Month: November 2025

Z-twist yarns

The recent examination highlights the challenge of sourcing Z-twist yarns, essential for reconstructing specific textile artifacts. Manufacturers often lack detailed spin and ply information. The yarn’s twist direction affects fabric texture and handling, with Z-twist enabling tighter, smoother fabrics for many nalbinding stitches, while S-twist suits other stitches stitches and contemporary knitting techniques.

So my most recent examinations brought up an interesting issue. It can be hard to find Z-twist yarns; at all. Not just the specific weight, number of plies, and spinning method (worsted spun instead of woollen1) one might look for when trying to reconstruct an artifact, but just even any Z-twist yarns. When searching online you find that manufacturers often are not providing information on their spin and ply directions. Additionally, even if the photograph is close enough to look, you can’t trust the image hasn’t been reversed because it looks better for marketing purposes.

By Yarn_twist.png: PKMderivative work: Dfred (talk) – Yarn_twist.png, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6991339

So why is this important? The final twist direction of a yarn has an impact on how it lays in the final textile. Even the act of winding on and off a ball can affect the yarn twist and have an effect on the final resulting fabric.2 This is markedly more noticeable the more a technique spirals when being worked. Looped textiles inherently spiral the yarn either as they wrap the yarn around the needle or hook, or as the yarn is pulled through the stitches. That wrapping/spiraling can either tighten the twist or loosen it. In the case of single ply, it can loosen it enough the yarn falls apart.

Not all nalbound artifacts are worked in Z-twist yarns, but a significant number are. And combined with certain stitches, Z-twist can help make a tighter, smoother fabric which can be easier to work as the yarn is less likely to split. Other stitches (those ending the stitch on the reverse of the working thread instead of on the technical front or vice versa for left handed) spiral in the other direction and are better suited to S-twist yarns. This is also why S-twist yarns are generally more suited to the wrap direction found in how knitting is currently taught in the Western world and Z-twist yarns are generally more suited to the wraps of modern crochet.

I am clearly not the only person that has noticed this. There are a variety of useful articles on the effect of twist on a fabric available.3 In fact, I have recently run across a website dedicated to yarn substitutions called YarnSub that includes twist direction in its database (although it has some issues in its comparisons matching number of plies to z-ply instead of keeping the twist separate from the number of plies and also includes cabled yarns where the final twist is Z). Here is the search for Z-twist yarns: https://yarnsub.com/search?q=z+plied

I used to get some nice naturally dyed Z-spun yarn from Juuliorg out of Estonia. They are currently on an extended vacation, but the mill is still open.

I have also used some Z-spun yarn from Ullcentrum: https://www.ullcentrum.com/en/yarns-tools/wool-yarn/z-plied-2-ply/

I’ve also run across several other suppliers. Unfortunately, current conditions are restricting postal service here to the US. So while I may not be able to get any soon, perhaps you may find these useful.

Filter on Z-tvinnat: https://bavensspinnhus.se/produkter

Zgarn

So have you found a favorite Z-twist yarn? I would love to hear about it.

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Footnotes:

  1. The difference between worsted spun and woolen spun yarns is in the preparation and drafting of the fiber. Worsted spun yarns the fibers are combed and drafted so that the fibers all align. This makes for a smooth hard-wearing, but not lofty yarn. For woolen spun yarn, the fibers are carded and drafting is from a rolag or fold so that the fibers are intentionally jumbled. This makes for a lofty yarn that holds a lot of air, but it tends to not be as strong and more likely to pill and full/shrink. ↩︎
  2. Here is an interesting blog post demonstrating the effect: https://peggyosterkamp.com/2021/08/use-your-s-z-identifier-tool-to-add-or-subtract-twist-to-yarns/ Accessed 11/30/2025 ↩︎
  3. https://wildwoollys.com/blogs/articles/what-is-z-twist-yarn-and-should-you-care Accessed 11/26/2025
    https://spinoffmagazine.com/twist-direction-s-vs-z-twist/ Accessed 11/26/2025
    https://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/twist-and-shout-why-twist-direction-matters-in-your-making/ Accessed 11/26/2025
    And even how twist direction was used to create patterns in woven textiles: https://brankaontextiles.com/z-s-directions-spinning-textile-how-ancient-women-once-wove-monochrome-patterns-with-light-and-shadows-in-the-beholders-eye/ Accessed 11/26/2025 ↩︎

NOW: Light brown Egyptian Sock – (A&I)1914:205

This week’s Nalbound Object of the Week is an Egyptian Sock that is currently located in the National Museum of Ireland. Early online photos of the sock were taken at such an angle that the toe split was not visible. This led to mistaken impression that this sock was the only adult cross-knit looping (Coptic stitch) nalbound sock with a single toe box. I was lucky enough to come across this sock on display in April of 2014, so I had seen in person that it did have a split toe to accommodate sandals. In fact, out of the 49 or so cross-knit looped nalbound Egyptian socks we have images of and are whole enough to tell, only the tiniest baby socks for not yet mobile infants do not have split toes.

