I Don't Know How This Works

Writing CSS always seems like a disproportionately large amount of work for a very small and unreliable result. I suppose no one expects people to actually type the stuff in a text editor; we're all supposed to be using AI code generators or something. Sigh.

Be that as it may, there are some instructions for knitting the Traveling Stitch* on my website now. They are very much not optimized for mobile. But the pictures do get bigger if you click on them.

Okay, it's an official pattern now.

nalbinding is sometimes called “one-needle knitting,” and they do look very similar, but the method of construction is completely different. nalbinding uses a single needle (more like a large, blunt sewing needle than a knitting needle) to loop shorter lengths of yarn onto itself. it’s hardier and less prone to unraveling than knitting, since nalbound stitches are almost like knots.

[ID: a diagram showing the method of construction of the nalbinding “coptic stitch,” the stitch that most resembles knitting.]

so why do i think this example is nalbound instead of knit? because as far as i can tell, the earliest extant example of knitting dates to the 12th century AD at the very earliest. nalbinding goes at least as far back as the 3rd-5th century AD. here’s an article from the victoria & albert museum explaining just that.

plus, i think the hardier nature of nalbinding would be better for a belt anyway. this belt appears to be constructed in a tube—if it were knit, this would probably be far stretchier than you’d want for a belt. nalbinding would hold its shape better, imo.

the louvre caption does state that the method of construction is tricot, which google tells me is french for knitting. (i’d love to know from someone who speaks french if tricot is also the term for nalbinding.) but as i said before, they really do look very similar until you get into them & examine the structure, & it’s not uncommon for even museums to make this mistake.

But my first instinct was, 'this is his scarf'"

Dragonfly brooch

c. 1890

by Edgar Bense for Boucheron

3 April 2026

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3 April 2026

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Glass bead necklace, Greek, 6th-4th century BC

It's challenging because it curves in two directions. This ends up giving it a twist which makes it very pleasing to my eye.

It actually starts out with this weird pre-form:

Which insect can grow larger than a mouse and has mandibles strong enough to snap a pencil in half? That would be the titan beetle (Titanus giganteus)! Growing up to 6.5 in (16.5 cm) long, this enormous insect can be found in tropical rainforests in parts of South America. Experts think this critter is about as big as a beetle can get. Why? In insects, the oxygen to keep cells alive isn’t forcefully delivered by lungs and heart. Instead, it seeps through the body largely by diffusion. That passive method means not enough oxygen could get to the inside of a truly gigantic beetle. 

The idea that atmospheric oxygen has dictated the maximum body size of insects across their evolutionary history is ingrained in popular and scientific literature1,2,3. In Nature 30 years ago, the hypothesis was put forward that a limitation on oxygen diffusion at the level of the tracheoles constrains the maximum body size of insects and that increased atmospheric oxygen concentration in the late Palaeozoic permitted insect gigantism4. Here we contest this hypothesis by showing that the relative space occupied by tracheoles in the flight muscle of insects (1) increases by only 1.8-fold over a 10,000-fold body mass range (1,320 micrographs, 44 species, 10 orders), (2) is typically 1% or less in most species, and (3) that this observation holds when we extend our relationship to the long-extinct gigantic dragonfly-like Meganeuropsis permiana (approximately 100 g). The small space requirement and the lack of a strong increase in tracheolar investment with body size, despite clear evolutionary potential to do so, provide convincing evidence that diffusive oxygen transport through the tracheolar–muscle system does not constrain the maximum body size of extant or gigantic prehistoric insects.\