That's "fancy worker", not "fancy woman" for those of you who misread the title
.
A knife lanyard in Brion Toss's book caught my eye when I first flipped through it, so yesterday I settled down and proceeded to follow the instructions. Dockhead, thanks again for the book. I am enjoying it tremendously.
The first step in forming this lanyard is simply a three strand braid. So far so good
. I think I learned this one plaiting my doll's hair as a five year old. I was lulled into a false sense of
security though. From then on things went downhill rapidly.
I should have been forewarned when instructions for the next step, a Star
knot, said to take the
phone off the hook and shut the door before commencing. Brion should have added "shut the window". I think all our neighbours heard my laughter seeing the result of my first attempt. I blame the stiff cord
:
Once I managed to stop laughing I unravelled it all and tried again. And again. And again. I wasn't about to let a little button get the better of me
. I was rewarded with success. It was all the sweeter for my struggles.
This is how it should look:
The Matthew Walker was a doddle after that. Interesting
history to that
knot. It was probably invented in the 1700's and until the 1900's was the only knot to be named after a person. Legend goes that a judge with a nautical background offered to let sailor off with full pardon if he could tie a knot the judge could not reproduce. Matthew was sneaky. He unlaid half a length of
rope first, wove this knot, then laid the
rope again. It earned him his freedom
.
This is a truly beautiful knot. It swirls like a candy stick or barber's pole with an intriguingly flat hard base.
This is a mini sampler of practice with a Star knot, a Matthew Walker and series of Crown knots:
My finished lanyard was not quite like Brion's, as I didn't know how to make the base of the loose Star Knot button and so I made it a six pointer instead of a five and wove it in. Also Brion's comment that the end was "involved" daunted me, and looking at the instructions I ran out of energy trying to
work out exactly what what a "four strand wall and crown" was so I will look at this later. I need a better grasp of the basics.
And this was the finished product. Despite the slight clumsiness and the horrible speckled blue (no nicer thin cord available here), I will leave it on my knife as a souvenir of my first attempt at fancy
work. It was an excellent
learning experience:
Tying knots like this seems to be becoming a
lost art. They are no longer needed on sailing
boats. I am keen to learn more. An Italian I met in
Greece does jaw droppingly beautiful work (lots of his
images are online). I would love a lesson if our
boats ever share an anchorage.
Does anyone have any good websites to recommend? I am finding illustrations, but very few instructions.
SWL
.
Re: Confessions of a novice fancy worker
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