Basic Knots used in sewing & crafts & How to tie them (10 easy ones)

Knots – Talking to people interested in outdoor sports and adventures, one would think your whole life depended on learning to make some of these knots. Not for me, Not in your life. When you spend almost 365 days indoors sewing and dreaming of clothes and then writing about it, knots do not make much of a difference, not really.  But I know that learning one or two of them can make my sewing life ‘not too bad’. ( If you noticed the puns it was all unintended)

Lame puns aside, Knots can really be helpful to you in many ways- to make buttons ( for eg: Chinese closures), for bead work (for eg: to knot between pearls in necklaces), to tie bag handles, and belts and many other things. 

10 best knots for sewing & crafting

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1. Basic Overhand Knot

This is the most basic of all knots.

To make this knot take a piece of yarn/wire/string and cross the ends; bring up left leg through the loop.

easy to make overhand knot

Cross the cord and knot

Pull tight to form the knot. To secure the overhand knot, make another one.

Here is an overhand knot joining two cords together. 

make knots- overhand knot

You can make an adjustable knot by keeping two leather cords together and making overhand knots-  checkout the tutorial for adjustable knot here.

leather cord adjustable knot - easy knots

2. The Eight Knot

This is a classic Knot used in stringing pearls. After you string a pearl or bead this knot is made which secures the bead and keeps it in place.

make knots - eight shaped knot

To make this knot first twist the yarn as in the picture below.

loop the cord as in the picture

Take the bottom leg inside the loop following a pattern of over and under- refer yellow line in picture

pull one end of the cord through the loop

Tighten to form the knot.

pull it tight to form the 8 knot

3. Lark’s head knot

This is a basic anchoring knot – the kind used to tie your yarn to some object. It is not the tightest knot but a very simple knot to tie.

basic knot - larks head knot

Keep your yarn bend under the object, in this case, a D ring as in the picture below.

place the loop of the cord curved under the ring

Keep the loop in place under the ring, take the legs (both) of the yarn through the loop following the yellow marking below. Just pull tight and the simple knot is tied in place.

pull one of the cord ends through the loop

Read more in detail about the lark’s head knot here.

4. Lark’s head knot variation

This variation of the lark’s head knot is a tighter one.

variation of larks knot

Follow the pictures for making this knot.

keep the cord looped over the ring

making knot by crossing the cord ends

pull the cord under the ring

pull the ends of the cord to make a variation of the larks knot

making knot

5. Fisherman’s Knot

fishermans knot

This knot secures two strings together. Cross the two strings as in the picture below.

cross the cord ends

Tie the ends of the strings to the body of the string on either side. In the picture below one side knot is tied. Do the same with the other side as well.

tie overhand knot on one end

making basic knots

6. Josephine Knot

This knot joins two strings in a very attractive knot. If used with thick or multiple yarns it can look like a beautiful motif.

josephine knots

Take two strings/yarn; keep one of them crossed as in the picture below.

cross cord ends

Take the other string and keep it under the first yarn facing up – one of the crossed legs of the first yarn should be overlapping the second one – refer picture below.

place another cord under over the other cord as in the picture

Bring down the left leg of the second yarn and go over under over the loops of the yarn – yellow markings in the picture below.

bring one end of the cord through the loops in a under over fashion

types of knots

Pull the legs gently to tighten the knot.

basic knots

basic knot

7. Turk’s head knot (Button knot).

making knots

Check out this post for more details on how to make a Turk’s head knot

8. Square knot

basic type of knots

A very easy knot joining two pieces of strings together. Fold the strings and keep the bends facing each other, one on top of the other.

basic knots

Insert the folds into each other as in the picture below.

tutorial for making basic knots for sewing and crafts

Take the end legs of the left string down through the loop of the other string -follow the arrows.

basic knot types

Pull tight and you have this small cute little knot.

9. Looped knot.

This gives a small loop on one end with the knot tightening on its neck.

basic knot

Make three coils on your forefinger or a pencil – the coils ought to be loose.

basic knots

Bring the right side coil to the left side.

basic knots

Take that coil down and pull through the coils.

basic knots

diy knots

Slide out this loop carefully out of your forefinger or the pen and tighten it by pulling it by the loop.

10. Triple Ring Knot (Coil knot)

basic knot types

A very attractive knot, which is very easy to make. Make an overhand knot with your yarn.

making knots

Make coils with the upper end of the yarn around the loop.

make knots

Pull tight to form the knot.

If you are getting more interested in learning about other knots (there are 100 more ways) check out this webpage. The monkey’s fist knot looks very interesting.

Related posts :Square Knot; The double half hitch knot;  Knot embroidery stitches

Make an evil eye bracelet by knotting twine

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Author: Sarina Tariq

Hi, I love sewing, fabric, fashion, embroidery, doing easy DIY projects and then writing about them. Hope you have fun learning from sewguide as much as I do. If you find any mistakes here, please point it out in the comments.

4 thoughts on “Basic Knots used in sewing & crafts & How to tie them (10 easy ones)”

  1. Waegemans Julie

    Bedank om het met me te delen,zo dat ik het kan proberen te leren DE KNOPEN. ZEKER zend ik dit naar enkele anderen , die er ook interesse voor hebben. Bedankt voor deze knopen tips , met vriendelijke

    Reply
  2. Cherry

    Very informative. Thanks for the useful tips

    Reply
  3. Md.tahir

    I.need.tie.knot.machine.on.clooth

    Reply
  4. Bracken

    Very useful. Thank you!.

    I recently spent months looking at You tube and similar in order to make frogs for a coat I made so for future reference this is a brilliant tutorial. Just what I like to read about!

    Reply
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