tutorial: pan chang chinese knot

In a previous post from a few years back, I made some Chinese knots for Chinese New Year 2010. Well, January 23, 2012, is the date for this year, and it's fast approaching! I still had some of the same red cord from that previous project, so I decided to try and learn a new knot. And I picked a doozy of one called the Pan Chang knot.


It took me a few times, but I finally got it. I had to get some cardboard and stick some pins in it to keep the cord where I wanted it, but in the end it turned out kind of cool. I had take more photos, but when you work at night and your room has incandescent lights and therefore a dim yellowish hue ... it's just too much work trying to make them presentable. Anyhow, I missed using Adobe Illustrator so much I decided to use the program to make a little guide. Yay.


1. Get some cardboard stack it up (two or three layers so the pins stay in). Then following the guide, put pins where there are pink dots.

   
2. Get some cord/string that's got some thickness (red is a lucky color). You'll need about a yard ... maybe more. In the middle, create a loop tied off with a knot. With one end, string the cord around the pins following the guide - stringing it vertically and then horizontally. Make sure to note when it goes over/under the already-laid cord.

   
3. With the other end of the cord, you'll weave it through vertically and then horizontally. Again, make sure you take note when the cord is supposed to go over/under another one.


4. And that should be that. Carefully pull the cord up from around the pins and carefully pull on the outer loops. After you get the center roughly squared away, then you can begin adjusting the length of the loops by slowly working the cord through the piece, tightening along the way. The original knotted loop should be tight to the center square, and the two side loops should be bigger than the four other ones.


5. Voila! After all the tightening you'll have to trim the ends of your cord. And then you can either leave the ends hanging or finish them off with some button knots.


Whew. Wasn't that fun? I don't have enough cord to make another knot, so that's it. It's kind of a small thing to show for all the time and effort I put into making it. It was fun though. Once you make one successfully you can sort of understand how the knot is constructed. The one I made here has four rows, but you can easily expand the knot to have six or eight rows just by increasing the number of vertical and horizontal moves you make. Good luck! Wishing everyone a happy new year!

x-stitch ... years in the making

Did I ever mention that I am quite the procrastinator? Well, here's proof. I finally finished a cross-stitch that I've been working on for the past few years. It's not that big (about 12"x12") and I really have no good excuse for why it took so long. This cross-stitch saw me graduate high school, graduate college, go off exploring, and start graduate school. Yeah ... when I say that this took me a "few years," what I really mean is 7 and a half years. Oh yes.


I received the pattern from a friend for my 16th birthday. We had taken biology together, and for a bug-collecting project, we managed to catch some butterflies. In the process of pinning them to the board, some of the wings fell off and we became the wingless butterfly friends. She gave me the cross-stitch as a reminder of that. We actually haven't talked in about five years or so and we've both just changed so much, but I'm glad that I've finally been able to complete her gift.

Kind of bittersweet in a way. The cross-stitch is completed, we've lost contact, time has moved on ... seems kinda final.

2012 - happy new year!

Woot! This is my first post of 2012 ... yay! Yet another year has passed, oh wow.


I graduated college two years ago and it's amazing how much stuff I still have from my college days. I really should get rid of a lot of it, because when am I ever going to pick up charcoal again? Well, considering how I hated using that incredibly messy stuff, I'd say NEVER. That leaves me the problem of what to do with lightly-used art supplies. Most have been barely touched but they've been opened, so who knows. If I don't get rid of them during what's left of my break, I'll probably just leave them at my parents' house for yet another year.

I wish everyone a happy new year. Time to get started on those resolutions!