If historical textiles are your thing, then you can't get much more historical than nalbinding. Before there was knitting, before there was crochet, people used sticks and string to make clothing with a technique called nalbinding.
Although the word "nalbinding" is Danish, the technique was practiced by cultures in both ancient Egypt (500 AD) and ancient Peru (300 BC). It's impossible to say who invented it, but it is still practiced in Peru and Scandinavia today. In between, it was particularly popular with the Vikings (700-1100 AD).
Nalbinding creates a very dense fabric, and it is suitable for use with very short lengths of yarn. It's a little like crochet, except that instead of just hooking loops through other loops, you pull the entire length of yarn through each loop. Time consuming? Oh yes. But the resulting fabric is also very durable, which is why it is frequently used to create socks and mittens.
These days, outside of Peru, nalbinding is most often employed by people who want to create historically accurate costumes. Since knitting wasn't big in Europe until the 1500s or so, those who want to create medieval fiber textiles (as for a historically accurate Viking costume) look to nalbinding for their clothing needs.
To create nalbinding, you need yarn and a nalbinding needle. If you don't have access to a Viking museum, you can use a darning needle designed for knitters. The steps to create nalbinding can be a little confusing. There are a number of YouTube tutorials, but this blog tutorial on the basic Oslo stitch is one of my personal favorites.
For maximum historical accuracy, you probably want to use a 100% wool yarn, probably a single. Lopi yarn comes to mind as a great example of the kind of yarn Vikings probably used. If you want something a little softer and in a more contemporary range of bright colors, Manos del Uruguay or Malabrigo yarn would be a great choice.
You'll be making Viking-accurate textiles in no time!
Image courtesy Flickr/AnnaKika
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