Nalbinding Project #9 -- Wristers (fingerless mitts) in Oslo Stitch

I still need to tuck in yarn ends, but they're done.  They went quickly and were super easy to make.  I like them a lot.  They fit, they're warm, the top can be turned down into a little cuff and still cover my palms, etc.

It's another Oslo stitch demo project, this one showing the technique for creating a hole.

Pattern:  Make a foundation chain that is long enough to go around the widest part of your hand.  For me in Oslo stitch in this yarn, it was 28 stitches.  Join and work in spirals for 10 rounds.  This was long enough to cover my wrists and reach the base of my thumb.  Then make a hole by doing a 4-stitch chain (big enough to go around my thumb and make a sufficient-sized hole) while skipping 4 loops in the round below.  Rejoin and do another 6 rounds until I'm past the middle knuckles of my fingers but with the pinky still showing.  Done.

I managed to do a little moebius strip for one of the wristers, my first time doing that while joining.  Yay, me.

The yarn is a fat single-ply acrylic of some sort in a heathery blue.

What shall I do next?  I still want to stick with Oslo stitch until after I teach the class, since I'm still pretty new to all this and want to have the muscle memory very firmly entrenched in Oslo Stitch Maneuverings.

I could make a circular mat or shallow basket.

I could make a center-out one that is square or rectangular.

I could make the flat part with back-and-forth flat stitching.

Hmmm.

I probably don't feel like making mittens or socks or slippers, not even mini versions.

It feels a bit weird to be writing about garment-like objects on a narrow-wares blog.  Though I suppose nalbinding is in the category of "obscure crafts" and thus is adjacent to braiding and band weaving.  Sprang can go either way, from narrow to wide, as can bands, I suppose.  I don't think I want to move it to my knitting blog and I don't want to make a whole new blog for nalbinding plus or minus sprang just yet.  So I'll continue to write about nalbinding and give little mini-recipes/patterns here.

Nalbinding Project #8 -- Oslo Stitch sphere/ball

Another quick little twiddle to explore shaping in nalbinding as well as everything else.  This is in Oslo stitch since I'm unlikely to do other stitches until after my upcoming class is done.

I have seen nalbinding spheres out there but don't have access to a pattern.  So I made it up myself!

I did the slip-knot loop start, where pulling on the tail tightens the loop.

Start by putting 16 oslo stitches into the loop.

Start the spiral.  In the first round, double the stitches (32 stitches)

At this point, the fabric was already starting to get ruffly, so I stopped increasing.

Do 5 rounds without any more increases or decreases.

Then do 1 round of decreasing half the stitches (back to 16 stitches)

Run the yarn end through the loops of the final round and pull tight.  Well, before you pull tight, tuck in random yarn ends and stuff the ball.

It turned out well.  I didn't stuff it too full.  But it looks sufficiently spherical for my purposes.  In white, it's a snowball.  Stuff with catnip, a cat toy.  In a bright color, some kind of fruit.  Etc.  One can juggle with it or use it as an ornament.

Here's a pic before I stuffed the ball and pulled the top shut.

As part of this project, I experimented with ways to do the join where one length of yarn ends and the other begins, all in the "lazy join" category where one tucks in the two ends, securing them in a way that reduces the chance of the ends working loose.

I'm not great at most of them; they end up making an obvious blip in how the pattern looks.  But I'm getting better.  Mostly it helps to hide the end by running it through the tops of the loops on the back side, and also trying to make sure there's a 360º overlap of old and new (i.e. trace the path of one loop with the end of the old yarn and the beginning of the new yarn).  I'll continue to try the various suggestions I see floating around.  I might try the simple knot method, where one drops the old thread and starts with the new, and then knots the two ends together on the back of the work in the area between my thumb and the rest of my hand.  Heck, someday I'll even use wool yarn and do some actual spit-splicing.

Here's a stitch I want to try -- Happy Nalbinding calls it a "skip stitch" in this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI1kuE-jmXk.  It's sort of the opposite of the Björsbo stitch.  It's like the Oslo stitch in that it's a 1+1 stitch.  But after the thread goes through the loop on the back of the thumb, it goes over the loop on the front of the thumb and then under the working yarn.  (Björsbo goes under the loop on the front of the thumb and then over the working yarn.  Oslo goes under both.)

But I also want to continue all the other explorations.  So I'll do that.  All the stitch families.  Known examples.  Modern experiments.  Basketry-ish simple/proto nalbinding.  Etc.  Plus interesting things to make.

