Hemp Jewelry Designs

The alternating square knot is a cool hemp knot technique that can be used a variety of ways. It makes a nice basket weave pattern, depending on how many hemp cords that you use.

In these instructions, I have “exploded” the knot pattern so that you can see how it is done. Of course with real life jewelry your knots won’t be this far apart

I am using 8 strands of cord with this tutorial. I recommend that you use 8 cords to start with until you learn the concept behind the technique.

Step One:

To start I pinned down two sets of 4 cords each, and made a square knot on each set. ( I know this picture sucks, but it is to show you how I started it) I also set aside the far right 2 cords and the far left two cords. You can see I am left with the 4 ‘center’ cords now to work with.

Step Two:

I am going to take the ‘center’ 4 cords and make a square knot, using the 2 most center as my knot bearers.

Step 3:

I am going to set aside the 4 most left cords and ONLY work with the 4 most right cords now.  With these right 4 cords I am going to make a square knot.

Make sure that you line up the square knot as best that you can with the square knot above it. (In the example it is the first knot at the top that I made.)

In the picture they do not look lined up due to the fact that I am leaving a lot of space in between each ‘row’.

Step 4:

Now I am going to move over to the left 4 knots that I set aside in step 3 and going to do the same thing…make a square knot with them.

Now I want you to look, I have made “rows”…the first two knots at the top (row 1), the center knot (row 2) and then the next 2 knots (row 3)

The rows that have more than one knot need to be lined up. If not, you are going to end up having a squirrely looking pattern.

Step 5:

Now, back to the center 4 cords. (Remember the first step we set aside the far 2 left cords and the far two right cords? well do it again)

THAT’S IT!

Experiment, practice, have fun with it. The most difficult thing is to get your knots to line up with each other, but with practice you will get it.

If you have questions let me know!!

Happy Knotting

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Advance Hemp Knots. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.