NALBINDING

 In this course we had to chose a textile technique.The choices were vast, tating lace, ribbon making, crocheting,embroidery,etc.etc. When I went over the list of things to choose from the one thing that jumped out at me immediately was Nalbinding. I have so long wanted to learn this old technique. My husbands grandfather used to nalbind. I would watch him for hours doing this art, and couldn't figure out how he was doing it. I asked his grandmother how it was done, but she also didnt't know how to begin doing it. She only knew how to continue it once it was started. I asked other family members, if they knew how to do this lost art, but they also didn't know how. I decided then that I will someday learn this lost art, and be the one in the family to continue making these mittens.

 I remember receiving these precious mitts that he had made, and treasured them. The funny thing was that our boys also loved these mitts, and before we moved to Finland they fought over who will get these mitts. I took a pair along on our move to Finland, and thought that maybe here I would learn how to do this lost art. 

So that is the story of why I so.... wanted to learn this art.Anyway, I got a sheets of instructions  for nalbinding from the school. I also was able to borrow the needles to use from our school, but unfortunately none of the teachers remembered how to start this nalbinding technique, so these instructions sheets did not help me much.

 So, I looked off the internet for instructions. Well, I did find instructions but unfortunately because I am a lefty, I couldn't understand how to start the work. For weeks I tried and tried. ( meanwhile, our school shut its doors due to the Corona Virus outbreak.) so, there I was all alone at home trying to figure out this technique. After many many attempts, I finally found a website for left handed people learning nalbinding. Well, after that I was off to the races. 

These are the needles needed for Nalbinding. I used the middle needle, it worked the best for me.

This was my first attempt.. As you can see... it looks like some tangled wool

 

In the above picture you can slowly see my attempts and progress of nalbinding  from the top left hand picture all the way down to the bottom right hand picture.

In these three pictures you can see that I am growing in confidence with this technique. I have not perfected it yet, but slowly I am getting better and better. In the picture below you can see that  I even attempted a fancy edge for my mitten. It was alot harder to do this than I thought.
                          

                 In this picture to the right you can see that I am getting better at the nalbinding, my stitches are more even.

The bottom of the round bag I made, is still a a bit messy. Nalbinding is rather slow to do, and unfortunately you have to constantly add on the threads, which causes breaks and unevenness in the needling. 

 

I so.... enjoyed the nailbinding that I decided to make a pair of mittens for myself or give them away to someone.

In the next few pictures you can see  a pair of mittens that I made with the Nalbinding technique. I also dressed the mittens up with some embroidery.

I finished the mittens, and now am adding the embroidered greenery on the mittens.

One the picture to the right you can see that I have started embroidering flowers on the mittens.

 

 

 

 The mittens are now finished. I am very happy with the end result. I can now say that I know how to nalbind.

I only embroidered the top side of the mittens. 

Now who can I give these to. I am not a embroidery kinda gal, and the pink is not my colour either. Someone is going to get a great gi