techniques

Dfr and I were recently talking about how we'd both eventually have to get paid memberships to Foundations Revealed given that we've both been pretty obsessive about corsets and have started to exhaust the free information available. I'd already used the free "sample" articles pretty extensively; that set of instructions on how to draft a corset pattern to your own measurements is one of their free articles. So yesterday I broke down and bought a membership. (Well, just a month to start with.) Lo and behold, they explain how to make the flossing look neater from the inside! Except part of those instructions were to "make a quilter's knot." I guess they weren't figuring that people would be getting paid subscriptions to corset-making sites without first having basic knowledge like common sewing knots! The thing about starting with complicated projects is that you don't learn basic techniques first. I was still making knots the way we learned in middle school home ec, wrapping it around my finger and then twisting and pulling it. Actually, come to think of it, what that actually does is very similar to a quilter's knot, except that the quilter's knot is smaller and possibly more controlled, although I'm still practicing it, so mine aren't so controlled. So anyway, I went off in search of a how-to on making a quilter's knot, and came up with a whole lot of gobledegook. Videos and sets of instructions that I'd follow, and end up with no knot at the end of my thread.
Then I found this one! It's really quiet, so you have to turn the volume all the way up to hear it, although the video is clear enough that you're more following what she's doing by sight than by the narrative. But she actually shows you what to do to get a knot at the end of your thread! Hallelujah!