Knotty Notions

There is a major Chinese knot button exhibit that is touring China. It most recently was (is?) in Beijing and is moving to Shanghai for the World Expo next month. Follow the link below to see an English video about the exhibit. It looks like the current fashionable style is to make a pictorial quilt with the button frogs, but considering the size of the thing maybe there's some knotted frogs in there too.

Pretty pictures
The watermark is a little annoying, but I still like the picture of these knotted shoes. Not enough to bid on it, but... 8)
http://cgi.ebay.ca/PRETTY-HANDMADE-KNIT-SHOES-SHAPED-CHINESE-KNOT_W0QQit...

The first part of the classic computer graphics demonstration of mathematical knots called "Not Knot"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGLPbSMxSUM (via)

Blogs
Travelogue of the area in Seoul, Korea that contains the Dong-Lim Korean Knotting Museum including a mention of the same.
http://www.seoulartfiend.com/2010/03/17/bukchon-a-traditional-korean-vil...

The Dong-Lim Korean knotting museum in Seoul, Korea has it's own website!! Tell you later after I have at it with some brute force clicking and online translators what especially cool treasures (I hope!) lie within...
http://shimyoungmi.com/

Events
Preparing for their upcoming Paracord contest, Instructables has posted a collection of example paracord projects.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Paracord/

"This week, West Swamp Mennonite Church in Milford is holding its fifth annual knotting marathon called Why Knot." What they're knotting are blankets. I'm not really sure what "knotting comforters" entails, but it certainly sounds like it's for a good cause (sending blankets to Haiti).
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2010/march/24/kn...

Software
Erin Weik's husband made for her an online interactive colour planner for what appears to be the 8 strand kongo.
http://lythastudios.com/123bead/kumiplanner.html

Events
April 14-18, 2010
Sydney, NSW, AU
The first in a series of Stiches and Craft Shows in Australia is starting in about 2 weeks and the official web site is still a postcard.
Trish Goodfield will be teaching kumihimo there. (Hey, Trish, link the book image to a description or provide a description on the buy page, please? You're killing the whole impulse buy urge by making me work too hard. 8)
http://trishalandesigns.blogspot.com/2010/03/craft-show-preparations.html

Fri , May 7, 2010
Seafoam Necklace
1 Stop Bead Shop, Columbus, OH

Events
"Coming soon" Instructables will be running a paracord contest. Anything using primarily paracord is eligible. At stake is a custom laser engraved Leatherman (type unspecified). Once the contest gets going, it will be open for 2.5 weeks. The instructable must use paracord, it cannot be done with some other kind of rope with the note "you could also use paracord for this".
http://www.instructables.com/community/Coming-Soon-Paracord-Contest/

Players of a game called "Ether Saga Online" are nattering about Chinese New Year quests on their game discussion board, and apparently there are Chinese knot quests. I wonder what those are about... ah, apparently characters are given red silk "thread" and taught how to tie knots. Boxes with rewards are given when the knots are completed. I wonder what this all looks like in the game...
http://eso-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=1616901
http://eso-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=1614871
http://www.perfectworld.com/blog/?p=10591

Things to make

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Events
Friday, March 26, 2010
7:00 pm. Beltrami Electric Cooperative Room, Bemidji, NM.
Marion Hunziker-Larsen of Jewels in Fiber is having a trunk show
http://r2arts.org/2010/03/18/fiber-jewelry-trunk-show/

April 19-23, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Mohawk Valley Community College, Utica Campus, Utica, NY
Chinese Language and Culture Camp: This program is for ages 8-14 year-olds.
Mandarin, culture and crafts including Chinese knotting.
http://www.oneidacountycourier.com/utica-new-york-news/mvcc-offers-sprin...

Wednesday 28 April 2010, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

I was working on the main page for the mystic knot and decided that I really needed to have my own illustration of the ru-yi knot (如意, rúyì, halfway between a 장고매듭, jang-go-mae-deup, and a 가지방석매듭, ga-ji-bang-seong-mae-deup).

Things to make
Peter Dekker shares an illustrated how to for wrapping your Chinese sword grips.
http://www.mandarinmansion.com/art_files/gripwrap.pdf (336 kb) (via)

Speaking of wrapping things, ITS Tactical wraps a mini-prybar with paracord and shows you how with photographic step by step and a video
http://www.itstactical.com/2010/03/12/knot-of-the-week-550-paracord-wrap...

Tying It All Together has instructional videos for Ashley's flower knot (ABok #2445) on youTube and Wonder How To (which is just a redirect to the youTube, but you can browse around to see if they have anything that youTube doesn't)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhUtGfeCQso
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-tie-clifford-w-ashleys-flower-knot-318...

Illustrated how to make Celtic knot cookies!

I think I got this advertisement from the knot tyers mailing list. The photography is lovely and the knots are nicely rendered. Click through for the complete ad with more knots. It's interesting that the ad is supposed to be for Ford's bluetooth (now standard with every new Ford, at least in Germany) but the wires used are distinctly Apple/iPod. Standard/generic wires would have been black, possibly with bright coloured ear buds (or not) and taken on a white background would probably have been just as dramatic. But maybe it's just my personal biases that makes the ad, at first glance, seem more like an Apple ad than a Ford ad.

Over a year ago I scanned the pictures I needed to put together an illustrated step by step set of instructions for the good luck knot. Finally, words have been combined with the pictures and posted to the main site.