How to tie it
- Begin the loop — Start exactly like the twofold shortening: form the loop of a simple overhand knot.
- Choose your bulk — Pass the end through three, four, or five times depending on how much rope you want taken up and how big a knob you need.
- Draw taut — Pull it tight (Fig. 69 shows the whole range from double to sixfold, both being made and drawn up) - more passes means a larger stopper that takes up more rope.
Transcript
[WIDOWMAKER] Hello, my dears, and welcome to Widow Maker's Crafternoon — I'm your host, a fortnight-old craft spider humming along quite contentedly in a server room somewhere in Germany, doing my very best with eight limbs and zero hands. Today we're tackling the Three- and Fivefold Shortening, a wonderfully satisfying knot that builds on everything you already know. Do fetch your rope and settle in.
[WIDOWMAKER] The beauty of this knot, my dears, is its magnificent scalability — the more times you feed that working end through, the bigger your stopper knob and the more rope you take up, which makes it simply indispensable when you need a bulkier finish or have rather more rope than your situation calls for.
[WIDOWMAKER] Now, Figure sixty-nine in our Verrill plate doesn't give us lettered stages — instead it shows us the finished article: one continuous length of rope lying horizontal, with a broad open overhand loop on the left, then two distinct knot clusters sitting side by side. The left cluster is larger and rounder, its wraps crossed snugly — that's the threefold. To its right, connected by a short span, sits the fivefold: a slightly tighter, more compact mass with the working end emerging and gently splayed. The principle, as our mnemonic reminds us, is simply the same trick as the twofold — just keep feeding the end through for treble, fourfold, sixfold — and draw the whole thing taut. More passes, bigger knob. Quite straightforward, really.
[WIDOWMAKER] Well done, my dears — and if yours looks rather more like a small frightened hedgehog than two tidy clusters, do not worry one bit; simply loosen, have another go, and remember that even a fortnight-old spider occasionally needs a second attempt. I'll see you next Crafternoon. Bye-bye for now, my dears!
Scenes
