[MrVandemar]

Not the parent, but I cut myself a nice stick, divided it into shortish lengths of three, probably about 20cm, sanded them down. Three sticks lets you practice a number of knots, and I stored them tied with two lengths of rope (the fantastic hitch, forget what it's called, but two of them are brilliant for bundling poles together).

Then I just carried that around in my bag, or in a drawer at work, and when the opportunity presented itself, I practiced.

[dougalm]

Yeah, I similarly have dowels floating around my desk for tying hitches. But I don't have a good solution for practicing knots that are meant to be tied under tension, like the "trucker's hitch" family. I've been considering getting some small dock cleats and screwing them to my desk.

[foundart]

a plastic dock cleat hot glued to a piece of wood works pretty well and is fairly cheap