Tying knots, protecting my hands, and finishing up
To make my hair falls as tough and durable as possible, I typically use dental floss to tie up bundles for attachment to clips or combs (I tie the yarn directly to the stretchy loops). I'm a pretty strong person and can tie some pretty tight knots, but Newton's 3rd assures that all the force I put into my knots is also applied to my fingers.
Tying a knot or two with dental floss is not an issue, but try tying several hundred, and the floss starts cutting into the joints of your fingers. My first stop gap solutions were to use a half a dozen bandaids in places that I was getting cut up, but that isn't a long term answer.
The next step was to try gloves-which I've never enjoyed. To retain the dexterity needed to pick up yarn, thread, manipulate the needles I use as 'handles', and tie knots, I cut the fingertips out of the gloves. The first set of gloves was an old pair with leather fingers and offered incredible resistance to the cutting effect of the floss, but was just a bit too stiff to be flexible enough for this kind of work.
Next I went with a pair of cotton gloves. As you'd expect, they are more flexible and less resistant to the pressures of tying knots, but the trade-off is acceptable. (Possibly interesting detail: the cloth around the cut off finger tips keeps fraying at inopportune moments when tying knots. Rather than try to cut off the loose ends, I've found burning them off works better and certainly adds a bit of excitement when wearing them!)
