Day 53: This old dog has learned a new trick: nålbinding (or at least the Oslo stitch, so far). I happened across the word in reading about språng, and from hereon out, I'm going to dispense with the diacritical marks for the sake of my English-speaking readership. Indeed, nalbinding can be spelled multiple ways including naalbinding, nalebinding, nalbindning or naalebinding, depending on what part of Scandinavia you're in. The term was only coined during the 1970s and means "needle-binding," although the process has been documented from 6500 BCE. You can read more in Wikipedia if you're curious, and especially since that is currently my main source for its history. Traditionally, it is done with a large-eyed flat and somewhat blunt needle made of wood, bone or horn, but not having one handy, I made do with a yarn needle to create a pair of wristlets. It took a few false starts. In fact, I still have a tendency to make a Möbius strip when starting the second row if I'm not paying close attention to my work. Strangely enough, once I had completed a sample piece, I recognized the technique as something I'd seen before and assumed was knit. Apparently, even the experts have some difficulty telling whether a piece is nalbound or knit when certain stitches have been used. Oslo stitch appears almost braided, and in worsted, makes a very dense textile with an attractive surface character. It has very little horizonal elasticity (i.e., following the direction of the rows) but is somewhat more stretchy on the vertical. The major drawback of the technique is that it must be done with short sections of yarn because the full length must be drawn through the loops as each stitch is made. When worked in wool, new strands are joined by felting, but in synthetics, the needleartist winds up with a lot of tails to tuck. Each wristlet was made over 25 stitches and required two 10-yard lengths of yarn to complete five rounds. Oh yeah, my real needles will arrive Monday. I like nalbinding.
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