Finishing your miniature punchneedle pieces with twisted cording gives a special touch to your work. You can purchase cording from fabric stores, of course, but the range of colors and sizes is very limited. When you make your own cording, you have complete control – you create precisely the kind of cording that you want.
Many of us made cording as kids – and the process is still pretty much the same. I like to use a small gizmo called a Spinster – a miniature “hand drill” with a hook on the business end, which makes cord-making both quick and easy. But it’s certainly not critical. You can still make cording the old-fashioned way, by using your hands to twist threads together using a “dialing the phone” motion. The instructions here are based on using a Spinster, which is faster and very easy to do — but it's a bit more complicated to describe. If you want to use your fingers (or an electric hand-mixer, or a battery-powered hair twister, or any number of other creative alternatives), feel free to experiment!
Getting Started
- When you’re making cording, you’ll generally need to cut two pieces of floss or thread which are at least three times as long as the distance all the way around the outside perimeter of your completed punchneedle piece. For the instructions here, you’ll be making a practice piece, so the length of thread isn’t critical. For this practice piece, we ’ll use two pieces of six-strand cotton embroidery floss cut to a length of 24”. So that you can better see the effects of twisting, select two highly contrasting colors, such as black and white, or yellow and brown.
- Hold the two lengths of floss together, and tie a knot at each end. This can be kind of knot – anything that will hold the two different colored pieces of floss together.
- By tying a knot at each end of the length of floss, you’ve created a big continuous loop. Pull apart the two colors, and you’ll see that you have one big circle of floss, half of one color and half of another.
Twisting the Floss
That takes care of the preliminary preparations. Now you’re ready to actually make the cording. Find a suction cup with a hook on it, and attach it to a smooth vertical surface (if all else fails, use a window or the bathroom mirror). Or better yet, have a spouse, child, neighbor, or friend hold one end of the floss while you're working with it.
- Take your loop of floss and put one end of it over the hook. You want one of the knots in the floss to be right where the hook is.
- Grab your Spinster and slip the other end of your floss loop over the hook on the Spinster. You want the other knot to be right in the hook of the Spinster.
- Hold the Spinster in a way that creates gentle tension on the floss. Right now, the floss loop doesn’t look like a circle at all – rather, it’s a 24”-long length of floss, knotted at both ends. Each end is slipped onto a hook, one on the hook of the suction cup, and the other on the hook of the Spinster.
- Keep some tension on the floss (no drooping of floss – you want the floss to be at a ninety degree angle to the floor, nice and straight, thanks to the tension that your hand is providing), and begin turning the handle of the Spinster. Picture yourself reeling in a fish! Crank and crank and crank some more, keeping tension on the floss the entire time. No droopy floss!
- Every so often, stop cranking, and gently release a bit of the tension on the floss, to see if the floss is beginning to twist upon itself. If the floss just droops, you know that you still have more cranking to do. If the floss begins to want to kink up, then you know you’re just about done.
- When my floss begins to kink, I like to give about 5-10 more turns of the handle, just to make sure that I’ve twisted enough. This isn’t critical, but I’ve found it to be helpful.
- Now that you’re done cranking, keep holding tension on the floss at the Spinster end. Hold the floss with your hand near the knot, and remove the hook of the Spinster. Remember to keep holding tension on the floss!
- You’re now going to “walk” one end of the floss toward the other end, with the ultimate goal of holding the two ends together. But wait – there’s a specific way that you want to do this. Maintain tension on the floss while grasping one end of the floss, and use your other hand to “hang” the hook of the Spinster onto the middle of the cord. That’s right. You want to hook the Spinster (with the handle hanging down toward the floor) on the cord you’re making. This will serve as a weight, which will help the cord twist much more evenly. (You can also use a one ounce fishing weight, with a wire hook attached to it – it’s a bit more petite than the Spinster, but both work equally well.)
- Gather up your coordination. Here’s what you do next. While still holding tension on the end of the cording with one hand, use a finger of your other hand to push down on the floss which is right at the hook of the Spinster (remember, it’s hanging about midway between the two ends of the floss). Your finger is going to create tension at the midpoint. Now, while keeping tension on the midpoint at the hanging Spinster, “walk” your other hand (the one that’s holding the end of the floss) toward the end of the floss that’s on the hook of the suction cup. Be sure to keep tension on the walking hand, too. What you’re doing at this step is keeping the floss taut between the midpoint and the suction cup hook, and keeping the floss taut between your hand and the floss at the midpoint. When your hand reaches the suction cup hook (still keeping things nice and taut), use your fingers to take the floss off the suction cup hook, and hold the two floss ends together, side by side (remember, keep the floss taut!).
- You’re almost done! Stand away from the window or mirror, holding the two ends of floss at about eye level, and the weighted “end” (it WAS the middle, and now it’s the end, with the Spinster hanging from it) toward the floor. Now – let go of the Spinster. The cording will instantly begin twisting upon itself. It will spin wildly. Don’t interfere – just let it do its thing.
- When the floss stops twisting, simply remove the Spinster. And you’re done. You’ve just created a perfect twisted cord. The cord will stay twisted on its own. If you won’t be using it right away, you might want to tie a knot in the end where the two cut ends of floss are, just in case, but this normally isn't necessary.
Now mind you, this sounds MUCH more complicated than it really is. It’s really easy, and great fun. I’ve gone into a lot of detail, since it’s hard to figure out when you’re first using the Spinster. But once you “get it”, you’ll be running around trying to make cording out of every long piece of floss you can find. It’s magical! And remember that you can twist just about any kind of thread, yarn, floss, or other fibers. Enjoy!
