Have you ever learned something new because you had to, and then thought to yourself “I probably should have learned that a long time ago! Plus, it’s not even hard.”

Well, yesterday I was hanging some paintings and wanted to put them up some crazy hipster way— by putting eyelets into the top of the frames & then tying on some waxed thread to hang it from. In order to do this, however, I needed to tie the thread to the eyelets. Securely.

So I asked my best friend Google how to tie knots, and after perusing a few websites, I decided to try the figure eight knot. It was billed as a knot that got tighter when weight was applied, so I knew it would be secure on the paintings were hung. After looking through the instructions a few times, including some pictures and drawings, I got started.

Although I believe that the results will be more than sturdy enough to hold up these paintings for a long while, I honestly think I didn’t tie the knots correctly. When I was looking at the diagrams again afterwards, and comparing to my own knots, the lack of a visible figure 8 was really noticeable. Maybe I double looped part of the 8? I’m not sure… either way, it tightened the correct way. Maybe it’s just a new knot? The figure 8 1/2?