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)

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.

Carol James went to Korea for a couple of weeks and took an intensive course on maedup (매듭) at Dong Lim Knot Museum. Luckily for us, to help herself remember, she’s posted a number of videos to her YouTube channel.

While not particularly decorative, this is visually interesting. It’s a rope trick (and it’s definitely a trick, watch her hands carefully. Here’s the video:

So, I’m going to the Bay area for Xmas this year and I was thinking: what do I want to do when I go there. Y’know other than shop. 8) And what I thought is that I’d really like to take one of Marion’s workshops. Sure, I could probably experiment and figure out how to do the beaded edging on the donuts or how to get the lovely smoothly aligned yarns on her braids, but why should I? 8)