I still am pretty sure I don't want to make nalbinding socks, but I'm not ruling out slippers.

Nalbinding Project #7 -- Hyperbolic Pseudosphere in Oslo Stitch

I wanted a quick project that wouldn't require a lot of thinking.  A hyperbolic pseudosphere certainly meets those qualifications!

These are used for scrubbies or ornaments or toys and were popular for those crocheted coral reef projects that were going on several years ago.  I've crocheted several.

And now I've done one using nalbinding.  Oslo stitch, to be precise, since I want to make sure I feel very, very secure in Oslo stitch for my upcoming teaching gig.  I don't want to get flustered and confuse myself with the muscle memory for Björsbo or Mammen or Finnish stitch.

These are very easy to make.  Put a bunch of stitches into a circle, whether it's a magic loop or slip-knot loop or sew the working end through the bottom of the stitches, etc.  Then, as you start your spiral -- put two stitches into every stitch in the round below.  Continue until it's big enough or you're out of yarn or have had enough.

I might add on more later but I think it's fine the way it is.

I think it was a fairly successful experiment.  Nalbinding stitches tend to be longer and skinnier than, say single crochets.  Dunno what this would look like if I used a squattier stitch, such as maybe York or plain looping (Danish stitch?) or the like.  Or if I increased faster by putting 3-4 stitches in every stitch rather than 2.  Or if I started with even more (or fewer) stitches in the initial round.  Or if I'd tried harder to work with a tighter gauge  (I'm trying to keep every move the way that seems easiest for a beginning student, meaning that the worsted weight yarn in this project might be a little looser and drapier than if I'd tightened each stitch rather than letting my thumb determine the fabric gauge).

I rather like the texture of nalbinding in these hyperbolic pseudospheres.

Other than that, I've not been doing anything worth posting to this blog even though I have a few things on my to-do list.  Alas.  Mostly I want to be ready to teach this month.  Secondly, I owe a few people some projects and want to get those done.  Thirdly, I am pretty much out of knitting projects and need to cast on for a few more ASAP so I don't panic.  That requires decision-making, something I'm not always capable of doing.

One thing I like about nalbinding -- it's great for those of us who aren't great at deciding when and how to finish something.  Is a project done?  "Done for now" is good enough.  I can walk away and return or not as I wish.  There are no dangling threads that will unravel the project.  No crochet hooks or knitting needles that have to stay with the project and/or get carefully recorded so I can use the same one when I return.  Etc.

Nalbinding Project #4 -- another Oslo stitch hat

I'm getting better at counting stitches, figuring out where the end of the round is, and joining acrylic yarn somewhat inconspicuously.  Progress is happening, I suppose.  The motions are getting smoother and I'm able to tension the yarn a bit as I go.

The yarn is acrylic in variegated autumn-y colors, with very short sections of each color.  It could be Red Heart or something similar -- it's a heavy worsted weight.

I made a magic loop ring and put some Oslo stitches into it.  I thought I had 12 stitches in it, but it was probably 11.  Or the 12th stitch loop doesn't count, or something.  I kept coming up with multiples of 11 rather than 12 when counting stitches on subsequent rounds.  Ish, because I'm still not great at keeping track of these things.

Round 1:  double the stitches (22-ish)

Round 2:  1 st, 1 inc (33-ish)

Round 3: 2 st, 1 inc (44-ish)

Round 4: 3 st, 1 inc (55-ish)

Round 5: 4 st, 1 inc (66-ish)

Round 6: 11 st, 1 inc (72-ish)

Then I kept going without any on-purpose increases or decreases until I was out of yarn.

The hat is about the right circumference and is long enough to comfortably go over my ears or even turn up a small brim.

Now to give it some real-world testing...

I'm not sure what's next.  Maybe more Oslo stitch things to show to people at the class I teach next month.  If so, I could do a pouch or some fingerless mitts (straight tube with a buttonhole-type thumb opening).  Or maybe I'll play around with different stitches and make more bags and hats and mats/baskets and stuff.

I do plan to put a few more rounds on the little Björsbo stitch bag so it'll be long enough to hold my lucet, or even a water bottle.  I'll probably close it with a drawstring or with a little braided loop at the top that folds over to hook around a button on the other side.

That's the potential nalbinding plan.  I'll probably do some other crafts, too.