Nålebinding

Nålebinding (Danish and Norwegian: literally 'binding with a needle' or 'needle-binding', also naalbinding, nålbinding, nålbindning, or naalebinding) is a fabric creation technique predating both knitting and crochet.

Also known in English as "knotless netting", "knotless knitting",[1] or "single-needle knitting", the technique is distinct from crochet in that it involves passing the full length of the working thread through each loop, unlike crochet where the work is formed only of loops, never involving the free end.

It also differs from knitting in that lengths must be pieced together during the process of nålebinding, rather than a continuous strand of yarn that can easily be pulled out.

The oldest known textile fragment of Nålbinding dating from c. 6500 BCE was found in Nahal Hemar Cave, in the Judean Desert.

[2] Another made of lime bast fibre, from the Ertebølle period c. 4200 BCE was found in Tybrind Vig, a Mesolithic fishing village in Denmark.

Historical samples have often been misidentified as knitting due to how similar they can appear in the finished products if made using the Coptic stitch.

[6] Often a textile historian will need to closely follow the path of the yarn itself to identify the item as either knitting or nålbinding.

Nålbinding requires working with several short pieces of yarn (each usually hardly more than 2 meters long), which are connected together by humidifying each extremity in order to bind them together through felting, thus creating the appearance of one continuous thread.

It later gained renewed interest among many textile historians, archaeologists, craftspeople, and reenactors, so that it is today an exotic but well-kept handicraft tradition.

[7] The method creates an elastic fabric using short lengths of yarn and a single-eyed needle that is often broad and flat.

Crafters nowadays often use a specialised notation called the Hansen code to create patterns and communicate about the nålebinding technique.

[7] Some people prefer to use superscript numbers to describe the age of the passed loops, as it provides a clearer description for practical nalbinding than the brackets and colons.