I had heard about nålebinding a while ago. It seemed vaguely interesting, but I had other stuff going on. However, crochet and knitting (the later of which I am terrible at) both seem to trigger my tendinitis really badly. I still crochet, but I have to limit the time I spend doing it. As such, I have been trying to delve into other skills. I have been darning/mending a bit, which has been great... but is more of an as needed thing.
My partner was interested in whittling. I ordered us a "couples kit" that had two of everything, so that we could both try it out. We have not had time to start the spoon carving we plan on doing. However, I had been watching nålebinding videos, and it seemed more interesting. More like stitching. I felt like maybe the movement wouldn't bother my arm(s) as much.
To do nålebinding you need two things: yarn and an appropriate needle. I did not have a needle that seemed right. So I went into the yard with a hatchet and found a suitable piece of wood in our wood pile. I split off a thin end from it and used the hatchet to get it to roughly the size I wanted for a needle. I then took out the straight knife from the whittling kit and went to work. It was much easier than I thought it would be. The needle came into the right shape in a matter of minutes. I then took out a drill and added a hole to the top. I have realized now that I would prefer more of an oval or rounded rectangle for the hole and that I could do that with the knife. Next time. I used some 150, then 225, grit sand paper to smooth it all out.
I started learning the Oslo stitch. I used some old DK weight yarn I had sitting around. It came out a mess. Two things seemed to be the issue: the yarn was too thin and the needle was too wide. I whittled down the sides of the needle a bit, as well as used a small file to elongate the hole a little bit. Resanding was the next step before going back upstairs to borrow some of my partner's bulky weight yarn. This worked much much better. It feels like magic to craft a tool and then make something with it. Truly: something from the ether. It has been a really cool experience.
I only did 15 or so stitches in the Oslo stitch and then tied off. Just a sample piece to prove I can do it, before learning more stitches or diving into an actual project. Here is a picture of the needle and the sample swatch:
