Bad Crafts: Tying decorative knots
This is a craft that is not so much "bad" as "baffling." The thing about decorative knots is that they are cool and all, but then what? How many decorative knots does a person need?
The art of tying decorative knots has a long history, there are decorative knots that date back to the Celts, to the ancient Chinese, and the Austro-Hungarian empire of the 18th century. You had to make your own fun back then.
In some cases, knots are used as buttons. You tie a big round knot on the end of a piece of decorative string and attach it to your clothes, and there you go: a sort of ad hoc fabric toggle. Handy for the days when hand-worked metal was expensive, and not the sort of thing you would use for such a menial task as holding your clothes together. There is a certain aesthetic appeal to this kind of knot (I have also seen it called a "frog button").
But again, how many do you need? Once you have knotted your curtain tie-backs in an attractive fashion and added knot buttons to a few cardigans… then what? This is what has always confused me about decorative knots. Do you just keep buying string, and tying it into knots, and then looking at it with a sense of satisfaction before setting it on the shelf to gather dust for the rest of your life?
Occasionally you get a useful craft that crops out of this particular hobby, like friendship bracelets or paracord bracelets. But even then, it's a borderline thing. There just are not that many uses for decorative knots in modern life.
Tying decorative knots is a craft which is dangerously close to macramé, which we have discussed before. I wonder which came first, macramé owls or decorative knots?
Image courtesy Flickr/Kirk Slang