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I believe that the advent of the two-wrap French knot came about when some sweet, young stitcher’s single wrap knot pulled through the fabric. “Ah,” said she, “If I just wrap a few more times it won’t do that horrible thing.” She tried it and lo and behold it worked! Well, sort of. It was a bit lop-sided but perhaps no one would notice. Her mother who didn’t stitch at all, because she was busy making mutton stew, simply encouraged her sweet daughter and said, “Oh my dear, isn’t that just as lovely as it can be!” And the twist to the technique was born, as the sweet, young girl passed her newfound knowledge on to her stitching friends. Too bad she didn’t know that to get a larger knot all she needed was a larger needle and another strand of floss...
or perhaps a Colonial knot.


Bring the needle up through the fabric at the location you want to make the knot.

Hold the thread loosely downward, and place the tip of the needle over the thread.


Hook the needle tip under the thread from the left.


Take the thread that you are holding in your left hand over the top of the needle…


…then under the tip of the needle to make a figure 8. As you become more familiar with this process, these last two steps will become one smooth motion.


With the figure 8 wraps loosely on the needle, insert the needle back into the fabric one or two fabric threads from the original starting point.


Push the needle about halfway into the fabric and pull the thread so the loop is snug around the needle and rests on the fabric surface.

This is the most important part of forming nice knots. The knot is sized around the barrel of the needle, which is how you will get uniform results with every knot.


Keeping gentle tension on the thread…

…pull the needle through to finish the knot.

Keeping your thumb over the thread as it enters the fabric will help keep slip knots from forming as the thread is pulled through the fabric.

A word about knots… you know the kind… you are stitching along and Bam! The thread stops short. These knots will almost certainly form in your thread as you stitch and can become a frustrating mess. The best defense against these intruders is to STITCH GENTLY. The knots that form as you stitch are almost always slip knots and are easy to remove if you haven’t pulled them in with a vengeance in the first place. The more gently you treat them, the easier they are to remove. So relax and stitch gently.

If it turns out the knot in your thread has more will power than you have patience, you are in luck. In this kind of needlework, the last stitch you made was a knot so you can end the thread right there (yep, just cut it off) then, begin again.