Getting Better!

For my portion of the project, I'm focusing on the practical aspects of nalbinding (for example, how the materials and techniques of nalbinding compare to modern knitting). Rather than making a piece of clothing, right now I am creating swatches of nalbinding in order to learn the technique and to experiment with things like cleaning and felting. In this post, I will describe some of the challenges I have faced in learning nalbinding, as well as how my background knitting knowledge has helped, and hindered, my progress. This is the video I have been primarily using to learn the Oslo stitch. Although it is in two languages, I find the clarity of the video and the pace at which she works is very helpful in my learning.

Singles vs. Multiplied Yarn:

Initially, I was using acrylic multiplied yarn in order to simply learn the technique, so I could save my single plied wool for when I had gotten better. However, using multiplied yarn (which was not present in the Viking age) was really challenging! It was really easy for me to split my yarn with my needle by piercing right through the different strings that make up the multiplied yarn. When I decided to switch to the single plied yarn, it was much easier to make out the different loops and stitches.

Acrylic multiplied yarn; a no-no

Needles:
I also had some troubles with the modern tapestry needle I was using. Unlike traditional nalbinding needles, which are blunted, long and made of bone or wood, my tapestry needle is made of metal and rather short and the end, although blunted, can still pierce through yarn because of the size of the point. Anna creatively fashioned some nalbinding needles out of chopsticks, and when I tried using one of those the technique was much easier. The larger sized needle was easier to hold and manipulate, and because it was made out of wood rather than metal, the yarn stayed in the eye of the needle because of the friction created by the surface of the wood. (I have a similar issue when using metal knitting needles; I find it far easier to keep the stitches on a bamboo knitting needle compared to a metal one.)

Metal tapestry needle

Yarn Length and Connecting Your Pieces:
With nalbinding, small pieces of wool are used, no longer than your arm span. When the piece of wool becomes to short to use, you attach it to the next length of yarn. If the yarn piece you are using is too long, it will tangle really easily, but if it's too short, you have to connect your pieces more often, and the material you produce will not be as strong. It's a delicate balance! When I knit, like most people who do, I use a ball of yarn and only have to connect a new ball a couple times, if at all, depending on the project. But using a ball of yarn is out of the question in the case of nalbinding. I suppose this is an advantage if you want to use up scraps of yarn, but when I knit, I avoid connecting different balls like the dickens, so this was a challenging aspect of nalbinding for me. I experimented with a couple different ways of connecting yarn, but I found one of the best ways, in terms of ease and quality, was to felt the ends together, or "spit splice," by rubbing the ends together with your dampened hands, which, because we are only using wool here, felts the yarns together. I would say having to do this so often is an inconvenience for me, and was probably one of the greatest challenges for me in learning the nalbinding technique.

This is the video I used to learn how to felt join yarn pieces. While the maker does not state that this is a "Viking" technique, I would assume that because individuals nalbinding during this period were using primarily wool and were felting their materials, some would have used this method.

Consistency in Tension and Stitch Size:
When I knit, my stitches come out the same size consistently because I am placing them onto a knitting needle, which has a consistent circumference along the shaft. With nalbinding, however, you tighten your loops around your thumb in order to measure out equal stitches. Because I am really new at this technique, I find it very challenging in keeping the stitches the same size, and my thumb, rather than being a long even rod, is bumpy and irregular. I'm sure with more practice, and with getting used to placing the loops on consistent points of my thumb, I can learn to make my stitch sizes more consistent.

Ripping Out Stitches:
Nalbinding is essentially tying lots of knots together to form a larger piece, but if one of the knots turns out wrong, it it very challenging to undo the work. With knitting, you are just creating loops that you can pull apart if you miss a stitch. But with nalbinding, you cannot just rip out the stitches you have made; you have to untie the knots. This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it means that fixing your errors can be incredibly frustrating, because you're picking apart lots of little knots. On the other, this also means that your work will not undo itself when you don't want it to. If your knitting slips off your needle, it can unravel and you will have to do your work over again, but this problem does not exist in nalbinding.

But progress is being made!
The first picture below with the white yarn is one of my first (failed) attempts at nalbinding, and the second with the grey yarn is one of my most recent. I'd say I'm definitely improving! As with anything, nalbinding is a skill that requires patience and practice, and I think mine is paying off!