Novice Knot Knotter

When my youngest son Andrew was 18 months old, he climbed on top of the side table in our living room and knocked over my brand new $50 glass lamp. It still had the tags on it. I cried. And then not wanting to waste a perfectly good lamp, I took the rest of the glass off, leaving a long silver base, and stored it away, thinking one day I would have a jolt of inspiration.

Well that jolt of inspiration came the other day when I spied a bunch of rope that my husband, Brian bought for a camping trip with his scouts. He just got assigned to be scoutmaster a few months ago, and he has completely embraced the role. So I thought I would experiment with the rope and see if I could make him a lamp worthy of a scoutmaster. 

I found inspiration HERE, HERE, and HERE ($575-whuut?) and learned how to make a monkey fist knot from this good ol' boy.

It's pathetic that I am a photographer by trade but can't seem to get my act together to photograph a good tutorial with my camera. I really will get better at that, because it makes all the difference in the world. But in the meantime, please pardon my lame and undetailed iPhone pics.

The supplies I used for this were a tall lamp base, rough 1/4" rope, and hot glue.

 I actually started out backwards. My initial idea was to do a bunch of monkey fist knots up the base, so experimented first with making the knot. When that turned out to be a lot more involved that I expected, and I realized I might need to make six or seven of them, I decided that maybe a single knot would be fine.

So after making a loose monkey fist, I then grabbed my hot glue gun and started winding the rope up the base, carefully gluing it into place every 3rd or 4th rotation, making sure none of the hot glue was visible. Sorry for lack of a picture here.

I then went through the arduous task of tightening the knot, which takes a couple of times around and a lot of patience. I then cut off the ends, tucking them into the fist, and secured them, and the knot itself, into place in the middle of the base with some hot glue.

I am very please with the final product! I have had this lamp for almost two years collecting dust. I even tried to sell it at one point and no one would buy it! But with a little inspiration, a bunch of rough looking rope, and some hot glue, I was able to give this lamp a second life, and I spent zero dollars on it!

And not to mention, I scored big with this lamp, ladies. Brian was totally impressed with my novice knot making skills, and he keeps telling me how much he loves his lamp. While I was earning brownie points, I also created a collage above his desk with his degrees, mission call, family picture, and his Eagle Scout award that his mother had so beautifully framed. He may not have a man cave or a la-z-boy in front of the tv, but he's got himself one heck of a work area now, worthy of my favorite Scoutmaster.