How to tie a globe knot

A fun and useful knot to tie, the globe knot is a must try!

There are a few popular ways of wrapping spherical objects like ball bearings, pool balls and the likes. Besides the monkey fist knot and the various turk’s head knots, the globe knot is a great way to wrap. And you know what? It is quite fun to make.

I learned the knot from J.D.Lenzen, who made a video tutorial on it. The knot was fairly intimidating to me, but it is in fact very simple. In essence it is a woven knot. I have found this knot to be best tied on a mandrel (a PVC pipe in my case).

The knot is commonly used for making keychains, flails (the weapon) and decorative objects in general.

Let’s leave words behind and start tying this knot!

Technically, this knot is called a double globe knot. I will show you how to make the single version and how to double it up.

The supplies

To tie this knot I used:

paracord 550
a wooden ball. You can do with a marble or a small ball bearing
a PVC pipe to act as a mandrel. In essence, you can use any stick or even wrap around your fingers.

Globe knot tutorial

Take your mandrel and wrap the cord around it, leaving cord on both ends. We will alternate using the left and right cords mostly. Take the right cord, weave it to the left as seen in the images below. Then use the left bottom cord to weave to the right. Use the same cord to follow the top cord again and the bottom left cord to double up the bottom cord. Spread the two top cords and weave the right cord between them. Use the left bottom cord to weave between the bottom two cords. Finally weave the right cord above the very top cord. At this point both cords will be on the left side. Insert the center ball from the left, then begin tightening. This will require some patience. Think of the end result and you will get there in no time!