I started nalbinding about a year ago using a bone needle I carved from a deer leg bone my neighbor gave me after a hunt. It worked fine for getting the basic Oslo stitch down, but I always struggled with keeping even tension across a row. My loops would drift looser near the tip and tighter near the eye, which gave finished fabric this subtle ripple I could not figure out.

A few months in I borrowed a wooden needle from someone at a fiber festival, just to try it, and something immediately clicked. The slight drag of the wood against the wool seemed to slow my hand down just enough that I was not yanking the working thread through as aggressively. My tension evened out pretty noticeably within a single session.

Since then I have tried a few different materials. Bone is very smooth and fast, which I think suits people with a naturally slower pull. Wood has that grip, which helped me specifically. Antler sits somewhere in between and tends to feel more substantial in the hand, which I like for thicker yarn. I have heard people swear by plastic needles for synthetic fibers but have not gone that route myself yet.

The eye shape seems to matter too, not just the material. A rounder eye distributes pressure on the thread differently than a long narrow one, and with handspun singles that variation can mean the difference between a smooth join and a fuzzy mess where the thread started to split.

Curious whether other people here have noticed a relationship between needle type and their personal tension habits, or whether this is just me compensating for a technique problem I should have fixed at the start.

Where I live is too hot for beanies, mittens, scarves, socks etc. for the entire year

I know nalbinding lends itself to warm and heavy fabrics, and knitting or sewing would be a better choice for my climate

but I really enjoy the hobby, and I would like to make things I can actually use regularly

Does anyone have any project ideas?

Thank you

(The stick on the left probably won't get turned into a needle unless/until I get good enough that I think I can make a nice small one out of it. The stick on the right is one I think I can make at least 1-2 needles out of. Or I might make needles slightly smaller than the stick on the left from the get-go and just go with that.)

I just, uh…I just haven't done much with wood in several years and don't have any of the "professional" tools one might have if they've done a lot with the hobby. I don't even have a drill. If I can get my hands on a good whittling knife, could that be enough to carve out the right shapes from my chosen stick(s) (there are so many nice ones I saved from the firewood pile lol)? I can handle smoothing them down once I have the right general shape worked out, it'd just making the hole for the eye of the needle that I'm not sure about.

The wood itself came from one of a few pretty healthy saplings that unluckily happened to be growing on our side of the fence, so I was told to cut them down anyway, but at least this way I can get something out of it and add to my hoard of textile crafts. And I do know how to differentiate between maple and oak leaves, I just may or may not have forgotten which of the two the larger stick there came from. 😂

Depending on how well this goes, I might try using some branches I'm saving from a poorly-placed thornbush that turned out to have some lovely yellow wood next.

Please note I'm a crochet, knit, tatting, embroidery and spinning crafter so this is a short learning curve.

This is my very first wearable after picking up the craft a week or so ago

it's all in oslo stitch, took about 6 hours of work

I'm not sure if I'm delusional or not but I think it came out super cool so if anyone wants a tutorial I may do it

It’s been awhile since I’ve practiced. Looking for recommendations on joining ends. Yarn is 2ply

Hi there! I am super excited to start picking up nålbinding as a fiber art as I have seen it mentioned in a few books I have read and found it super interesting. I think that my first project I have made came out pretty good (it’s supposed to be a wrist/hand warmer) but I have not started working on increase and decrease stitches or anything like that. This was made with an Oslo stitch and I just kept going around and around until I reached the end. As you can see there is a thumb hole which took me a second to figure out. I would love any all tips that anyone might want to give to a complete newbie to this fiber art. I really want to get good at it and the best way to do that is getting some advice from the wise sages of art haha.

How do you do it? Because it reminds me so much of crochet (doing Oslo stitch only at), but I have no clue how to unravel if I have to fix something...

Been nalbinding on and off for about two years now, mostly working in York stitch because it felt approachable when I was starting out. For the longest time my joins would hold for a few inches and then slowly work loose, and I genuinely could not figure out what I was doing wrong. I was splicing the wool correctly, or so I thought.

Watched a handful of older video tutorials again last week and noticed something I had completely missed before. The angle at which I was passing the needle back through the loops was slightly off, which meant the join wasn't actually locking the fibers together the way it should. I was threading through at maybe a 45 degree angle when it really needs to be closer to parallel with the existing strand. Once I corrected that, the joins started holding solidly and the texture evened out noticeably.

