Once upon a time…

Maybe it’s the summer season — with all its beach themed decorations — or maybe it’s been a long love affair for me, but I have been having a lot of fun playing with nautical knots lately.  I started with a few knot tying exercises, courtesy of an L.L. Bean tent at a summer festival, then admiring the knot-work on a sailboat cruise in Boston’s bay, and finally by raiding old stashes of rope at antique stores along Charles street.  I like the old ropes, with wide twists and sea stained colouring.  There is something fascinatingly tactile and faintly aromatic about these bits of history, aside from the many dimensions all the twists bring out on paper.

They certainly lend a lot of scope when I sit down to draw!  But most of my designs tend toward the nautical look.  I guess that makes sense because there is nothing more nautical than a knot — after all, it’s also their unit of measure for speed!  But I’m trying to think of non-traditional uses for these patterns, so if you have any ideas, please let me know…