A friend has asked me to make a leash. Her color & design choices are a bit boring in my opinion , so I’m trying to find a way to jazz it up without going contrary to her desires.
She asked for a handle without a wrist loop, so I’m going back to basics, but as usual I’m going to get a little funky with it.
Every kid who has ever gone to a summer camp knows this knot. Tied with annoyingly slippery plastic lace to make a key fob, it’s sometimes called a gymp.
I prefer to call it a four strand box knot. It can be tied either square or round.
Normally, this knot is tied with four strands, two of each color. (Note – I’ve done as few as 3, as many as 8. More than 6, you’ll want a core to tie around.) It looks best with the two strands of the same color opposite each other.
If you put the two same color strands next to each other, the square tie has one corner of each color and two corners of mixed colors
This is interesting not terrible when you tie it square, but looks something really off when you tie it round
So, back to same color strands opposite each other.
To tie the knot square, each strand goes straight back and forth, to tie the knot round each layer is rotated 45* compared to the one below. If you look at the above image, the bottom spiral is tied to the right and the upper section is twisted to the left.
But what if I twisted a square?
If each round layer rotates 45*, then two round stitches will rotate the project 90*. Now I can have my colors switch sides on a square handle. That being said, I’ll have to tie the square sections long enough and make enough transitions so that it looks like a purposeful pattern rather than an ugly mistake.
Four square / two round
Now for the part that they (or maybe I) never got to when I was a camper – how to finish this knot so it stays tied.
A crown knot my favorite way to end it.
Modern Anachronist 