Well, Vancouver’s Maker Faire has been turning out gangbusters, as I expected. The crowd is inquisitive and hands-on with the learning displays. Willing and interested in trying out knots. Wanting to know about workshops or local guild meetings. I was sad to report that the PAB meetings are in Los Angeles, but with the level of interest I was observing I see no reason we can’t have our own… branch? sub-branch? meetings!

Vancouver’s first Maker Faire is happening June 25-26^th, 2011 and I’ll be there representing the Pacific Americas Branch of the International Knot Tyers Guild. I’ll have a variety of make-and-take projects and will give the occasional rope making demo (participatory!) using (repurposing) plastic grocery bags (in the spirit of the event).

Two tying methods for the sauvastika knot (卍字結, 総角結び, 날개 매듭) are complete. The main page is done but for some tweaking and extra “similar knot” and image links.

In Chinese Knotting 3, two variations of the plafond knot are explored, the first is the horizontal plafond knot 横藻井結 (橫藻井结) [héng zǎo jǐng jié]. In this configuration, looking somewhat like a cross between the sauvastika and the plafond knot, I wondered what manipulations would work. The side loops, if too short would pull into the body of the knot and the whole thing would fall apart, but the top loop can’t just pull in. With the top loop shortened, it looks like this:

Remove the scaffold and “tada!!” it works. happy dance. The knot is front back symmetric and the sides of the frame are fortunately balanced. I like it. I wonder though if there’s a way to balance the top and bottom so both have sauvastika knots with ears wrapped around the frame top and bottom. I’m thinking that would be easier to tie (without a scaffold) in the long run and expandable to however many units in the centre of the frame you might want. There’s also the figuring out of how to tie this one without a scaffold.