A couple years back I was at the Montpelier Fiber Festival helping out Unplanned Peacock at their booth. I used one of my breaks to attend a nalbinding demonstration, and picked up a couple nalbinding needles to boot.
What is nalbinding? It’s a really old technique (much much older than knitting or crochet) of creating fabric from yarn threaded on a flat needle. Unlike crochet or knitting, you are cutting/breaking sections of yarn since you have to pull it all the way through the yarn, and then splice on new pieces as you go. Many of the stitches create a fabric that can’t run if a thread breaks because it’s essentially rows of knots. However, one stitch type is structurely identical to twisted knitting, though you are building it “upside down”, leading some nalbinding pieces to be mistaken for early examples of knitting.
Anyway, I went home, tried a bit more of it, then the whole “moving to Germany” madness took over and I forgot how to do it. This spring I ordered a book about it so that I could pick it up again: ”Nalbinding: What in the World is That?”
First, I highly recommend it. It has a great little history of the craft, including related crafts outside Europe, along with carefully explaining how it works structurally, and then step by step instructions for some of the stitches. I’ve been reading it on and off since I bought it, and in the last few days finally pulled out my needle and gave it another shot.
Et voila:
Ankle/pulse warmers! I used two stitches: York (borders) and Oslo (middle section) for them. And I’m pretty tickled that they are mostly the same size. Yarn is Icelandic Lopi yarn my sister brought back for me, which felt appropriate for my first (renewed) efforts. Also, singles in non-superwash wool are great for spit-splicing.
Now TheEnabler wants a pair of fingerless mitts since he lost his last pair (it was a bad winter – I lost my matching pair too).