How to tie the herringbone knot

In this tutorial we will take a look at how to tie the herringbone knot.

The herringbone knot is a decorative, fancy knot that is used to decorate handles and other objects. It is particularly interesting when tied in two colors, which is done by tying a skeleton knot in one color, then adding an interweave of a different color.

A couple of images of the knot:

 

The knot is an interweave of two turk’s head knots of the same number of bights and parts, meaning that you would interweave a 5 lead, 4 bight turk’s head with another 5 lead, 4 bight turk’s head.

This would result in a 10 lead 8 bight herringbone knot.

Like the gaucho knot tutorial, this tutorial will be descriptive as well as presented via video, because I feel that photographs are not adequate to present the tying process.

 

Herringbone knot tutorial

Prepare a piece of paracord or rope. You will also need an object to wrap. I use a plastic pipe as a mandrel. The knot can then be slid of the mandrel onto the object you want to wrap or tied directly onto it. A lacing needle is recommended.

In this tutorial we will interweave a 5l4b turk’s head, so start by tying it.

1. Take the working end from the right of the standing end and pass it to the left of it
2. follow the standing end to the top of the knot (using the same sequence of under-over-under-over), then pass under it
3. on the next bight to the left, go down under-over-under-over-under two (U1-O1-U1-O1-U2)
4. on the next bight to the left go up using the same sequence as before of under-over-under-over-under two (U1-O1-U1-O1-U2)
5. to go down again (always starting with the bight to the left), we change the sequence a bit, which is now under-over-under-over two-under two (U1-O1-U1-O2-U2)
6. then up again, using the same sequence of under-over-under-over two-under two (U1-O1-U1-O2-U2)
7. we again change the sequence going down to under-over-under two-over two-under two (U1-O1-U2-O2-U2)
8. and up under-over-under two-over two-under two (U1-O1-U2-O2-U2)
9. the last pass goes down in a sequence of under-over two-under two-over two-under two (U1-O2-U2-O2-U2)

This completes the herringbone knot.

Since a runlist may be hard to follow for many, use the video tutorial below!