I find that there are simply not enough resources for how to begin nalbinding online, and next to none for left-handed fiber-crafters. To be totally forthright, I learned from Happy Needlebinding, on Youtube, from their lefthanded video, but I wanted there to be more resources for other lefties to choose from without getting frustrated, feeling like they have to mirror a site or videos (a place I was getting to before I discovered the Happy Needlebinding video; btw he seems like SUCH a sweet, patient guy).
Step One: Make a simple knot.
Yes, most resources recommend using a wool-based yarn. I'm using what I have on hand. Once/whenever I find my darning needles, or give in and buy a needlepoint or other plastic needle, I may/will try to add a Russian join. Right now, I've been joining my ends by tying each ply together and I can't find my joins in my work. You'll be okay.
Step two: Put your knot over your thumb with the crossover on the pad of your thumb.
For demonstration purposes, I have made the tail way too short. Your working end should always come to rest in the cradle of your thumb.
Step three: Hold your tail in your fingers (I'm only holding the end with my ring finger and pinky), and drape the working end through the cradle of your thumb.
Step four: The way I learned to start, from Happy Needlebinding, was to pass your needle between the crossover of your first knot, and the pad of your thumb.
If you don't like this starting method, I'm aware that other methods; this is the way that I learned and it works for me.
Step five: Pull your working end until you form your second loop, which goes under/"behind" your first and return your working end to the cradle of your thumb.
If I was actually working a project, I would want both of these loops snug around my thumb. Personally, I work closer to the top edge of my nail; you might prefer working a little further back to begin.
Now, this next part is where I repeatedly got lost, so if this seems a little drawn out, I apologize (I think? =P):
Step six-A: You're going to push the first loop off your thumb, and I tend to hold it in place, gently but firmly.
Step six-B: Put your needle in this loop
Step six-C: Turn your needle around and direct it under your second loop and your working yarn. For demonstration purposes only, my working yarn is not in the cradle of my thumb. Normally, my needle stays at more of a 90degree angle from where it entered the first loop
I appear to have maxed out the images in this first part.
I'm going to be totally forthright: I had an incredibly difficult time finding a good resource for this, and even so, I still really struggled to figure this part out. You're welcome lol
Step one: Count three stitches back. Remember, nalbinding has two working loops so
This is kind of what my three stitches ends up looking like.
Step two: Holding your first row like so, front toward yourself, this end in your hand, the other end generally pointing to the left, and insert your needle.
Yes, I do have a different needle for this. I carved my first wooden needle myself; it was my first time carving/whittling something like that and I wasn't positive what I might want/need in a nalbinding needle. Luckily, it was just wood.
Step three: You don't necessarily have to do this, but I ended up flipping my working loops up closer to the working end of my thread.
Step three-A: What I've done, if you look very closely, is I'm holding down the second of my two working loops. From here, you'll nalbind pretty much as normal. Go in your first loop as normal, and turn to go back, through your second working loop, and under your working yarn.
Step three-B: I honestly found this difficult to photograph with this pale color of yarn, but as with your starting chain, you'll go in the first loop, turn, go through the second loop and under the working end of the yarn.
At this point, I just repeated: Put your needle through those humpy stitches on the top edge of your chain row, hold down your second loop if you need to/find that helps, put your needle through your first loop from the front, like normal, turn, go through your second loop and under your working thread, like normal!
Again, I hope this helps. I tried to really slow down, draw out exactly what I was doing. The great news is, the second row goes lightening fast, compared to the first row (for example, my chain row took like five days, and personally, once I picked up nalbinding, it felt pretty second nature), especially if you were having to stop to adjust all your stitches down to your desired size (by contrast, I got a third of my second row done just in a short, couple hours session).
I think it's a pretty commonly held understanding that nalbinding is gaged by your thumb, but that's not entirely true. If you were really driven to nalbind a scale piece for a Barbie or Obitsu, you absolutely could. And that's super apparent when you get to the second row, when it's easier to work what's called off (your) thumb. Once you're comfortable with nalbinding, try it out!
Guess who's finished laying out her puzzle pieces cardigan? Oh yeah 😎 took several iterations and like... 9? months to knit and lay out all the pieces but! It should work now! Please let it work now 😅 I had to buy a whole new colour of yarn two months ago when I realised my initial (-ish) layout didn't work and I needed more pieces - and due to the fact that yarn comes in balls and I didn't want to add a lot extra of any two existing colours, a new colour it was. Oof. Also had to redo the layout yesterday as well because puzzle piece logic is hard to keep in your head and I designed it wrong. Oh well.
