As first fold the string several times to have a piece in the length of the planned body (e.g. 5 cm). The string goes out from one end of this shape.
Hold it tight near this end and start to spin the free string around. Continue down to the other edge. The tighter the better. You can reach it if you hold the not-yet-spinned shape as close to the spinned one as possible. Finish near the other end. This is the essential operation.
Figure out how much will the body take and how much about the head (from the original 5 cms).
Spinn back the shape to get to the limit between these two (could say neck:-D ).
Stretch the string to the right to the lenght of one leg, then fold, continue through the middle to the left, the same length, fold and back (it's well visible on picture 2 from photo II). Hold it at the middle and start to spin to one end as known, and back, in the middle you can add a cross and go on to the other leg. Fix with one more cross and go on right near these two legs down the body. Thus create 8 legs.
Spin through the legs to the head end. Spin, spin and spin until you get the shape of head you like. Spin gently throug the neck and add some turns to the body - between the legs to the tail and back, continue until you're contented. The legs will get further from each other.
If you have spinned tightly enough you can make a nice trick now - form the legs as if they were from a wire :-)
This is my original technique and if you try it please tell me how it went and so;-) I imagine other animals could be produced this way - a horse if you take four legs and form the body well, some unspinned cord on the end as a tail...
I taught my granny - she made the one with black eyes (pins). Mine, as I suffer from conjunctivity now, is the red-eyed one :-D
