Use this knot to join in a new piece of thread when you are in the middle of sewing a multi-section book. It’s easy when you know how!
It may seem like an over complicated way to join thread together but once mastered it will give you more control over the position of the knot. (Ideally you don’t want to pull the knot through one of your sewing holes.)
You should plan to use it in a discreet way – on a Coptic sewing where the sewing pattern on the spine is on show, you make the knot inside the pages but when the spine is going to be covered you can make the knot somewhere on the outside of the section – and you may only have a small area to use for this.
1 Make a loop near one end of the NEW piece of thread.
2 Let the thread hang behind this loop and fish through a second loop. Hold the top of this second loop (lasso) and tighten the first loop into a slip knot. Adjust the size of the lasso by holding the slip knot between your finger and thumb and pulling one of the ends of the (new) thread.
3. Feed the old thread through the “lasso”. Start to tighten the lasso/slipknot around the old thread by pulling the two ends of the new thread in opposite directions. As you do this, adjust the position of the join to get as close to the last sewing hole as possible. Keep pulling until you feel a click , which is the old thread being locked into the slip knot.
4. Test the knot by gently pulling the new thread. If it slips off the old piece, then you will have to have another go.
There are numerous Youtube tutorials for this knot but this one looked quite straightforward to me. (It also shows two other useful knots for bookbinders).