This is the array of knitted pieces I wanted to use, but then I had to add some more from the pile of accidental extras and also reknit some into other shapes to accommodate my redesign.
Once the layout was done, I picked up all the pieces and threaded them onto a long piece of yarn, in a nice working order (I'll go bottom up from right front all around to left front, then the sleeves from back to front each). I had to add a couple of placeholders for pieces I had to modify, which I'm all finished with now, yay! (The one perk of being sick is having the time to sit on the couch and reknit puzzle pieces)
Now onto the sewing! 😃
(And before anyone asks, the pattern for the puzzle pieces is from the "Puzzle Pieces" pattern by Megan Ellinger which is no longer available for purchase there. The cardigan design is, as you might have been able to tell, my own.)
Of course Tilly came to sit on it. Why wouldn't she...
Fresh out of the oven, this pie crust vest was an absolutely delicious knit that I couldn't wait to get a slice of. This pattern is the
Sugar Sweet Woven Vest by Nancy Marchant!
In June of 1902, Rachel's former roommate Peggy (one of the "two Margarets") wrote Will from Pasadena, California where her family had recently relocated. Mart (the other Margaret) was visiting and the two of them had taken up a new hobby.
"We have taken to playing Ping Pong lately. Have you tried it? We play every evening until after eleven o'clock. Sometimes it is too much of a good thing." - Peggy to Will, June 1, 1902.
Joining Peggy and Mart in their new hobby was - well, pretty much the entire world...
After the introduction of lawn tennis (now just called tennis) in the 1870s created a worldwide phenomenon, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would move the sport indoors.
A handful of mentions of various games called “table tennis” or “parlor tennis” appear throughout the 1880s, often with rules that bear no resemblance to outdoor tennis. Several related patents were filed in England in the 1880s and early 90s, but none that seem to have resulted in mass production.
The earliest modern table tennis set was marketed under the name “Gossima” by J. Jacques & Son Ltd of London, beginning in 1891.
(source: The Graphic, December 10, 1898.)
A Gossima set included two vellum rackets, a covered cork ball and a foot high net that could be secured to any standard dining table with a strap.
Though I’ve found records of Gossima being marketed as far away as Pakistan and New Zealand, it seems to have met with limited success until the Fall of 1900 when it suddenly exploded in popularity among London’s elite under a new name - ping pong. This (both the sudden success and the new name) were likely due in part to the introduction of the celluloid ping pong ball we know today, which far outperformed the previous cork design.
In September 1900, the Pall Mall Gazette published an article (actually a stealth ad for Hamleys toy store) discussing the new fad and giving tips for players. The article was also picked up by overseas press and printed in several newspapers in the US and Canada (minus the Hamleys plug), spreading the first whispers of the game abroad.
By January of 1901 the fad had become near ubiquitous in London. The Evening News wrote ““Ping Pong” is the only game that may be mentioned, let alone played, in London drawing rooms. Everybody Ping Pongs, or watches other people Ping Pong, from the Dutchess in Belgravia down to the clerk in Forest Gate.”
(An improvised ping pong table set up by servants as portrayed in Punch magazine, November 13, 1901.)
The (London) Morning Leader wrote in March - “Gentle reader “Do you Ping Pong”? If you don't you're not an up-to-date person. It is as fashionable as mourning or the Twopenny Tube, and far more the rage than bridge.”
By May, Hamleys was selling folding ping pong tables and special sets for tournaments.
Throughout 1901, ping pong continued to grow in popularity across the British Empire and beyond. By this point the name “Ping Pong” had been trademarked in both England (by Hamleys and J. Jacques & Son Ltd.) and the US (by the Parker Bros.), forcing competitors to sell under various names including: Whiff Waff, Pom-Pom, Pim-Pam and Netto. “Table Tennis” or “Parlor Tennis” would remain the most common generic terms.
One London firm claimed to have sold one million ping pong sets in the last three months of 1901.
The US would not fully fall to the ping pong craze until 1902, and newspapers reported the spread of the game as you would an encroaching pandemic.
“[It] is becoming more infectious than smallpox and as catching as golf.” The Boston Globe warned in December 1901.
