Tutorial: Naalbound socks for men

My dear friends, here's a free pattern and tutorial for making naalbound men's socks.

The size of this pair is for European shoesize 45 (UK size 10,5). Since Einarr can't stand socks made of real wool, I made these with acrylic. I bought yarn for knitting needle nr. 4 (UK needle 8) and took a double thread for naalbinding.

The socks are made in Oslo-stitch, see these YouTube instructions for that stitch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8PXk5lTIZo

The socks are made from the toe up, this means you start at the toe. You start the "toe cap" with a loop of 10 stitches. Increase gradually until you have 46 stitches.

After 15 cm increase to 54 stitches to make room for the instep. After 20 cm in total you need to make the 'cross-over' to the ankle part of the sock. Take 27 stitches and work them seperately from the rest of the sock. Attach them again at stitch nr. 28 of the toe-part of your sock. Continue to work the stitches and decrease 4 stitches in the next two rounds.

After 5 cm decrease 6 stitches over the next 4 rounds. Finish the ankle part of the sock.

For the heel, pick up the stitches at the bottom of the foot part and the bottom of the ankle part. You'll have about 54 stitches in total. In the next round, increase 2 stitches in the corners to give the heel room. The second round naalbind the stitches as they come, for the next rounds decrease 4 or 5 stitches each row until you have about 10 stitches left. Close them up with a simple stitch and your sock is done!

An excellent book for socks is "Lots of Socks" by Larry Schmitt, available at Spanish Peacock. The pattern I've given you here is derived from his 'Simple Sock'.

Book review

Bookcover

The book "Viking Clothing" by Nille Glaesel came to me by accident really, a friend pointed it out to me. Nille was on her way to a Viking conference near Paris and had a stop-over at my friend's house. I went there, bought the book and I had the opportunity to meet writer Nille as well.

I can be short (and sweet): the book is FANTASTIC!!

Make sure you add this to your Viking library!

The price is 60 euros but that is really not expensive for this 186 pages book, filled with wonderful photos, explanations on tablet weaving and other type of trim/decoration and it also includes a pattern workbook with 6 pattern sheets filled with patterns. The patterns are for both adults and children.

Buy it here: http://www.vikingdrakt.webhjelp.net/

Website

Dear all,

Einarr and I have decided to translate the entire website into English. It is obvious our Dutch followers can understand English but the rest of you can't understand a word of our Dutch....

So, our request to you: please send us all your hints and tips for our site!
The tabs we have now are: who are we, blog, crafts, recipes, (academic) courses, excavations & exhibitions, agenda, calender, booklist, for sale and contact.

Your suggestions are welcome at: info [at] girbeson [dot] nl

We hope to hear from you!!

More Viking doll

Dear all,

Runa's Viking doll, which you can see in the photo hereunder, wasn't finished in my opinion. Of course, Runa wasn't complaining, but I thought the little naalbound lady needed a hangarok.

I found some dark brown Herringbone wool and I made a mini-hangarok.


Our local market has a bead stand and two ladybug beads are the equivalent of turtle brooches.


I think I'm done with this doll.... unless I decide she needs a mini-kaftan....

Time flies....

Well, what can I say?

Of course, I owe you beautiful readers of this blog a HUGGGGGEEEEEE apology for not posting for so long but time has flown since the Easter event.

Life is good for us Vikings in the Low Lands. Eventhough, the mini-Viking-lady still doesn't attend complete weekend-long events, she has tons of fun when she is in Archeon or elsewhere.

Here she is in the kaftan Ger made and a light yellow woolen dress. I made the trim. You'll probably recognise the trim from one of my old purple tunics. The trim is tape woven in cream and green.

Here you can see the trim in detail, together with a naalbound doll I couldn't resist making... If you want the pattern for the doll, send me an e-mail!

Easter at Archeon

Archeon held their Easter event once again. It was too cold so Runa and I only joined the rest of our family on Monday morning. The kaftan made by Ger 't Jong fits perfectly and is warm too!!


Finally a photo of mum and daughter in costume :)

Quite the lady

Well, there's no time like the present so I finished the kaftan, dark yellow stem stitch included :)


Move over Cindy Crawford, Runa is here!!


Enjoy the photos, drop me a line if you want the pattern.

Summer kaftan

Muninn's Una Hrafna gave me a fabulous piece of fabric last fall. It was big enough for a kaftan for Runa! The lining is orange flanel (cotton) but I suppose nobody minds, the little one just needs to stay warm. A little bit of left-over tape weaving will be used to close the garment.



I intend to use dark yellow wool for an embroidered finish, you can see this on one of the sleeves. I'll show you the finished kaftan soon.

Toys

The new season is right around the corner and our mini-Viking will come along with us of course, but not without some appropriate toys! Not much was excavated from the Viking era, only some wooden horses. We decided to just make something up.

The wicker lady from Archeon made this lovely rattle for Rúna. Inside there are seven little pebbles to guard her from the seven sins. This is of course very 15th century but a lovely touch nonetheless.


Then I found this horrible linen duck at only 2 euro (about $ 2,50). It was the fabric I fell for because the quilt wings are ugly. But I knew I could turn this into something Viking looking with some embroidery.


I removed the wings first. Then a tape woven necktie and red embroidery around the beak made it more Viking already and the duck needed a new pair of eyes too; so a bit of darker linen and yellow blanket stitch did the trick!


Feel free to steal this idea folks, you'll have happy kids in your camp! Rúna gave the duck a big hug when I gave it to her ;)

Winter projects

Re-enactors often use the winter for finishing projects and starting new ones. The picture here above is Renz' tunic which I finally-finally-finally finished!


This is my old white undertunic. It needed some mending and I added some blue/white tape woven trim while I was at it, just to spice it up a bit.


This is really 'la pièce de résistance'. The embroidery on my new undertunic is from a stone carving found in Kiev and dates back to the 900s. Perfect for a collar!

As you can see, I've been productive this winter :)