I posted here earlier asking for a knot recommendation for securing the bights of a door mat that I was making for my mother. The idea was to secure the edges of the mat which would not stay together when disturbed at all. The mat was not woven loosely, it was possible woven too tight as I had to take a wooden mallet to get the bights on the edges to lie fair again once they were disturbed. This thing fell apart like limp spaghetti when I tried to move it. It was a pain, and as my mother is 84 I was not willing to take any chances on this being just a trip and fall hazard for her. I was advised to sew through the edges to secure them. I have very good needles but did not want to sew them, I wanted to showcase my knotting. I decided that individual knots between each of the (leads???) was going to take forever (as this is a seven-ply knot) and make me insane and possibly just make the whole thing look junky. My solution was a compromise between sewing the bights and knotting. I simply made racking turns between all of the bights and then tied it off with a reef knot in the dip between the bights. No excessive, “toe-grabbing” knots, no aching hands from trying to use the stupid sewing palm that are all sized for men with large hands and a very nice, subtle addition to the overall design. It is not perfect by any means but I think that it will serve nicely. I am proud of my first attempt at making a rectangular mat and hope to improve with practice. Although at the cost of rope, I don’t think that I will be doing too many of these. I am posting pictures of the finished mat so that everyone can offer criticisms or praise as they see fit. Don’t worry, my skin is very, very thick and constructive criticism may hurt the pride but is always welcome. I think that it’s proper name is called LEARNING! Thanks for letting me brag on myself and babble on the forum.
Barbie
P.S. My Mother loved it so much that I had to make her promise to actually put it on the floor where it belongs.