Naalbinding

An ancient, heritage craft that pre-dates knitting and crochet by thousands of years. It was how we made socks, hats and mittens through the ages.

I needed socks to complete my outfit, and my partner wanted some new ones too! So I watched other reenactors naalbinding whenever we were at a show, and at home I searched YouTube for tutorial videos.

It took A LOT of attempts to get the stitch right, and there were several points when I was ready to give up. I actually picked up a crochet hook for the first time in over a decade, as I'd got to thinking, this makes crochet feel easy. And now it is. Forming a treble stitch in crochet wasn't something I'd done confidently before, but I did it in between naalbinding attempts!

I now have my own "shop" on a website offering craft lessons, which is another thing I'd never done. I was in the middle of making one of my own stockings at a show (Heysham, if you're interested) and a lady came over asking me questions about it, quite intensely. She asked if I could teach the craft, and I blinked and said, "I suppose I could," to which she replied tersely that she'd been looking for lessons for a while and there's not a single one available in the UK, and I should get on CraftCourses.com. So I did a free introduction:

https://www.craftcourses.com/courses/naalbinding-demo-video-with-introduction

... and I've devised a short course which will be uploaded in stages.

My stockings are finished, as are my partner's socks. But they take a while to do, as it's a long process. My next challenge will be a hat!