“If it were a plague, ping-pong could not be sweeping more widely over the face of the earth. In Mexico, in India, in Japan - everywhere - the ping-pong of the little xylonite ball is heard throughout the land…” - Harper’s Weekly, May 3, 1902.
(source: The Macon Telegraph, May 18, 1902.)
By May 1902 the ping pong pandemic had fully engulfed the US.
“For one not to know how to play ping pong means practically social ostracism.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 18, 1902
Ping pong parties and luncheons abounded. Pubs and poolrooms quickly converted into public ping pong parlors. Countless clubs and tournaments were soon arranged.
Even senators and congressmen were asked their opinion of the game and, in one case, whether they would support opening a ping pong parlor at the Capitol Building.
In late May, Alice Roosevelt hosted a “ping pong tea and dance” aboard the presidential yacht.
(source: The Bradford Weekly Telegraph, April 19, 1902.)
Enterprising businessmen attached the name ping pong to articles of all imaginable varieties. Soda fountains served ping pong punch and ping pong ice cream.
Photographers introduced the ping pong photo - which produced a strip of multiple pictures using a sliding frame which “ping ponged” back and forth.
(A ping pong photo of Mart and Rachel, taken circa 1902.)
Clothing stores carried ping pong hats, ping pong ties, ping pong shirtwaists, ping pong slippers and ping pong belts (made of mesh to resemble the net), while fashion columns suggested appropriate ping pong attire.
(A dress with pockets designed to hold ping pong balls, from the New Orleans State, May 25, 1902.)
(source: The Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 25, 1902.)
Flexible ping pong corsets were developed after some female players found it difficult to play the game in their tight-laced undergarments. One article mused whether ping pong might bring an end to tight-lacing altogether.
(source: The Indianapolis News, May 27, 1902.)
Articles extolled the healthy virtues of ping pong for exercise and weight loss, while others warned of its dangers to your health. “Ping pong shoulder”, “ping pong ankle”, “ping pong wrist” and severe eye strain were all touted as possible outcomes of overzealous play.
Worries that public ping pong parlors would encourage gambling resulted in Providence, Rhode Island implementing a ping pong license.
The ping pong craze would last through the summer of 1902, but begin to wane by the end of the year. Some areas extended the fad through 1903, but by 1904 it was well and truly dead.
“There isn’t half enough thankfulness for the griefs of yesteryear that haunt us no more. Ping-pong has gone.” The St. Louis Globe-Democrat proclaimed on January 25, 1903.
While a syndicated column in February 1904 printed “Weep copiously, dear ones, for the ping pong fad is dead. After the obsequies, you may trade your outfit for a phonograph and annoy the neighbors.”
Over the next two decades dedicated clubs continued to hold tournaments, but the general public more or less moved on.
Until another ping pong craze broke out in the late 1920s and persisted throughout much of the Great Depression.
After several more crazes and a stint in global politics, table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988.
La Mode illustrée, no. 22, 28 mai 1865, Paris. Passementerie pour garnitures de robes, de vestes, de jupons, etc. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney
These trimmings can be used for a variety of purposes, depending on the cords used: in wool, they can be used to trim curtains, cushions, and furniture; in very fine wool and silk, they can be used for clothing of all kinds.
In addition to the braids, we are featuring two different knots that can be used as edging, repeating them at regular intervals.
Instructions below:
Braids 1 – 4
Braid no. 1. — Single cord. Fold it at one of its ends, in order to form two opposite loops (see the upper edge of the figure). The other end is passed alternately through these two loops from top to bottom, as if making a blanket stitch; thus, continuing the braid shown. The cord should be passed through the gap marked by a dot then through the one marked by a cross, and so on.
Braid no. 2. — Single cord on a metal fork. A knot is made which is placed between the two sides of the fork; a loop is made which is passed through the knot, thrown over the fork, and continued in this way, taking care only that the cord is always held by the same hand (right or left). (a) indicates one of these loops, at the moment when it is passed through a gap, and (b) is the cord used to form the new loop. When the fork is covered, slip a portion of the braid back to continue the work.
Braid no. 3. — Four cords. The braid is made with three cords; the fourth remains perpendicular and alternates above and under the braid.
