I am continuing my nålbinding practice. I used up more scraps of wool yarn in my stash to make a hat! It has a slightly pointy top; I need to work on making flat circles, but I’ve seen several pictures of nålbound hats with a pointy top, so I’m going to call it a design choice (as in I chose not to pick out the stitches and try again). There is a time to unravel and a time to push through. Mostly I push through!
Wool hat made with the Mammen nålbinding stitch
I’m glad I did push through on this, because it seems like it will be a good warm hat. The last rows are made of soft merino wool, which really makes it comfortable to wear. And I love the ear flaps! My ears are usually cold walking in the winter. I love the spiral construction, and I figured out how to finish and blend in the final stitches. Now to go raid the yarn stash and see what else I can use up.
Small pocket size (or no pockets at all!) in clothes drives me crazy. But finding cargo shorts, capris, or trousers in woman’s sizes that fit nice is difficult. Either they have useful pockets, or they fit nice, not the two together. Grr. I get that women usually have purses or bags, so don’t “need” pockets. I like having my phone with me, especially when the kids are in school. I also have become quite attached to my instant information (and if I don’t write something down right away, I will forget), and don’t want to walk to my purse to pull out my phone to look something up. (I’d likely forget what I wanted to look up anyway; my phone is my assistive technology.)
So I came up with a way to add a pocket. I like the mid-leg pockets because there is less stress on the phone (I’m not sitting on it!). I tried some surface pockets, but these inside pockets hold the phone better and look nicer.
To make the pocket, cut a piece of fabric about 1 1/2” wider than your phone, and twice the length plus 2”.
Measuring fabric for pocket
Iron about 3/8” up the long sides of the fabric.
Iron folds
Put on the garment and mark where you want your pocket opening. Cut a slit the width of the ironed fabric.
Cut a slit in the garment (measure twice, cut once!)
Turn the garment inside out and pin the right sides of the pocket to the right sides of the cut.
Pin the pocket to the garment
I used a whip stitch to sew the edge all the way around. Remove the pins, and turn the garment right side out and tuck in the pocket. Lay the pocket flat and adjust the pocket fabric to evenly fold around the cut (note, the garment fabric should not fold, just the pocket material).
Pocket material adjusted
I used a hidden stitch or hem stitch to attach the edges of the pocket material all away around. Make sure to add extra stitches at the ends of the cut to reinforce. Turn the garment inside out and sew the edges of the pocket closed. I used a whip stitch again. I saved this part until last because it is easier to adjust the folds with the sides of the pocket unsewn.
Sew up sides of the pocket
Yay! New functional pocket!
Added phone pocket
If you want a bit of pop, you can use a contrasting fabric.
Contrasting fabric pocket
And yes, I hand sewed the whole thing. I like hand sewing; I can stitch while sitting in my chair in the living room with my family, and I find it relaxing.
Well that is new. I’ve never had a sewing foot break in the middle of a project before. But of course it was supposed to be a quick 15 minute project, so something had to happen. Luckily it didn’t take too long to find a nice solid metal foot, but the clear one was my favorite. Sigh.
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).
My cat likes nålbinding better than knitting because there is more room on my lap and she doesn’t get tapped with needles
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.
Hand made needles
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.
Finished nålbound bag
The bag is about the size of my cell phone and used up all the remains of the skein of yarn. A stash buster!
I switched to buying sparkling water in aluminum cans. As much fun as it is to make plastic string from bottles, I now have more string than I know what to do with (I have ideas, but not the time yet!) But aluminum is one of the few recyclables that actually make money (it is easier to melt recycled aluminum than it is to mine and process bauxite and recycling reduces the need to strip mine for bauxite). We don’t have recycling where we live, so the choice of containers makes a big impact on the amount of trash we produce.
I have some ideas on things to make with aluminum cans, but again, the time to process and make has been thin (chickens). I took a large bag to the middle school science teacher for a high/low pressure experiment (and the school has recycling, yay!), but it didn’t take long to build up another big bag. I called around and the local scrap yard takes aluminum! And pays for it. What? Not much, but still, it made me rethink my bag of uncrushed cans. A 33 gallon bag full of empty cans weighs about 7 pounds. Crushed we can at least double that, and reduce the amount of space taken up in the house while the cans are waiting for recycling.
So I looked up DIY can crusher and the first hit was a good one. I gathered some 2×4 scrap, a spare gate hinge, and two pint canning jar lids. All from around the house.
Materials for a can crusher
Then my kids and I made it a project. We set the hinge on the ends of the 2x4s, and used 1 inch screws to set the jar lids as guides between the 2x4s. They each took turns using the drill to set screws, then they took turns putting in cans and stepping down to crush the cans.
Canning jar lid on each 2×4 makes a good guide for holding the cans
We started off with the screws that came with the hinge, and after a few cans, changed to 1 inch screws, then to 2.5 inch screws. I think in the original video the guy used lag screws, which would be even better (but I was out of those). The jar lids took a beating, but still worked well!
Critters and Craft 