Tying Things Up... with Bone?

Happy Halloween!

I hope everybody has had a spook-tastic Hallow's eve.

Well, we've finally had our last adventure with needle-making. We picked up a beef-bone from the pet store, and got to work after our experience with antler and wood.

First, we boiled the bone in a pot on the stove to soften it, as we learned from our experiences and the difficulty of sawing the antler! Then, after cutting the bone in two larger pieces with a saw, used a hack saw to cut off a side of the bone approximately the size of our soon-to-be needle. We felt that the majority of the tools we used were simple, and representative of the tools that would have been available during the Viking Age.

The bone cut relatively easily, and wasn't as hard on the materials as cutting the antler. We did find, however, that bone is more likely to splinter and shard than the antler that we had worked with, which was more likely to powder. But, as we had boiled it first and used a tool that was not too damaging to the bone, we didn't experience any splintering. Instead, the small piece of bone was able to be cut from the side and later shaped into a nalbinding needle!

Flat and round metal files were used to both shape and smooth the needle, although the bone was already significantly smoother than the wood material that we began with. A drill was used to make the eye hole, which we made sure was big enough to take our thick yarn without snapping the needle. We repeated this process twice, and ended up creating two bone needles in the process. They are surprisingly smooth - hopefully you will all get the chance to see them at some point!

What do you think of our bone needles? :)

Although we mostly documented our bone-needle making with pictures (as my phone was dying and I was not able to take video!), feel free to visit this post on 'How to Make a Bone Needle for Nalbinding' from the 'How To History' website.

Creating our nalbinding needles has been a really enjoyable time. It allowed us to have some real hands-on, crafty experience, and I feel like I learned a lot during the process, both about the materials of bone, antler, and wood, but also on how to work them. Actually touching these materials and working with them helps you to understand them, and I can only imagine where a little bit more experience could bring you!

Stay tuned to learn about what other items were produced with wood, antler, and bone during the Viking Age, as well as to see our progress in our ongoing attempts at nalbinding.

Happy Friday!

-KA