Gallery: This Artist Tied One Knot for Every Day of 2016. The Results Are Gorgeous
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Windy Chien tied 366 knots last year, not counting shoelaces or wrapped gifts.
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Chien took up this dextrous ritual, which called for learning and tying a new knot every day, to expand her palette as an artist.
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She says she made a point to complete her practice every day immediately upon arriving at her studio.
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Chien became interested in knots after taking macramé classes. “Macramé is having a renaissance, but it all looks the same to me,” she says. “There’s a limited number of knots used by artists, like three or four.”
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But there's a big world of knots out there. knots have a rich history and take many forms. *The Ashley Book of Knots*—Chien’s bible, she says, during her Year of Knots project—lists around 3,900 entries, each named and numbered.
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Devotees of the art can learn standard three-strand knots, and 12-strand or 24-strand sinnet knots. They can try their hand at rolling hitches and Englishman’s double knots.
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Chien, once she had entered full autodidact mode, came to love the button knot—a large family of knots characterized by the spherical tangle of strings that they produce when tied—best.
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Now, she's a “little bit of a knot engineer,” she says.
