My name is Caryn and I’m addicted to Pinterest. I console myself in that I don’t just pin, I do make things inspired by what I find (not sure that is mitigating, though).

I get many needle craft pins rolling across my feed, and have been seeing the word nålbinding (or naalbinding, or nalbinding) for some time. I pinned one, then decided to delve deeper and found a website by Sanna-Mari Pihlajapiha full of interesting information. Nålbinding is basically using a needle to make connected loops to form a fabric. The needle she used looked very familiar, so I went through my stash (which is made up of items inherited from both sides of my and my husband’s families), and found handmade needles of bone and wood. The bone needle’s eye was cracked, so I didn’t want to risk trying to use that, so I started with the wooden (possibly diamond willow) needle. This turned out to be too sharp for the homespun (possibly) wool I also found in my stash. So I made my own needle fashioned from scrap cherry wood left over from spoon making. The flat wide shape is actually easier to use for nålbinding.

What appealed to me with this technique of fabric creation (aside from the fact that I didn’t have to buy materials to try it), is that it predates knitting and crocheting and variations have been used all over the world, for possibly over 8,000 years (according to Sanna-Mari Pihlajapiha, the oldest nalbinding fragment was found in Israel and dates from about 6500 BCE).

I actually quite like this technique. It feels like sewing, but creates a thick sturdy fabric with an interesting texture. It builds somewhat like crochet, but does not unravel (picking out stitches is a bear, let me tell you).

After a few discarded starts, I settled into making a small bag. I tried a couple stitches (certainly not all of them, there are over a thousand variations), but liked the Finnish stitch 1 + 2 (also known as the Mammen stitch) with the materials I had. I am not entirely sure how to finish a piece, so I continued the stitches to make a strap, then sewed the end down the side.

The bag is about the size of my cell phone and used up all the remains of the skein of yarn. A stash buster!