Seems a bit silly talking about wool stockings when the temperature has been in the 90’s for the past few days (almost kills me, it does – feels like it, at least), but here goes:
About a week ago I finished a pair of socks in a technique called nålbindning / nalbinding / needlebinding. It’s an old technique, found, amongst other places, in ancient Egypt as well as in Scandinavia and the Viking-ruled part of Dark Age Britain. It pre-dates knitting by hundreds, probably more than a thousand years, and was regularly used in some parts of Scandinavia well into the 19th century for mittens and socks. This makes it perfect for re-enactors doing Viking- and middle ages. You use a rather big, flatish needle made from wood, bone or horn, and you use torn-of pieces of yarn (usually very, very long – you want to piece them as seldom as possible). You then sew the sock, mitten or whatever, stitch by stitch, using your thumb as a base. When you come to the end of the piece of yarn, you lay it together with a new one, wet the join and rub it between your hands until it felts together. The fact that you sew them like this makes them very sturdy – if the yarn should break somewhere while you’re using the sock, that’s all that happens – the sock won’t unravel. However, if you want to go back and change something, that takes quite a while. There are a lot of different stitches, so one thing made in this technique can look a bit different than another one.
I then tried to felt them, as that seems to have been very common, making warmer and (again) sturdier clothes. Unfortunately, it would seem I used super wash wool, so it wasn’t very easy, and I couldn’t get them as felted as I’d have liked, but they will do.
And now something completely different: last weekend I began making myself a 1940’s dress from the polka dot fabric I bought some time ago. I use a pattern I made some years ago, having looked on the outside of a Vogue Vintage Pattern for inspiration. I have used that pattern once before and rather liked it. This is the shoulder detail.
Those socks look so cosy – what a great old technique!
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Wow, the socks look fabulous. Very warm and lovely too. I can't wait to see your WWII dress – the fabric looks fabulous!
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Ooh! How interesting. I have never heard of that technique before.
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I have heard of nailbinding before, good post, thank you.
Regards.
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Very nice indeed! Love the texture, you just have to teach me this technique, and I will teach you mine!
..also looking forward to get a closer look on the WW2 dress!
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Nice socks! I'm just curious, which stitch did you use? I don't know many names of stitches but perhaps you can describe it?
About using a very very long thread – I wouldn't say it's that important. I find that too long of a thread just makes the risk of knots and messy yarns all too great. And it really isn't a problem to intertwine the new yarn with the old one! I usually separate the ends into two strands each, before wetting and rubbing them between my hands, it makes it a bit easier! =)
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Thanks! I don't know the names of stitches either; this was the first one I learnt, so it's what I used….
Yeah, I do that too – separating the threads, wetting and rubbing, but I still finds it annoying, so I rather use very long strands of yarn 🙂
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