All about Knots

Knot diagrams in sketchbook documenting patterns, questions and notes. Key aspects of working with the materials: Wooden button, braided fishing wire, mechanical pencil, and utility knife. The knife works better than scissors to cut the line. The mechanical pencil can be used to loosen line that is too tight, or grab small loops to pull them through larger loops.

Circling back to the mobile this week to finalize the piece to be "gallery ready." I've made the frame more robust, adding elements for structural stability, and to prevent racking. Once I felt like the framing challenges were reaching resolution, I shifted my attention to the fishing line, and establishing adjustable tension within the frame. The advantage of this type of fishing line is that it has a very thin visual profile while other types of line or cable or rods would be much more visually dominant. Further, there's little friction so the magnets rotate freely with the tiles. The disadvantage is that it is very slippery and doesn't behave like other types of fishing line- so crimping objects in place, and some simple knots aren't very stable.

After many videos, tutorials, and testing out techniques, I narrowed the knot library down to seven possible types to test out. But in the end only two would work, for very different functions.

Image of the first knot that would be helpful. The Palomar knot. Image shows the wood button.

The first of these, the Palomar knot, is advertised for attaching a lure to the end of a fishing line. It involves making a loop with a double bit of string and then opening up the end of the loop to go around the object, prior to pulling the knot tight. I tried this several times, before getting the hang of it. The first attempts resulted in several mangled messes of chord. Mostly because (I think) that I was doubling through the button holes too many times to allow for proper tightening of the knot once it was set. The Palomar knot works well with the top button and centering the line on the center of the button between the holes. It also keeps the knot from slipping over time.

Palomar Knot diagram from Kast King Blog's on knots: https://kastking.com/blogs/how-to/how-to-tie-the-strongest-braided-fishing-line-knots

The second knot, was a surprise. Searching for an adjustable knot, I tried several famous knots like the Double Overhead Stopper Knot, the Slip Knot, the Bowline Knot, and the Taut Line Hitch. In the end, the simplest knot of them all was the solution, the Inline stopper knot. The inline stopper knot relies on a second piece of string entirely that is tied to the mainline. It can be moved up and down the line to create a stopper. I used it to push the bottom button in place. What's great about this solution is that when I go to move the frame, I can take the tension off the lines during transit and retighten when I set this up for final display.

Inline Stopper Knot before pushing it towards the button

Diagram of Inline Stopper Knot found online on Pinterst: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/15973773669029678/

Upgraded frame, buttons and knots

The final steps included making marks in pencil on the frame for aligning the string, sanding down edges removing any stickers, labeling the tiles and placing them within the frame.