Fun with String: A Collection of String Games, Useful Braiding and Weaving, Knot Work and Magic with String and Rope

If you want to know what you can do with string, you need look no further. This book gives more than 150 delightful and practical uses carefully selected from magicians' and seaman's manuals, craft books, accounts of native games, and other widely scattered sources. Ranging from tricks and games to serious knotwork and netting, they will keep you entertained while opening up a host of new crafts and recreational areas. For those interested in magic and party games, 32 tricks, including escapes, dissolving loops and the cut and restored string, are described. A section on some 70 knots, with all the standard knots and many special ones, will be especially helpful when decorative or ornamental effects, extra strength, speed or other special requirements are called for. For craftspeople, a special section on squareknot work, one of the traditional sailors' crafts, tells how to get started and how to make such projects as belts, ties, hammocks, a tennis net, and a fish net. Other craft sections tell how to make rugs, chains, a rope tree climber, small weaving articles and other useful items, and how to do braiding -- three and four strand, round, square, spiral, and flat -- for a number of other projects. A final section introduces some of the finest examples of string figures from native cultures all around the world. Anyone who works with yarn, thread, rope or other forms of string will want this book for the handicraft areas it introduces and for the many tricks and games it provides with which to entertain one's friends. The recreations and serious uses will provide readers, both young and old, with many hours of interest and entertainment.