Maintaining a flat spiral in nalbinding is something that people often find tricky in the beginning. Other looping techniques, such as knitting and crochet, have had many instructions published on the number of stitches to add in each round in order to build a flat circle at a variety of gauges. Nalbinding does not have that wealth of instructional history yet.
Many nalbinders rely on more instinctive increasing strategies, given the lack of pre-tested and published instructions. There are numeric strategies that one can use to help you determine the number of stitches, but they are affected by grist of yarn,1 stitch choice, and gauge used. While it can be a helpful guide, translating from the instructions for its looped cousins can also present challenges as they are often written for rounds, not spirals.
I tend to fall in the instinctive category of nalbinders. If it needs to get bigger, add more stitches. Needs to be smaller, decrease. But it’s not entirely just intuitive. I do pay conscious attention to the angles of my working loops in relation to the growing textile and that informs my decisions.
Specifically, I compare the angle at which my thumb loop intersects the line from the center of the textile through my connection point (where I take the next connection stitch).
When the thumb loop leans away from the center line, it needs an increase to keep the spiral fabric flat. When it is parallel to or just leaning away slightly, no increase is needed. Just take a regular stitch. If the thump loop crosses the center line, you have too many increases and likely need a decrease or two to avoid ruffling your fabric. It’s best to always stay just not quite parallel and never cross the line unless a ruffled fabric is what you are aiming for.
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- A nice explanation of Yarn grist and the effects when substituting yarns: https://www.moderndailyknitting.com/2018/07/25/grist-secret-measurement-substituting-yarn/ ↩︎
