re: Video-Oslo nalbinding stitch

Happy new year!  It’s especially happy since I finished my first online video where I teach the Oslo nalbinding stitch!  Wow.  Not something I’d envisioned doing, but since being in SCA there have been a lot of those moments (thanks SCA friends!).  See it at the “Concordia of the Snows” YouTube channel (Nalbinding - Beginning the Oslo Stitch - YouTube).

Been thinking I should be documenting more here, but time’s a greased pig that keeps getting away and then you forget what you’ve been doing….  So here’s a quickie about the video experience.

I’m not high tech, familiar with creating videos, or self-promoting, so not my comfort level.  That said, many people have made videos and they’ve been getting easier to make.  My other half recently invested in a camera on an arm for something he was doing so I benefitted from having that and from his experience (thank you!).  First, the arm and camera were clamped to a table and the camera focused at a good distance to show my hands.  My laptop (plugged in—why risk it dying when filming!) was then placed comfortably in front of me so I could see the video image and notes on what I wanted to say.  I set up the frame of what would be pictured against a single-color tablecloth (less distraction) and started filming, only to realize there wasn’t enough contrast in the background, so put down a dark piece of felt and started over.  When I was first learning nalbinding I found seeing nalbinding stitches and the shadows the stitches make is easier with lighter yarn so I started with a natural off-white and adjusted lighting.  Turns out that’s not a great contrast with my hands so had to redo that with a darker color yarn.  Better, but then I thought the nalbinding needle I used would be better in a different color.  I worked to adjust my speech to be more clear, slow enough, and adjusted the wording when I realized something didn’t make sense or work well.  I undid stiches and repeated steps until they and the words with them were right.  I tried to incorporate things that helped me when I was learning and things I’ve learned from watching others’ videos.  Clipping videos together was frustrating going between PC and Mac and several programs—at times the voice component didn’t get imported with the video and had to be redone or extracted and added back and the volume changed between sections and had to be adjusted (need to find a way to improve these issues).  I added some text on screen and used fading and a consistent title page between sections to make the video flow more smoothly.  Finally, I sent it to my mentor for review, hoping I’d corrected all the mistakes.  So many little things I didn’t think of initially!  It took many hours (and much patience from my sweetie), but I learned a lot making it happen!