Thanks Poohbear & Alli77
Thank you, I actually did not tie the towel into 2 knots, I just used a bigger towel and grabbed both ends and put a ponytail holder on them to hold the ends together.
The straw set took me ~3 hours. I started from the bottom, I showed a how to in my album but I removed it to have more space for pics, I can send it to you in pm if you would like me to.