Nålebinding, naalbinding, nålbind… What?
A lot of people are curious about what Nalbinding is since we know mostly knitting and crochet. I was curious as well and it is through the Vikings that I discovered this technique. The members of Niflheim, a fighting group in South of London were actively making socks using Nalbinding and they taught me the basics. Nalbinding is a knitting technique used during the Viking age and it is about using your thumb, a large needle and a yarn to make a woollen garment.
Let’s say that my first attempts were not really successful with a lot of holes and completely deformed. I left Nalbinding aside for a while to learn knitting and one year later when I did a Viking show in Belgium by 5°C I understood the need of having some warm gloves and comfortable socks. It was hard to learn again this technique after discovering how easy and fast knitting is.But later, I realised that Nalbinding is easier than it seems and really instinctive.
There are many ways to Nalbind as well as many different stitches. I would advise you to visit these excellent websites:
Here is a technique I use, hoping my little drawings will help you…
Choose the needle you feel the most comfortable with. I was using a 4.5cm at first but after buying this 7.5cm I realised it was much more comfortable to use.
As for the yarn, the best is to choose it not too felted so you can see well the loops at the beginning. Later you can use something fluffier like a beautiful Icelandic wool. You can begin with a short length, at least more than a meter then when you feel at ease with the techniques you can use longer yarn.
Hold tight the extremity of the yarn with your thumb.
When you are learning for the first time it is important to pay attention to the way you place your hands, where the end of the yarn is and where the thread going to the needle is.
Now this is the tricky part especially when you explain it with drawings!
Hold tight the knot in your left hand, check that the yarn leading to the needle is on top of your thumb.
You can observe than you have a loop around the thumb with the yarn leading to the needle under and a couple of loops on top of the thumb with one usually going more toward the tip of your thumb.
First use your index to press the top loop against your thumb. Insert the needle in the top loop from under, do not push it all the way.
At that point you can push the loop around the thumb up so it will become the next “top loop”. Then you can push the needle all the way. You will see the yarn tighten around your thumb to form a new “thumb loop”.
You repeat from the image 10 picking up the new top loop then the thumb loop and under the yarn going to the needle until you have the number of stitches you need.
Here is the result:
The best is to train on this technique until you have a couple of stitch that are satisfying. There are other stitches you can learn if you have a look on the above websites.
I really hope this article helped you to understand the basics, I might do some other articles to explain how to join a row together and then build something you can wear (which is why you are learning Nalbinding!).
