Knots

I was moderately interested in macrame, because everything I ever saw was made of string, cords and rope and thus pretty rough and coarse and rude and plain.

Then I saw some Margarethe lace. Margarethe lace is named after Margarethe Neumann in Germany in the beginning of 20th century, and they are very nice.
(The picture is a scanning from a book depicting Margarethe lace. I haven't managed to find any more information about it.)


Here's some Transylvanian macrame lace tablecloths and doilies. Look at the details.

I haven't thought of that the roughness and plainness is due to the thickness of strings, not due to the technique... One can knot just as intrigate and beautiful fine laces with lace thread in macrame technique as in any other technique. It really isn't only boring belts, bags, chairs and flower pot hangers.



Another style of knotting, similar to macrame is the Chinese knotting.
Here's a couple of sites about that:
http://www.chineseknotting.org/
http://co.middlesex.nj.us/culturalheritage/chineseknotting/index.html
http://photo.163.com/photos/jiaqyz/72883709/
http://photo.163.com/photos/cwj3348/43425628/
http://photo.163.com/photos/qiuhong558.com/104764627
They use silky cords and make all kinds of forms and tassels. Really fascinating :-)



The there's the Japanese Mizuhiki, which is also similar, but there the cord is paper, which gives a totally different air to the knottings. Mizuhiki artists are equally skillful and can create all kinds of forms with simple knots on a cord.
http://www.026.co.jp/mizuhiki/englishindex.html

Hamamusubi, the flower knotting, is another Japanese cord knotting, this time with silk cords.

Then there's braiding, platting, cordmaking, kumihimo; making cords, plaids, twines, lucet braiding...

Passementerie; the art of cording, knotting and tasseling.