is that a scrap of fabric, made with the nalbinding or "needle binding" technique, was found among the other jewelry and textile finds in the Eura grave, at a position suggesting it was part of a pair of mittens stuck into the woman's belt. Today, I found this web site, in Swedish, showing a picture of the writer's own reconstruction of the Eura woman's mittens in red, yellow, and blue--the original colors. A short English translation appears on the site, as does a link to a Finnish language site containing a copy of a thesis, in Finnish, about the mittens. I wanted to share this little discovery because it's so easy to think of grave finds as consisting of formal, sober clothing. It's good to know that a cheerful pair of mittens was part of one of those finds.

I'm going to contact the blogger who made those mittens and if she agrees, I'll show a picture of her mittens here.  If not; go to her site and look at the picture there; it's a sight worth seeing.

The World's Oldest Piece of Knitting?

Cover of Sept./Oct. 2013 issue

Speaking of the September/October (2013) issue of Piecework Magazine, readers interested in the history of knitting should check out the article by Chris Laning which appears in that issue, titled, "The Iklé Fragment: Knitting or Not?" A black-and-white photograph can be found in the article, and also on Chris's Flickr here.  (The original appears to have had a maroon design on a gold background.)

The Iklé fragment is a scrap of textile, dated to between the 7th and 9th centuries CE, which was found in Egypt and has been characterized as the earliest extant piece of knitting.  However, as Chris explains at great length in the article, the physical characteristics of the fragment more closely match those of nalbinding, a technique worked with a blunt needle with an eye in it, and many discontinuous pieces of thread, instead of multiple needles and a continuous piece of yarn, as knitting is worked.  I won't repeat Chris's analysis here (the article is good and if you're interested in the subject at all you should read it), but a key piece of evidence is that the fragment has not raveled in over a thousand years.  Nalbinding doesn't ravel because each stitch incorporates a knot, securing the textile; that is not true of knitting.

As a bonus, this issue of Piecework incorporates two pouch-making projects based upon the Iklé fragment; one to be knitted and one to be nalbinded.  (Neither is featured on the front cover; the pouch shown there is a different project associated with another article.)  If I were more interested in textile working for its own sake, I probably would experiment with both. 

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. 

Quick Nalbinding Update

So at this point, I have two proto-socks, which I work on alternately, as Shelagh Lewins suggests on her page about nalbinding socks. What I have, right now, are two curved pieces of nalbinding, each about the size of my (rather small) fist. They still show plenty of holes and  missed (or misplaced ) stitches, but they also have plenty of good areas, and are noticeably growing in size. They are also a bit big for my feet, wide though my feet are, but I figure that shrinking them when finished is a more viable option than stretching a too-small sock over my (usually) achy feet.

When they look a bit more sock-like, I may photograph them again for this blog.

Small Nalbinding Victories

By now, I have re-started my nalbinded socks more times than I care to admit.  In the course of all of the redoing, I have learned two things.

The first thing I learned is that kariena was right; you really don't need to "pivot", so long as you are able to connect your stitches back to your "caterpillar" as soon as you have made it as long as you want it--or at least that's the case if you're making a hat or something that starts out with a cylinder (like a sock). The result looks better than a pivoted end, too.

The other problem, and the real reason I've had so many do-overs, is the issue of adding a new piece of yarn to the work.  As anyone who has tried it is aware, unlike knitting or crocheting, nalbinding does not use one continuous piece of yarn; it can't, because the working thread has to be pulled completely through for each stitch. So the nalbinder must be able to add a new piece of yarn every time the old one runs out, without ruining the look of the existing work.

There are several ways to do this. One is simply to knot the new piece of yarn to the old one. This method is quick and simple, and depending on how tidy your knots are, can be fairly inobtrusive. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well when your project is a pair of socks, because such knots can often be felt after the project is completed (even if they cannot be seen), and will cause discomfort.

Another common joining method involves fraying both the end of the old piece and the end of the new piece, overlapping them, and then uniting the two, either by wetting the area to be joined with water or saliva and rubbing it (to felt the ends together) and/or twisting the area to be joined in the direction the yarn was spun. This method wasn't working well for me either, because my yarn is thin and rough-surfaced. No matter how solid my spit-join looked, it usually  pulled apart as I was making my first post-join stitch.

I've also seen pictures and videos of another method called the "Russian join." This method involves threading your new piece of yarn into a needle small enough to go up into the interior of the old piece. I'm sure it's a wonderful idea if your yarn is thick; however, I suspect any needle narrow enough to go inside a strand of my thin, 2-ply yarn would be too thin to thread with that yarn. A sample video illustrating the technique, using a thick, unplyed yarn, may be found here, but it's possible to find other videos and picture essays on the process, if you're interested.

Finally,I found a method called the "lazy join."  This method involves starting your new yarn by running it underneath a number of stitches in the vicinity where your old yarn ran out, and continuing from there. Virginia Miller kindly put this picture page up to illustrate the process.

This method, finally, is working for me. Hopefully, the new sock I started last night will ultimately become a finished sock!

Textile Projects Update

These past few days, I've been making time for my Lagore Crannog tablet weaving and my nalbinded sock project.  Though there hasn't been a lot of progress, I have done enough to have an excuse to take a few pictures.

The first sock in progress

The nalbinding is faring pretty well, considering that I was away last weekend and have been busy at work.  I finally conquered my problem with pivoting (mostly).  However, I don't have much of a cylinder yet.  (To give you an idea of the size of what I have, the needle is 3 inches (about 7.6 cm) long.  My work-in-progress is about 2 inches/5 cm longer than that.  Some people might think that's a bit too wide for a sock, but I have wide feet, want to give my toes plenty of room, and may decide to felt the socks before I wear them.  

I ordered a tablet-weaving shuttle from a nice gentleman in Estonia via Etsy; here's a picture of it.  I suspect this design isn't period (and for all I know shuttles may not have been used in tablet weaving during the Viking era--at least I don't know of any finds that have been identified as such).  It is 9.4 x 4.3 cm (3.7 x 1.7 inches) and a scant 2.5mm (0.1 in) thick. It seems so fragile when you hold it, but in use it's solid enough.

My new shuttle

The new shuttle, unfortunately, is my only success so far with the Lagore Crannog band. My problem is that after the first few passes, I can't discern where the new shed is after I turn the tablets. I undid my work at least 3 times the other night because of that.  Part of the problem is undoubtedly the fact that I chose to use small cards (about 3.5 cm, or a bit over 1 inch) in warping the band. I have larger cards, and I could rewarp it using larger cards, which might make it easier to discern the shed. But before I do that, I've tried to analyze which strings should be on top, and which below, the warp for each tablet position. If that works, I'll probably blog about it.

EDIT:  I've abandoned the proto-sock in the photo above, in favor of a slightly narrower effort with more even stitching.  Meanwhile, I am using my old effort from last year to experiment with methods of making heels.  So there is progress on the nalbinding front, at least, even if it's slow.

Relearning Nalbinding

So after completing a work-related project for work this weekend, I am making a new effort to relearn what I learned previously of nalbinding.

I have succeeded in relearning how to start, and how to do a line of stitching in Mammen stitch (the one I had learned before). I even did an adequate "spit splice"--something I'd never really succeeded at before.  But now I'm kind of stuck on pivoting.  

At least I have plenty of yarn, and no shame about restarting when necessary.