Chinese Knots for Beaded Jewellery [Paperback]

Suzen Millodot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2003

Simple knotted necklaces enhance their elegance and style when combined with beautiful ceramic, metal, or wooden beads, and the techniques for doing so are explained clearly with this guide's step-by-step photographs, accompanying diagrams, helpful advice, and inspirational projects.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A new and exciting book, well set out and displaying some clear pictures of the finished projects."  —Bead Magazine

About the Author

Suzen Millodot has always loved arts and crafts. She was able to indulge her passion when her husband starting travelling and working in different countries. She learned batik in America then taught it in Wales, Canada and Hong Kong. It was in Hong Kong that she discovered the art of Chinese Knotting. She now lives and works in Israel where she makes beautiful jewellery combining her knowledge of Chinese knots and her love of the beads and semi precious stones she has found there.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Search Press (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0855329688
• ISBN-13: 978-0855329686
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Cream of the Crop", April 25, 2006

By 

IJ "TufuLover" (Allegheny Mountains of PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese Knots for Beaded Jewellery (Paperback)

This book is far superior to any of the others. This is the only book that gives complete instruction. Many of the other books do not want you to know their "trade secrets", so they leave steps out. But, this lady is a true teacher and she gives of all she knows. I began knotting to increase my mental and physical dexterity after an auto accident. Not being able to accomplish something can be very depressing. Susan Millodot takes away all the mystery!

Remember that any beautiful art takes a great deal of time and effort to learn. You must be patient with yourself. And, you must practice one thing at a time. And, practice every day. If you do this, and follow Susan's greatly illustrated directions, you will be achieving better tension and more beautiful knots as time passes. And, you can do it fairly quickly.

My hat goes off to a very encouraging and sharing teacher, person and author! I am so very grateful that she wrote this book and wish I could thank her personally.

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complex, Beautiful Knots Demystified, August 16, 2006

By 

Nadia S. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese Knots for Beaded Jewellery (Paperback)

This book is a beginner's dream introduction to knotting. Complete with clear, concise step-by-step directions and large color photos of each step, this text is sure to be an enjoyable resource to anyone looking to learn how to achieve beautiful knot work designs on the first try. I personally am applying many of the designs to some hemp work, so the contents are easily modifiable to your own creative ideas. There are "patterns" you can follow but these are secondary and the book focuses on showing you the main techniques so you can apply them however you like in your own works.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good beginning, but lacks some details, August 19, 2008

By 

Sunhotmoon (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chinese Knots for Beaded Jewellery (Paperback)

First, my qualifications as a "reviewer": I've been making glass and metal beads, along with precious metal jewelry, for a living for over 20 years. In my early beadmaking years I also made fiber and beaded jewelry, and I amassed a collection of over 1000 kinds of beads in all materials, shapes, sizes and hole sizes. So I came to this book with a lot of experience with all kinds of beads, a fair amount of experience with fiber; and none with knotting, knitting, braiding or any of that. I'm doing good to remember how to tie a slip knot! And finishing the ends of a fiber piece in a professional manner has always been a challenge for me. My goal was to learn how to work with larger cords in a way that was *simple*, colorful, elegant, and showcased my own beads.

I think this is a very good beginner's book and I'm happy I bought it. The knots are beautiful, the jewelry - although rather simple in design and color choices - is attractive and shows intelligent color sense, the illustrations and photos are clear. There were times I could not see how she got from Point A to Point B, and an intermediate photo would have been helpful. But by and large, the book will be very helpful in my desire to experiment with elegant fiber jewelry with knots as a design element.

I have not given it 5 stars, however, because I think there are important areas where it falls short:

1.) First, what she says about supplies and how to choose them only fills a total of one page, and is completely inadequate. The author spends 4 times more pages on her personal introduction and the history of knotting than she does on choosing the supplies. One requires very large-holed beads to use most of these techniques, and although she mentions hole sizes in passing, she gives no information about useful or minimum hole diameters, *relative to the sizes of the cords*. She also gives virtually no *specific* information on cord sizes or types, what might be suitable or not. Someone with experience would eventually calculate ratios of hole sizes to cord sizes, at least mentally, and would buy materials with minimum or maximum sizes in mind. But an inexperienced bead or fiber buyer could buy a lot of stuff, learn it was unsuitable, and end up very frustrated.

2.) Second, I wanted to see more of a variety of professional finishing options. A button knot makes a great button, but one loop of smaller cord might be completely undersized or too weak to be used over and over in a closure. There are many fiber finishing techniques for closures, ways of wrapping threads and loops and so forth, and it would have been very useful to have seen them incorporated with the knots. Clasps and closures are the mark of a professional piece; the pieces shown in the book were finished with commercial findings in a "hobbyist" manner. Because this is not my strong suit, I'd hoped to get a few more ideas. I was disappointed.

3.) Finally, any good how-to book should have a few good sources of supply. With this book, listing some of the larger mail order sources for silk and cotton cords would have been useful, as well as sources for larger-holed beads.

Having said all that, this is certainly is a good elementary book, and it will prove useful as a starting place. I recommend it to anyone who wants an introduction to using beads with Chinese knotting.