My online Moby Dick book club's reading for the week starts with Chapter 47, "The Mat Maker", which opens with Queequeg and Ishmael working on sword mats. Since on the nerd Venn diagram I sit at the intersection of "in an online Moby Dick book club" *and* "a member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers"", I decided to tie an example of a sword mat (which is the flat part of this assembly; the ring at the end is technically a simple ringbolt hitch.)
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A small lanyard for to hold my badge at this weekend's International Guild of Knot Tyers-North America annual meeting at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Relatively simple as these things go, just something I could complete in an evening.
Well, it's the tail end of #WorldKnotTyingDay (marked on the anniversary of Clifford W. Ashley's death.) I had grabbed the supplies to make this bellrope a few weeks back, and finally put the homemade fid to good use making it tonight.
This one is my stab at Mikko Snellman's one-piece bellrope, tied in 8mm hemp. Still needs to have the strays burned off and to be shellacked.
Just a couple of Portuguese sennit (Solomon Bar/Square-knotted) bracelets tied up in 3mm cotton, just for the heck of it. Footrope knots for the fastening buttons, left a bit of the ends frayed out, again for the heck of it.
Have a rope splicing project on the to-do list, and the hemp line I'm working with is pretty stiff. Haven't owned a decent splicing/Swedish fid in years, so made myself one from a scrap of 1/2" copper pipe and a bit of oak dowel. Not too bad considering I did this all with hand tools, whittled handle and all, although I'm going to take a second stab at it with the other section of copper pipe.
Had a request from one of the offspring, so tied up another one. Same dealio: bellrope-style keyfob, Matthew Walker knot at the loop, crown sinnet, and a footrope knot.
A bellrope-style keychain pendant, tied in 3mm cotton cord. The loop is the center of the two cords, unlaid then relaid together, joined with a 4-strand Matthew Walker Knot, a sequence of Crown Sinnet, finished with a Footrope Knot.
A 5-lead, 4-bight Turk's Head converted into a Gaucho knot, then doubled. At least, I'm pretty sure I got the conversion right—this is a new one to me.
Dennis Wilkinson
knizer