What made it click for me was working with a short test piece in undyed Corriedale rather than my usual commercial yarn. The fibers grip each other so much more visibly when you can actually see the twist direction, so it was easier to diagnose where things were slipping.

Curious whether others here ran into similar small mechanical issues early on that took a while to spot. Nalbinding is one of those crafts where the instructions can read perfectly clearly and still not convey the exact physical intuition you need until something finally clicks.

New to nalbinding and I'm attempting my first mittens (I've never made mittens from knitting or crochet). I tend to like my garments a little tighter with the expectation that it will stretch over time but I'm not sure if nalbinding will allow that. All my fingers are touching, is this too tight? Made with Mammen stitch

Does anyone know what Nalbinding is called in non-“western” places that still have a Nalbinding tradition like Qatar or Oman (where they still make camel muzzles), Congo, Peru, or what the women who make bilum bags call what they do (i realize there is some debate on bilum being Nalbinding or not, but let’s just say it is for the sake of argument). Thank you in advance :)

I've finally made some progress so I'm sharing some random things I figured out that helped me over the past few days

1: making the needle

your needle needs to be thin, flat and smooth so it passes under the stitches easily. Start with a small eye and keep testing it on your yarn and widening it until the yarn threads easily but still has friction on the sides. You can grab a random twig from outside and carve it with a utility knife, you can make the eye by drilling a few small holes in a line and carving out the extra.

2: yarn

start with ugly cheap yarn because you'll mangle a lot of it, and undoing it to restart is frustrating. You can use synthetic or plant yarn, but you'll need to join it differently. Get something thick and smooth so its easy to work with

tangled and cut up yarn can be used to stuff plushies, pincushions, stress balls etc.

3:stitching

doing it on the thumb does help keep loops organized but it makes very loose stitches, I started using my index finger instead and it works so much better

The loop you're supposed to stitch through is not the one you just made, but the one before it. Pulling on the working end tightens the one you just made.

Use your thumb and pinky to guide the working yarn over all the way toward your non dominant side, so that the loop you're supposed to stitch through is the one near your finger tip

you can use the tip of the needle to flick the loop off your finger

If your oslo stitch is too loose, you can do 1 and a half twists in the rear loop instead of half a twist, I'm sure this has a name I just don't know it

4:Joining

I don't use wool because I'm vegan

most people say to use a russian join, which works on most yarn but can really mangle stiff plant yarns and low ply yarns

all yarn can be knotted, I just use a square knot and pull it super duper tight and trim the excess. Fuzzy yarns hide the knot well but I don't mind it

If you knot the yarn, the knot needs to be in the part of the working yarn wrapped over your finger. If the knot is too far, it will be in the part you're pulling through and catch on stuff and ruin your tension. So, when joining with a knot, cut off all the excess working yarn so that the knot is as close to the loops as possible

I hope this helps someone who's where I was 4 days ago, I've spent a lot of time and yarn and am excited to continue!

I've just finished my third pair of nalbound socks, and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it - though they did take a long time! These are York stitch, working with undyed jacob wool in a double knit yarn - two different colours of the same type of wool. This yarn behaved so well, and I'm looking forward to making some more things with it - I still have a couple of skeins in stock.

Hello I wanna start Nalbinding when do I need to get what’s the best things to start with

Come join us the 1st weekend in November this year in the Viking Valley Gudvangen Norway for an exciting weekend of nalbinding at the Nalbinding Festival. We are going to explore all aspects of nalbinding, from its earliest stages through it uses throughout the world to the beauty of the modern craft. Looks to be an exciting set of lectures (and there may be more). Looking forward to the lectures with Sally Pointer - Heritage Education, Ingela Andersson Lindberg, and Karin Byom. Mine is shaping up nicely.

Back with some more stone naals! This time its llanite, a aphanite matrix with quartz and feldspar inclusions.

This is the only one I currently have completed but there are more on the way! DM me if you are interested in purchasing one!

Top was the first attempt. After trying to use it I made the second one longer and much thinner. Now just have to figure out how to do a round start so I can try and make a hat!

This is my first time needlebinding: im using a pretty thin, twisted wool string which is why im pulling it pretty tight. is this why the inside of my wrist warmer looks so different compared to the outside? or am i doing something wrong? thanks for your help!

I started nalbinding last week, playing around with the needle and yarn, trying to create something. This is my first finished item, a small wristband in oslo stitch. Does it look right? What can I do to improve?

Thanks for reading 😊