In this blog I am going to describe how I made a pair winter mittens, using a range of different skills and techniques from wool and leather.
In my last blog I wrote about making wool from scratch and then using it to crochet a cardigan. I had plenty off wool left over so decided to make some mittens.
To turn the raw fleece into yarn I first needed to comb the wool to clean and to straighten out the fibers, then using a handmade Turkish drop spindle, I spun the wool into yarn.
I then respun two strand together with the opposite twist direction to make a two-ply yarn. This makes the yarn a little stronger and neater, if any of the areas in the original single ply are slightly thinner or fatter they get cancelled and balanced out when the second piece is spun against it meaning on average the yarn is roughly the same thickness along its length.
This time instead of crochet I wanted to do Nålbinding which is an ancient fibre craft dating back at least several thousand years. Unlike crocheting or knitting, Nålbinding involves pulling the yarn through each stitch, making a fabric which is a lot more robust and would not easily unravel the same way crochet would when pulled. It can also be made very dense with combination of stitches meaning it was ideal for the north winters and harsh conditions and it would be long-lasting. So much so that some sections of Nålbinding materials have been found in preserved, especially in Viking graves.
Nålbinding requires a thick kind of darning needle with a larger hole to get the wool through. I whittled a simple needle out of a piece of scrap oak. The nice thing about making your own needles in this way is that you can make them in any size or shape that feels comfortable to you. It is important to make sure the needle is very smooth so that it doesn’t rub and snag on the wool as you use it, so lots of scraping and sanding.
Nålbinding usually requires you to work around your thumb of your non dominate hand (you can work it off the thumb though) with a few arms lengths of yarn at a time, as you are pulling the end through each time, then joining in more yarn when need. This is usually done by felting together the ends of the 100% wool.
There are lots of different stitches in Nålbinding where you will have more or less loops on your thumb and do different variation of weaving the needle over and under before pulling through to make a denser fabric. The stitch I used is mammen stitch which is not too complicated but a little bit denser and decorative than a basic stitch.
For my mittens I started at the finger end making a small sausage shape and then worked downwards in a spiral towards the wrist, increasing the size of the sausage to create a cup shape until it was big enough to cover my fingers. I then continued as a tube down past the palm, and to the thumb.
For the thumb I left a hole and continued down past the wrist until it was the desired length. I then made a separate thumb in a similar fashion, thin end first. Before sewing it in place on the hole.
Once I had done one it was time to repeat the whole process to make a second.
As I didn’t follow a pattern and just adlibbed when I felt the mitten needed to increase in size, it was kind of tricky to make the second the same as the first. In hindsight when making a pair it would be better to do a length of yarn on each than before you join in new yarn switching and doing the same stage on the second glove.
These mittens are lovely and warm, but I wanted to take them one step further by making leather outers for them.
For the pattern I went to Lure Of The North website, where they kindly share patterns for lots of winter clothing such as canvas parkas and Moccasins. A Few Years ago, I went out to Canada where they are based and learned to make a pair of moccasins before going out on a winter expedition with them.
I printed the mitten patterns, one pattern has a range of sizes, I worked out which size I needed by measuring my palm and cutting out the template in the size I needed.
I chose to use two pieces of leather for my mittens, one a lighter softer more swede piece for the palm and the other a slightly thicker and darker piece.
I drew around the templates on to the leather before cutting them out with a sharp set of scissors. Each mitten needs three pieces for this pattern. A back, a palm and a thumb.
When I’m doing leather work I like to pre-make the holes with a 4mm leather work fork. As I find this makes the stitches even, and easier to get the needle though. So, I punched the holes all the way around the edge of my 6 pieces of leather.
Then it was time to sew them together. Starting at the two markers at the tip of the fingers to make sure that the mittens are even and sewing them inside out I used a whip stitch all the way around the outside before joining the thumb up the middle. Then turning them right side out.
Once again when one is finished it’s time to make a second. This was a very interesting project, and I have made a very warm set of mittens which will serve me well on future arctic expeditions. Making clothing out of traditional natural materials like leather and wool is great for extremely cold conditions down to minus 30 that you might experience in northern Scandinavia or Canada on winter trips. I like that I can take the leather off and still use the woolen mittens when the temperature is a little warmer.
If you are interested in Nålbinding or leather work, we run courses on both are our World of Bushcraft Centre.