Knotted Rosaries
Today we ventured out to our Catholic Homeschool group here on base. All the families try to attend mass at 11:30, then we meet for lunch in one of the chapel activity rooms. Following lunch is some sort of academic endeavor for the children. Once a month the children do a brief presentation of a saint or country from a pre-determined continent. Other weeks we try to do a craft that relates to some feast day during the month. This month, being the month of the Rosary, the children made knotted rosaries.
At first I thought the children were just making beaded rosaries from kits. They are easy to find online or can be put together with strong string and pony beads. You can even use alphabet beads from any craft store to personalize them. I was surprised to find that the Rosaries they were making were knotted.
I’ve never seen these before and I was impressed. They are made from dyed parachute cord. They are a little tricky to put together, in fact, I think that most of the children under 10 had their mom or this month’s Craft Lady do them entirely. Some of the older children helped, too. Craft Lady Mom was smart and didn’t have the children attempt to make an actual full size Rosary. Instead, they made single decade ones that when wrapped around and hooked onto the crufix, could be worn as bracelets.
Here are the two that Pumpkin Girl and Boo had made for them.
Boo’s is the red one and if you’ll notice, actually has 11 beads. The last bead on the left is larger than the rest and is an Our Father bead.Being a lover of crafts of all kinds, I promptly came home and did an internet search for knotted Rosaries. You can read more about the ministry of the Rosary Army here. Their site has instructions on how to make knotted rosaries and links of where tp buy supplies. FNT Industries has a Rosary Starter Kit for $2.50. However, do not use the “add to cart” option or they will try to charge over $10 for shipping! Follow the instructions on the page for mailing them a check.
Many of the families in our homeschool group, mine included have been trying to make praying the rosary a regular occurance. We’ve noticed on the days that we do say the rosary, the rest of the day goes much smoother. I’m glad the children now each have their own nearly indestructable rosaries to pray with.
