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Naalbinding speed?

I received an email question recently about the relative efficiency of naalbinding and knitting.

Many of the very experienced naalbinders I know find it as fast as knitting, but all of the novice naalbinders find it much slower.

I don’t know of any formal study of the subject, but how about an informal survey? If you both naalbind and knit, please leave a comment here (at stringpage.com, please, even if you normally read the LJ feed), and tell me:

How long you’ve been knitting?
How long you’ve been naalbinding?
Your thoughts about the relative speed as you practice them.
Any other comments.

I’m curious!

3 Comments on “Naalbinding speed?”

  1. #1 Selena/Mahin
    on May 22nd, 2014 at 8:31 pm

    I learned knitting and naalbinding about the same time 3 years ago. I do them approximately the same speed.

  2. #2 Catherine Raymond
    on May 22nd, 2014 at 9:54 pm

    Knitting: I learned to knit as a child (back in the early 1970s, eek!), but haven’t even attempted to knit in years and have pretty much forgotten what little I knew.

    I first tried nalbinding about 5 or 6 years ago. I taught myself with Sigrid Briandotter’s “Nalbinding Made Easy” book. I managed to make a hat for myself that didn’t look too awful, bogged down in trying to make a pair of mittens, and didn’t try again until about two years later. I got about halfway through one mitten and bogged down again. I’ve been meaning to make another effort, but got a new job and haven’t had the time to concentrate.

    How fast am I? Once I reacquaint myself with the stitch I know, pretty fast. (It only took me a few weeks, working no more than an hour at a stretch, to finish my hat; there’s a picture of me wearing the hat here: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/511440101404209409/ I never got familiar enough with knitting to be really fast at it, so I don’t have a basis for comparison there. I will say that the only slow part of nalbinding is joining new threads. I still don’t have a method for doing that that works consistently.

    Is this enlightening? Amusing?

  3. #3 Harma
    on May 23rd, 2014 at 8:36 am

    Learned to knit in school late 1960s. Did knit once in a while when the mood or a pattern grabbed me. Restarted seriously when the internet hype on knitting started.

    Learned nalbinding after Guido Gehlhaar, the German tablet weaver got me interested in Viking techniques, around 2004.

    For me nalbinding often goes faster, since most of the stitches are bigger, less rows in a centimetre than with knitting for socks. My latest nalbinding socks took forever though. They were done in a 5 loop twisted stitch ( http://www.en.neulakintaat.fi/90 ) with thin sock yarn.

    Besides, knitting hurts my shoulders after a short while, so I can do more nalbinding per day than knitting.