Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/100

Select a lot of long hair of the color desired; make it into a switch about the eighth of an inch thick by tying one end in a simple knot. Pick out a good, long hair and tie it around the switch close to the knotted end; then take the free end of the single hair in your right hand and pass it under the switch on one side, thus forming a loop through which the end of the hair must pass after it is brought up and over from the other side of the switch. Draw the knot tight by pulling the free end of the hair as shown by Fig. 57, VII. Every time this operation is repeated a wrap and a knot is produced. The knots follow each other in a spiral around the switch, giving it a very pretty, ornamented appearance. When one hair is used up select another, and commence knitting with it as you did with the first, being careful to cover and conceal the short end of the first hair, and to make the knots on the second commence where the former stop. A guard made of white horse-hair looks as if it might be composed of spun glass, and produces a very odd and pretty effect. A black one is very genteel in appearance.

Fig. 57, VIII. shows a simple and expeditious manner of attaching a trolling hook to a fish-line.

Fig. 57, F is a hitch used on shipboard, or wherever lines and cables are used. It is called the Blackwall hitch.

Fig. 57, E is a fire-escape made of a double bowline knot, useful as a sling for hoisting persons up or letting them down from any high place; the window of a burning building, for instance. Fig. 58, XVIII., XIX. and XX. show how this knot is made. It is described on page 77.

Fig. 57, A is a "bale hitch," made of a loop of rope. To make it, take a piece of rope that has its two ends joined; lay the rope down and place the bale on it; bring the loop opposite you up, on that side of the bale, and the loop in front up,