Practice Row: All Four Knots on One Small Sampler
Okay. You've got the square knot, the double half hitch, and the spiral knot all in your hands now. That's the whole toolbox, more or less. What we're doing today is putting all four on one small sampler so you can see them next to each other and stop mixing them up in your head.
I say four knots because the half hitch and double half hitch count separate for me. You'll see why once you tie both again today.
This isn't a project. It's not going on anybody's wall. It's a practice piece, maybe eight strands, maybe ten inches of dowel, and you're going to make a mess of it a little and that's the point.
Setting up the sampler
Cut eight cords, about two feet each, doubled over your dowel with a lark's head like we did before. Nothing fancy. You want enough cord to work with but not so much you're wrestling it.
Once they're mounted, you're going to run four short rows down that dowel, one knot type per row. Square knot row. Half hitch row. Double half hitch row, on the diagonal this time. Spiral row last, since that one takes the most cord and I want your hands warmed up before you get to it.
Row one: square knots
Straight across, four square knots in a row, side by side. Nothing tricky here, this is the one everybody's comfortable with by now. Watch your tension as you go. If one knot's tighter than its neighbor the row will pucker and you'll see it right away, which is exactly why we're doing this on a throwaway piece instead of your real hanging.
Row two: half hitch
Single half hitch across, left to right. Feel how it wants to slip if your tension's loose. This one's more forgiving than the square knot but it also hides sloppy work less. You'll notice.
Row three: double half hitch, diagonal
So here's where I always mess up, and where most people do too. The diagonal double half hitch runs off a leading cord, and it is very easy to run that leading cord the wrong direction without noticing until you've got six inches done. Go slow. Check your angle every couple knots, not just at the end. This is the same lesson as stepping back on a row, just smaller and faster.
Row four: spiral
Last row, and probably the one you'll redo a few times. Spirals take patience because they don't look like anything for the first four or five knots. Keep your working cords consistent, same two cords doing the tying every time, and let it twist. Don't force it straight, don't pull it out to check, just keep going and it'll turn on its own.
The point of the sampler
Once you've got all four rows done, step back and look at it on the dowel. Not perfect. That's fine. What you're looking for is: can you tell the rows apart without me pointing at them? If yes, you know your knots. If the square knot row and the half hitch row look the same, that's worth catching now, on a sampler nobody will ever hang up, instead of six rows into a real piece.
I'll say the opinion again because it matters here: you don't need a pattern to make something good. Once these four knots are in your hands, you can wander. Mix a spiral into a square knot piece, throw a diagonal line through the middle just because you like the look of it. Most patterns I've seen are more complicated than the thing they're trying to teach you to make. Learn the four knots clean and you can freestyle something better than what's printed in the books.
I'll tell you where that opinion got me in trouble once, a little.
A while back somebody at church asked around for a wall hanging for a big Relief Society thing, and nobody had a calling to actually do it, meaning nobody was official on the hook. I didn't have one either. I just knotted a big one anyway because it seemed like it should exist and nobody else was going to make it happen. No pattern, just wandered into it with the four knots the same way I'm telling you to. Deborah told me I didn't have to do that. I did it anyway, took me most of a week, and the next day my back was killing me and I mentioned it about four times too many. She pointed that out too. Fair.
It's not a burden. It just made my back hurt is all. Point is, once you trust these four knots you'll find yourself making things nobody asked for, because you can. That's kind of the whole reason to learn them.
Before next time
Keep your sampler. Don't toss it. Next lesson we start combining these into an actual small pattern, and it helps to have that practice row sitting next to you so you can check your work against it instead of just your memory.