Braid no. 4. — Four cords. Take cord (a), braid it horizontally from right to left over the other three cords, then let it hang perpendicularly; do the same with cords (b) and (c); with the last one, form the point of the angle, passing it immediately from left to right, through cords (b), (a), (d), and continuing the work as just explained. With cord (d), form the point of the opposite angle, as indicated by the last interlacing of the figure. Take care to keep the braid even.
Capuchin Knot
Made with very thick wool cord, and repeated at regular distances. This knot can be used for bell cords, curtain and door tiebacks, etc. With fine wool or silk cord, it can be used to decorate clothing.
Figures 5 and 6 demonstrate the execution of the knot. Take one end of the cord in the left hand, direct the cord towards the tip of the index finger, and wrap the index finger and the four or five times; then pass it under these windings, directing it towards the tip of the index finger, and if the cord is not very thick, use a lace-maker or a hairpin for this purpose. If the cord is very thick, make these windings on two fingers at a time.
The ends of the cord thus cross inside the winding; they are pulled in two opposite directions, letting the knot slide out of the finger (see figure 6). Before completely tightening the knot, use a pencil in place of a finger. To keep the knot even, proceed slowly.
If care is not taken, the knot will be imperfect, as shown in figure 7. The true Capuchin knot is shown in figure 8.
Gordian Knot
Two cords are used. First take one and form two loops, as shown in figure 9; the upper end is marked (a), the lower end is marked (b).
Then take the second cord and lead the end marked (c) on fig. 10 from bottom to top, through the gap marked by a cross on fig. 9. Lead it to the left of cord (b) and braid it through the loops, as shown in figure 11, where it is shown as a larger cord for clarity. With the same cord, make another turn to the left, following the dotted line of figure 10. On one side we take cords (a) and (c), on the other cords (b) and (d), we pass them in pairs in the various directions, and we tighten the knot by pulling each cord separately, until we have formed the final knot, as shown in figure 12.
as someone who wants to make Every Art And Craft, Ever, All The Time it's actually suuuuuuch a relief when I come across a technique that I don't vibe with aesthetically. my pile of Things To Learn is endless and ever-growing and normally every time I see a new thing it's like well. there it goes. on the infinite pile. so on the rare occasions i see something i DON'T have a fervent and immediate desire to learn I'm just oh wow I don't like this. thank fucking god.
Since a lot (and I mean A LOT) of people really loved my lattice work with roses knitted shirt, I thought I'd do a full overview post with all the details including the pattern, yarn, how long it took me, some details, etc!
(The picture above is pre-wash, it's since been washed and has already dried and is fully ready to wear now!)
The pattern
The pattern for this shirt is the Weldons A794 lattice fair isle jumper. I found it on Ravelry initially but there wasn't an actual download or buy option available there, so in the end after some searching I found an Etsy shop (Pretty Old Patterns) that sold a scanned version and I got it from there.
It's a vintage pattern, which means you knit it flat and in panels, and then sew all the panels together. The instructions were mostly very clear to me, and the shirt itself wasn't difficult to make. If you can do colour work you can make this shirt. There's no sizing, if you need a bigger size you get a bigger needle.
I've been asked by multiple people, both irl and online, why I didn't do it in the round. There are several reasons for this, aside from the part where I simply hate knitting in the round, namely most importantly that with the intarsia it's impossible. This pattern has 5 colours, and it's impossible to keep dragging those 5 strands of yarn along the whole time. You'd end up with the bulkiest shirt, plus you'd need several times the amount of yarn. As it is, I used a couple of skeins of the main colour (the blue-ish one), 1.5 skein for the lattice work (gold/yellow), and half a skein for each colour in the roses (green, pink, and red).
If you're planning to make this, or something similar with a lot of colourwork/fair isle/intarsia/etc, I highly, highly recommend weaving in ends as you go. This was an absolute lifesaver for me. Weaving in as you go means taking the end of a string along and wrapping it around the yarn you're actively working with at every stitch. I did this for anywhere from 7-12 stitches and then often brought it back in the next row. Here's what that looks like on the inside all finished and tidied up:
And this is what it looks like before going through and checking to make sure every bit is properly woven in and/or weaving it in later:
The fish you see on the right there are for the lattice work specifically. This way I could just wind a bunch of the yellow/gold yarn onto the fish and do the intarsia that way and keep going for longer without the yarn getting in the way or constantly having to attach new yarn. For the roses I cut off strands of ~32 inch for the green and ~27 inch for the red and pink, which is longer than the 24 inch the pattern says to use for everything, but I found that wasn't quite enough to make it to the end.
