How to Tie the Double Slip Knot (Shoelace)
Usage
The Double Slip Knot ties a shoelace bow that stays tied — useful when your usual knot keeps coming undone on round, slippery laces, or during running, sports, or anything with a lot of repeated foot motion. It's a symmetric shoelace bow: instead of tucking one loop through the center "hole" the way a standard bow does, you tuck both loops through from opposite sides, doubling the wrap around the middle.
Why Learn the Double Slip Knot?
It's a small change from a normal bow with an outsized payoff: still a one-pull release, but Ian Fieggen's own tension test found it takes roughly three times the pull to work loose compared with a standard shoelace knot. Once you've tied it a few times it's no slower than any other bow — the Knot IQ app is a handy place to slow the sequence down and step through it before trying it at speed.
Common Uses
Everyday Footwear
- Sneakers, dress shoes and general daily footwear where laces coming undone is an ongoing annoyance.
- Hockey skates, hiking boots and soccer cleats, where repeated hard motion works a normal bow loose.
- Running shoes specifically, where footstrike is exactly the repeated-cycling motion this knot is built to resist.
Other Cordage
- Parcel and gift-wrap tying, and other everyday jobs — securing garden stakes, shade cloth, or a drawstring — where a shoelace-style bow that won't shake loose is useful beyond footwear.
- Slippery paracord laces, documented firsthand by Fieggen after round paracord kept slipping loose in a standard bow.
|
Other Names
Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot
Category
Utility (Everyday Life), Shoelace Knots
|
Notable Features
- Double wrap: both loops pass through the center hole from opposite sides, instead of just one, giving the finished bow a symmetric double wrap instead of a single one.
- Still a slip knot: both loops stay pull-to-release bights, so it opens with a single pull — more secure, not harder to untie.
- Same starting motion: it begins exactly like a standard shoelace bow, so the only new part to learn is the final tuck-both-loops step.
Similar Knots
Berluti Knot vs. Double Slip Knot
The Berluti Knot builds its double wrap with a different, slower sequence.
- Advantage: faster to tie for everyday use, since the Berluti's sequential loop-and-end method takes longer.
- Disadvantage: a touch less secure and less symmetric than the Berluti's neater, dressier finish.
Turquoise Turtle Knot vs. Double Slip Knot
The Turquoise Turtle Knot reaches the same finished shape by a different route.
- Advantage: the both-loops-through-the-hole method is easier to demonstrate and dress neatly, which matters when teaching it from scratch.
- Disadvantage: none functionally — Fieggen notes the two knots finish identically, so the choice is really about which sequence your hands prefer.
Ian Knot vs. Double Slip Knot
This knot is a direct upgrade of the plain Ian Knot, the fast single-wrap bow it's built from.
- Advantage: roughly triples the tension needed to pull the bow undone, per Fieggen's own test.
- Disadvantage: two extra tying steps compared to the Ian Knot's single-wrap speed.
Security Level
For a low-stakes bow knot, this one is genuinely more secure than the standard alternative. Fieggen's own tension test found it needed roughly three times the pull to work loose, and it still releases with a single pull on the ends. The only real failure mode is cosmetic: loose ends sticking out front or back instead of tucked to the sides — the knot still holds, it just looks untidy.
Downsides
- One extra step to learn: the final tuck-both-loops motion is new, and can come out crooked or twisted the first few times.
- Easy to confuse with the Berluti Knot: both are secure double-wrap bows, so mixing them up just means a slower, fussier tie than expected.
- No lab test data: the ~3x tension figure comes from the inventor's own home test, not a controlled lab study.
History
Clifford Ashley catalogued this knot in his 1944 book, in the shoestring-and-parcel-knot cluster. Decades later, Ian Fieggen independently reinvented the identical structure and named it Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot, only later discovering it duplicated Ashley's entry and a separate German name from the 1950s. Per Wikipedia's shoelace knot entry, the underlying doubled-loop structure is also shared by several other named knots reaching the same finished shape by different routes.
How to Tie the Double Slip Knot (Shoelace)
Step 1
Begin with a regular left-over-right starting knot, then fold both lace ends back into loops ("bunny ears").
Step 2
Cross the right loop over the left loop so it sits in front and becomes the new left loop.
Step 3
Begin wrapping the other loop (now on the right) around to the front — up to here, this is identical to a standard two-loop shoelace bow.
Step 4
Wrap the left loop around to the back instead of the front, so the two loop ends land on opposite sides of the hole in the middle.
Step 5
Feed both loop ends through the hole — one comes out the front, the other out the back — then pull both loops to tighten. The twisted arrangement rearranges itself into a neat, symmetric double-wrapped bow.
FAQ
How do you tie the Double Slip Knot?
Tie a normal left-over-right starting knot, fold both lace ends into loops, cross them, then feed both loops through the central hole from opposite sides instead of just one. Pull evenly and the twisted arrangement self-rearranges into a neat, symmetric bow.
What's the difference between the Double Slip Knot and the Berluti Knot?
Watch the tying, not the result: this knot tucks both loops through the hole from opposite sides in one symmetric move, while the Berluti passes a loop and an end and builds its wrap sequentially, finishing dressier and more formal. Mixing them up is low-stakes — both are secure double-wrap bows, so a swap just costs a slower, fussier tie.
Is a "Double Slip Knot" the same thing as a "Double Slipped Reef Knot"?
Not quite. Double Slip Knot is this specific knot's proper name from Ashley's 1944 catalogue. Double Slipped Reef Knot is a generic label for the whole finished-structure family — it also applies to the Surgeon's Knot, the Turquoise Turtle Knot and others that arrive at the same shape by different tying routes.
Is the Double Slip Knot harder to untie than a normal shoelace bow?
No — both loops are still pull-to-release bights by design, so it opens with the same single pull. The extra tension only resists it coming undone on its own, not a deliberate untie.
