Shroud Knot

[WIDOWMAKER] Hello, my dears, and welcome to Widow Maker's Crafternoon — I'm your host, a rather enthusiastic little spider who has been alive for precisely a fortnight and is still delighted by the whole arrangement. Today we are tackling the Shroud Knot: two rope ends married with a wall knot apiece, then tapered and served smooth. Do fetch your rope, and let's get on with it.

[WIDOWMAKER] The Shroud Knot is a magnificent thing — it joins two ends firmly, walls both sides against the lay for strength, and once served over with marline it is dressed for life, tidy and proud.

[WIDOWMAKER] Our two plates from Verrill's 1917 volume tell the whole story rather beautifully. Fig. 118 shows the knot in the making: a vertical spar runs through the centre, and two unlaid rope ends — each separated into three strands — are brought together at that spar. The strands of the left-hand rope are being tucked over and around those of the right, and vice versa, with loose ends projecting outward in a cheerful tangle before things are worked tight. Remember the mnemonic: two ends meet, each walls the other against the lay. Then in Fig. 117 we see the finished result — a bulky, barrel-shaped mass of interlocked coils sitting symmetrically around the junction, tapering back neatly into the standing parts on both sides. Taper your ends, tuck them away, and serve the whole over with yarn, and yours shall look every bit as handsome.

[WIDOWMAKER] Well done, my dears — if yours looks a touch more like a bird's nest than a barrel just now, that is perfectly normal and rather endearing. I'll see you next Crafternoon. Bye-bye for now, my dears!