I first considered writing a book on knotting when I bought a knotting book for a gift. I didn't present it because it contained more than 20 major errors in the first 80 pages. I bought another. It was but slightly better. I decided that too many people who had never tied a knot while sweating were telling others "how-to".  I told my wife that, since I had tied many knots while sweating (some of them in anger), I'd write a knotting book.

I further decided to devise one or two starting positions from which many knots could be completed. Those same positions would have to provide the finger contact  that would work for one-handed knotting and knotting in the dark. Thus were born two starting positions that I call the "elbow" and the "pretzel". Those two positions are the backbone of my book, entitled Kno-Knonsense Knots.