Woolen Sock (A&I)1914:205 © National Museum of Ireland CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Object: Woolen Sock

Description: A now light brown wool sock for the left foot with a split at the ankle and ties still remaining. There is a decorative welt around the ankle where the heel cup shifts to the ankle. Height 9cm, width 8cm, Length 22 cm.1 The sock arrived at the National Museum of Ireland as part of the distributions the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1914.2

Dated to: Graeco-Roman Period:  Roman Period3

Find location :  el-Sheikh Ibada/Antinoopolis, Egypt4

Material: Wool5

Stitch(es) used: S-crossed Cross-knit Looping (as determined from photographs by Anne Marie Decker)

Inventory number: (A&I)1914:205

Current location: National Museum of Ireland

Link to museum catalog or other data: https://www.museum.ie/collections/collection/antiquity-203733/?return=%2Fcollections%2Fcollection%2F%3Fterm%3Dsock

Some sources in which more information can be found:

https://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=2619

Rose-Beers, Kristine. (2023). The Threads that Bind: Evidence of the Early Codex Structure in Chester Beatty’s Papyri. DOI 10.1515/9783110781304-009.

Photographs:
There are two additional views of the sock available on the National Museum of Ireland’s website. The view that obscures the split toe can be seen on The Global Egyptian Museum.org site.

Racconti da un vecchio calzino egizio

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  1. https://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=2619 ↩︎
  2. https://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=2619 ↩︎
  3. https://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=2619 ↩︎
  4. https://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=2619 and https://www.museum.ie/collections/collection/antiquity-203733/?return=%2Fcollections%2Fcollection%2F%3Fterm%3Dsock ↩︎
  5. https://www.museum.ie/collections/collection/antiquity-203733/?return=%2Fcollections%2Fcollection%2F%3Fterm%3Dsock ↩︎

NOW: Arizona Cliff-dweller skullcap – 14-5-10/A1260

Generally when we talk about nalbinding from the Southwest United States, we are talking about socks or shoe-socks or possibly leggings. This week’s Nalbound Object of the Week is unusual in that it is a cap. When the excavations were published in 1919, it was the only textile cap to have been found in the Southwest.

Looped cap. Plate 34. a.1

Object: Skull-cap

Description: A natural colored cap worked from the center down.

Dated to: No date provided, but the Cliff-dweller culture is believed to come after the Basket-maker culture. Estimate Pueblo III (1150–1350).

Find location: Cliffhouse 22 / Ruin 2 in Sayodneechee Canyon (“Where the red rocks run under” in Navajo)3

“At g, just outside one of the rooms and beneath 8 inches of closely packed rubbish, lay a cap of yucca yarn.”4

Material: Sometimes referred to as made of yucca cord5 (narrow leaf yucca), but there is also a mention that the cap is likely apocynum (Dogbane/Indian Hemp) fiber6

Stitch(es) used: Z-crossed Simple Looping7 called coiled work without foundation8 in the excavation report. “Near the edge there are 9 coils and 5 loops to the inch, the stitches nearer the top are deeper and wider spaced.”9

Object number: 14-5-10/A1260

Current location: Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University

Link to museum catalog or other data: https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/169386

Some sources in which more information can be found:

Kidder, Alfred Vincent, and Samuel J. Guernsey. Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona. Smithsonian institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 65. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919. https://repository.si.edu/items/14df4b65-e141-4ea1-b541-3b2ac24e7fdf Accessed 13 November 2025.

Photographs (if permissions allow): There is a nice color photo of the cap on the Peabody Museum’s site.

The glass plate of the picture published in the Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona is also in the Peabody: https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/500065

Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog.
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  1. Kidder, Alfred Vincent, and Samuel J. Guernsey. Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona. Smithsonian institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 65. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919. https://repository.si.edu/items/14df4b65-e141-4ea1-b541-3b2ac24e7fdf pg. 94 ↩︎
  2. https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/169386 ↩︎
  3. Kidder, Alfred Vincent, and Samuel J. Guernsey. Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona. Smithsonian institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 65. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919. https://repository.si.edu/items/14df4b65-e141-4ea1-b541-3b2ac24e7fdf pg. 19 ↩︎
  4. Ibid., Figure pg. 20. Quote pg. 24 ↩︎
  5. Ibid., pg. 100 ↩︎
  6. Ibid., pg. 117 ↩︎
  7. As determined by Anne Marie Decker based on the diagram in Kidder & Guernsey’s explorations and examination of the picture provided. ↩︎
  8. Kidder, Alfred Vincent, and Samuel J. Guernsey. Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona. Smithsonian institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 65. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919. https://repository.si.edu/items/14df4b65-e141-4ea1-b541-3b2ac24e7fdf pg. 100 ↩︎
  9. Ibid., pg. 117 ↩︎

NOW: Border of warriors – 1956.1267.3a-h

This week’s Nalbound Object of the Week is a beautiful cross-knit looping example. A border of warriors and their sacrifice, originally intended to be attached to a piece of fabric. If you go to the The Art Institute of Chicago’s website there is a very good zoom function and some close-ups showing the underlying support worked in Simple Looping.

