LLX > Neil Parker > String Figures > Jayne
[Dickey 1928]'s instructions require two players, but the figure can easily be made by one player, using a toe and the teeth in place of the other player's hands.
No photograph is provided because I don't have enough limbs to hold all four ends of the figure and operate the camera.
1. Opening A.
2. A second player reaches under the figure, from player 1's little-finger side, with one hand, and pulls player 1's near thumb string away under the figure.
2. With the other hand, player 2 reaches under the figure from player 1's thumb side, and pulls player 1's far little finger string through the long loop created in step 2, and under the figure, toward player 1's body.
3. Player 1 releases thumbs and little fingers.
To demonstrate the sawing, the two players alternate bringing their hands close together and separating them. Player 1's hands are close together when player 2's are far apart, and vice versa.
Another method:
1. Pick up the loop on the back of the hands, or the wrists.
2. One hand at a time, assisted by the other hand, grap the near hand string and wrap it once around the hand or wrist.
3. Pass the right middle finger from below under the left palmar string, and return.
4. Pass the left middle finger from above through the right middle finger loop, and then from below under the right palmar string, and return through the right middle finger loop. (This produces the first stage of Cat's Cradle.)
5. A second player grabs player 1's far hand string (that runs straight across) with one hand and pulls it away from player 1's body, and grabs player 1's near hand string (that runs straight across) with the other hand and pulls it toward player 1's body.
6. Player 1 removes the loops from the back of each hand and drops them in the middle, being careful not to drop middle finger loops.
In both methods, two of the loops must be untwisted with a half-twist to make the figure look like the illustration.
LLX > Neil Parker > String Figures > Jayne