Fun with Chinese Knotting - Making Your Own Fashion Accessories & Accents

Fun with chinese Knotting-(Berkeiey)

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03 Basic Knots (55-69)FIN_ 10/18/06 5:57 PM Page 64

64 PA N C H A N G K N OT

Pan Chang Knot

The pan changor mystic knot is one of the eight Buddhist treasures. It twists and

turns around itself in a seemingly endless pattern, a graphic representation of the

cyclical nature of all existence. The pan changknot embodies this concept, one of the

basic precepts in Chinese Buddhism.

Tying

In this very stable knot, the cord is woven into a double-thickness square pattern, the

warp and weft of which can be increased to make the knot as large as you want.

Pay close attention to the weaving in step 3 because an understanding of this will

come in handy when you tie any of the pan changvariations. Here, the cord from the

corner loop goes under one cord, over three, under one and over three again. It turns

back, goes under two, over one, under three, over one and under one to form anoth-

er outer loop before repeating the whole process. Although the specific “overs” and

“unders” will not be exactly the same in every variation, the underlying principle is

the same: on the way up, the cord goes over everything except the pairs of cords that

form the inner loops on the edge of the knot’s body. Here, the mobile cord goes under

the first cord of each pair. On the way back down, the pattern is reversed: the cord

goes under everything, again except for the pairs that form the inner loops on the left.

In these places it goes over the same ones it went over on the way up.

Tips

• Do not tighten the body of the knot too much or it will be impossible to take the
  slack out of the outer loops without distorting the pattern.


• To make sure that the final knot is of a regular shape and that the two cord ends are
  the same length, take the slack out starting from the top loop and working in both
  directions. After you finish in one direction, turn the knot over so that you can pull
  the slack through in the other direction with the same hand. This helps ensure that
  the same force will be applied in both directions.

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