Nazca. Warrior Fragments, 100 BCE-200 CE. The Art Institute of Chicago®
CC0 Public Domain

Object: Border of warriors

Description: A border of warriors and a sacrifice. The figures are about 2.5 inches tall. More details on The Art Institute of Chicago’s website.

Dated to: 100 BCE–200 CE1

Culture: Nazca2

Find location: South coast, Peru3

Material: Cotton (ground), Camelid wool4

Stitch(es) used: Simple Looping for the ground support, cross-knit looping and cross-knit loop stitch embroidery5

Inventory number: 1956.1267.3a-h

Current location: The Art Institute of Chicago®

Link to museum catalog or other data: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/148858/warrior-fragments

Some sources in which more information can be found:

Sawyer, Alan R. Early Nasca Needlework. London: Laurence King Publishing, 1997. pg. 148, color fig. 117.

Photographs (if permissions allow):

Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog.
Patrons on Patreon receive early access previews, occasional extra details, and priority requests.

  1. The Art Institute of Chicago® https://www.artic.edu/artworks/148858/warrior-fragments ↩︎
  2. The Art Institute of Chicago® https://www.artic.edu/artworks/148858/warrior-fragments ↩︎
  3. The Art Institute of Chicago® https://www.artic.edu/artworks/148858/warrior-fragments ↩︎
  4. The Art Institute of Chicago® https://www.artic.edu/artworks/148858/warrior-fragments ↩︎
  5. The Art Institute of Chicago® https://www.artic.edu/artworks/148858/warrior-fragments ↩︎

Blue and white knit stockings

Nalbinding isn’t the only corpus that is spread out across many institutions. Recently a number of museums have added to their online collection databases and we are now able to see quite a few more blue and white knitted artifacts from Egypt.

So in addition to the ones in The Textile Museum that I posted about in 2020: https://nalbound.com/2020/10/06/the-textile-museum/ I wanted to share a few others that I’ve found or had brought to my attention.

Here are three pieces from the Detroit Institute of the Arts:

Credit: City of Detroit Purchase – Public Domain
https://dia.org/collection/knitted-hosiery-simplified-inscriptions-49401
Credit: City of Detroit Purchase – Public Domain
https://dia.org/collection/knitted-hosiery-simplified-inscriptions-11553
https://dia.org/collection/knitted-hosiery-simplified-inscriptions-1789


The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst has four pieces:

Credit: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst / Christian Krug CC BY-SA 4.0
https://id.smb.museum/object/1528093/socke-fu%C3%9Fbekleidung
Credit: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst / Johannes Kramer CC BY-SA 4.0
https://id.smb.museum/object/1528094/socke-fu%C3%9Fbekleidung
Credit: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst / Johannes KramerCC BY-SA 4.0
https://id.smb.museum/object/1528095/socke-fu%C3%9Fbekleidung
Credit: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst / Christian Krug CC BY-SA 4.0
https://id.smb.museum/object/1528092/socke-fu%C3%9Fbekleidung


In 2019 I had the opportunity to go to the Museum der Kulturen Basel to study the nalbinding they have in their collection. While there, they shared a few pieces of their blue and white knitting with me as well. As they were putting it away, I got hints that they had an extensive collection. The Museum der Kulturen Basel has just recently put their collection online and there are some amazing pieces. Their database does not have permalinks to individual artifacts, so you will need to search via the Object Number for more details on each piece: https://www.mkb.ch/en/museum/sammlung.html

III 14162 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 3105 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 15542 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14937 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 15447 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14163 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 11837 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 11838 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14160 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14161 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14886 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14887 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14888 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14889 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14890 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14891 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14892 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14893 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14894 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14895 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14896 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14897 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14898 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 14899 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 15446 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 15543 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
III 15544 ©Museum der Kulturen Basel CC BY 4.0
Mueseum der Kulturen Basel https://www.mkb.ch/en/museum/sammlung.html

This bit of blue and white knitting isn’t in an online catalog, but the article in which it was published is online: https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/benaki/article/view/1765/1754

Do you have links to other blue & white knitting from Egypt?

Edit: Thank you Geeske for reminding me of this one in the V&A: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128882/sock-unknown/

Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog.
Patrons on Patreon receive early access previews, occasional extra details, and priority requests.