Yarn
The yarn I used is all from Drops, specifically Drops Flora (65% wool, 35% alpaca) and Drops Alpaca (100% alpaca). When I started I could buy all this in town, which means I actually went to a store and put the colours together with some help from the shop owner. Sadly she's closed her shop in the meantime, so I'm very glad I had enough and didn't have to figure out colour batches or whatever to order online. I actually used less yarn than the pattern called for and have plenty left over!
Because of the nature of both sheep and alpaca wool, this means the shirt has a lot of...structure??? to it. It's a bit fuzzy, and I am a little worried it might be a bit scratchy, but I need to wear a shirt underneath this anyway so it's probably fine. I also have to handwash it, this absolutely can not go into the washing machine, but that's fine, I have a bunch of both knitted clothes and actual vintage/antique clothes that all have to be hand washed and I know the drill by now lol.
Also I used 2.5mm needles that I definitely didn't accidentally bend several times so they're now super wonky. I feel like that's pretty small for a shirt by modern standards? But also I knit mostly vintage/historical so I don't really know tbh.
And a bonus sidenote: I used actual vintage mother of pearl buttons for the shoulder closure that I was gifted by someone who had no use for them. I think they're maybe a little bit big and showy for this shirt but I just really liked the idea of actual vintage buttons on it. Maybe I'll replace them at some point, but for now they're very, very stuck on there.
The making of the shirt:
This project took me absolutely forever oh my god. I bought the yarn in may, and I finished the project in april, so from start to end it's almost a full year. To be fair, I had a busy year and also buggered off to the other side of the world for a month, and took another month to knit my first pair of socks. Still, that puts this project at 8-10 months total - and yes I do actually know someone who had an actual baby in the meantime and we've made jokes about how my shirt took longer to make than for her to grow a new human.
Like I said, the pattern itself isn't difficult per se. However, between keeping track of the intarsia, the shaping of the shirt itself, and the ends of the yarn, I had to pay attention at every stitch and constantly had to keep track of where each strand had to go, when to drop which one or pick which one up. This did make the process very slow and mentally taxing, with 100+ stitches per row.
I had printed the pattern and kept track a lot by making notes and counting things out on the papers which did help a lot:
I did bring this project to the knitting club I go to but my project bag always had the actual project on the needles, extra yarn, these 3 papers, a pen, scissors, a crochet hook for if I dropped some stitches, a measuring tape, and spare fish if I had them lmao.
I'm not gonna lie though: I was really struggling to actually finish this by the last few months. I'm really glad I finished it, but I got really tired of this project several times and definitely prioritized some completely different hobbies for a while. I definitely feel like my brain and also the rest of me need a long break after this (I say while having decided to make a granny square blanket next).
I was also really afraid it wasn't actually going to fit. I had done gauge swatches before I started but without the colourwork (BAD IDEA), and I very carefully tried on the main body at one point when I had just clipped it together with stitch markers and it did not fit then. But I tried it on again (very very scared) after I'd actually sewn it together and it fit! Barely but it did! It hopefully probably fits better too now it's washed, and if it doesn't I can still try blocking it if I want to. But for now, I am tired and don't want to work on it any more.
I will say it's shorter than I expected, shorter also than other vintage clothes I have, so keep that in mind if you're considering making this. For me it just about reaches the bottom of my rib cage, and the bottom actually sits just above my actual waist. I tried it on with pyjama pants and to be fair it did make my legs look much longer than they are, so I guess that's an upside to the shortness of it lol.
And that's it! Project done! I can finally move on to other things!
To everyone who followed my progress, thank you so much! It's been so fun seeing how many people were interested in my silly project and asked for information and updates (and complimented me a lot hehehehehe). I think I went through all the most common questions I got but if you have any other questions (or compliments) feel free to drop them in the replies, send an ask, or to dm me!
I tag all my knitting projects with the same tags (#adventures in knitting, #knitting, #knitblr) so if you want you can scroll back and see the updates happen as I went and also previous (and upcoming) projects.
I will not kill myself for peanuts, and you shouldn't either.
DIGITAL CHART ONLY
64 x 64, five colors or four colors + fabric color
I spent a long time designing this fire and every moment was spent with a heart chock full of hate for corporations and the governments that enable them.
origamiaround
ellievsbear
tangentwithtanner
