Saturday, December 22, 2007

Not just for the gadgets...

Most of the time, I make lanyards and fobs for various gadgets, key chains, knives, flashlights and multi-tools in mind, the usual guy stuff. But like the Ocean Plait and Carrick Mats, decorative knots have many other uses.

With Christmas just around the corner, I've already given family and friends things I've made and wanted to do something different for the women I know. I've seen similar work before, and have given it a try myself. Here's a barrette, monkey's fist necklace, and monkey's fist earrings that I've put together with 2mm cord.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Storm,

Beautiful knots and perfect !
I see your knotting's works on KHWW.
Splendid !
I'm also member on KHWW, IGKT PAB and IGKT UK.
Sorry for my writing, I don't speak and write perfectly, my friend Charles aka "Nautile", translate for me certain posts.
And my sister live to NY.
With my best regards and...
Happy new year !

Al

Anonymous said...

I really like those earrings. My mom would love those as a gift. Where can I find or buy them?





http://funniest-news.blogspot.com/

Stormdrane said...

Nantucket Knotworks(google them) makes some similar to these. Their web page is up but I don't know if they're still making them for sale.

I just try making different things as a hobby and try to stay away from selling.

Unknown said...

Beautiful work stomrdrane. Just wondering where you get your smaller cords though... like the solid color 2mm as you used in this post.

Stormdrane said...

I got the 2mm cord from ebay. Just do a search there for '2mm cord' and look thru the results. I bought mine from the seller 'mowfugger'. He also has slightly larger and smaller diameter cord sizes of the nylon line, but I've only tried the 2mm. Not a lot of variety on colors though.

Mr Puffy's Knitting Blog: said...

I love the barrett!!!!!

Tangalor said...

What kind of knot is used to make that barrette? I'd love to make one for my wife for christmas. :)

Stormdrane said...

That's an 'ocean plait mat'. Here's a link for the IGKT website where you can print out a diagram for the mat, punch out the holes, and feed some 2mm cord thru to make the mat fairly easily.

Once you have the cord fed through all the holes, you carefully tear away the paper and make however many more passes you want for the mat. Then gradually work the slack out, which is the most time consuming part.

You can super glue the backside of the mat to make it permanent and use a dowel to secure it or glue on a metal barrette clip to the backside.

The diagram makes it easy, but there are also other online tutorials for tying the 'ocean plait mat' freehand as well, like here and here.

Stormdrane said...

Messed up the first link, so here it is again:

http://www.igkt.net/beginners/ocean-plait.php

Tangalor said...

Awesome! Thanks :)