Spring colours in snow, and some nalbinding news

On Easter Monday we had a snowfall that lasted all day. Nothing fancy, just tiny flakes or larger ones, slowly or with a wind, but by the evening we had about 20 cm new, fresh snow covering the dirty old, melting snow. The next day was sunny and lovely, so I took my newest fingerless mittens and other knittings out for a photo shoot.

From the rest yarns of the mittens I knitted some baby hats for a charity.

Then I made a group photo of the yellowish chemo therapy caps. I used the last remnants together with a light grey yarn for a striped beanie.

My nalbinding has taken a leap since my last posting, with the simple chain of stitches. I tried the Finnish stitch, well, naturally, because I am Finnish. I was right thinking that it would be easy to learn after having practiced the Oslo stitch. I didn't care about the odd big loops left from the starting stitches, nor about the Oops! stitches where I missed a loop or picked one too many, nor the lumpy joints of yarn. I just tried to get a feeling to the movements of my hands. It was easier to make new stitches when there was something to hold onto, unlike the floppy tail of loose single stitches.

With this technique you don't work from a ball of yarn but thread a needle with a suitable length of yarn and when you have almost used it up, you felt the end of the new yarn to it. This little pouch is hardly good for anything, but it has given me tremendous courage to start a proper project. I like the texture, and there is stretch in both directions.

On the right you can see my new nalbinding needle. My dear Mr K. made it for me just this week! He is building a bamboo fly fishing rod and used bamboo to make this for me. It is glued together of two slivers so the smooth enamel surface is on both sides.

Here you can see the amount of snow we had on April 1st! Mr K. shoveled just a track for the car.

Dots and dashes, socks and beanies, and finally something new

 After a long break I have been cutting my fabrics again. Reds and neutrals from the shirt boxes.

Squares and strips like dots and dashes. I wonder if this will be something in Morse code? I really liked Inspector Morse!

I knitted a plain pair of socks for little Miss Purple, because her little sister was going to get one,

and a striped pair for little Miss Yellow, because there was a striped pair for her big sister.

The chemo caps are easy and fun to knit. This one took a little more than one ball of yarn 

so I used this pattern with less stitches and made an XS size in straw yellow.

This is the "new" I'm learning. In fact this technique, nalbinding or nalebinding, in Finnish neulakinnastekniikka, is ancient and much older than knitting or crochet.

It has been used to make mittens and socks and hats. This is the longest chain of first stitches I have managed to make so far. The idea came from Melanie, and we are learning together with Tracy in Norway, all of us total beginners. In Finland this technique has been used up to WWII and the last masters have passed it on to new generations. I have been asking around, but several friends who have studied handicrafts only remember they learned the basics during their studies but didn't make it a hobby. My mother had taken a class in nalbinding as well, and made a lovely, beautiful pair of mittens nobody was allowed to wear as she had won a price with them at some contest. At that time I was too young to be interested in learning something so old and slow. At least I have her needle and some papers from her class. I hope to be able to show you a chain in the "Finnish stitch", and maybe a second row as well. Our first stitch to learn has been the Oslo stitch.