Hand-crafted Knot Jewelry:
Decorative Marlingspike Seamanship rendered in precious metal.

Important announcement, as of June, 2019: I'm retired.

My current interests are swing dancing and jigsaw puzzles, and sometimes I combine the puzzles with encrypted messages, just to make it more interesting.

My name is Loren Damewood, and I am a professional knot tyer. For over thirty-six years (since 1980), I have been creating wedding rings, bracelets and other jewelry by tying silver and gold into intricate and beautiful knots. If you've arrived at this website because of encountering one of my hand-tied bracelets, as shown at the left, you may read more about them, but I hope that you will find my work intriguing and explore further. You may also check out a Facebook page. I also have an Etsy shop, and will be adding more to it. The first piece of jewelry I'd like to show you, below: a silver and twisted gold wedding ring. There is a story behind this one, if you'll bear with me. It was the very first ring that was tied with a real expectation of it being a specific size. Original method was pure guesswork. Bad guesses, usually.

In the early nineties (yes, it took me ten years!) I awoke in the middle of the night to a realization that I could calculate elements of a ring's dimensions using Pythagoras' Theorem. (If you're interested, see this page.) I made this ring and it fit me! A co-worker bought it, insisting that he didn't care that the pure gold and pure silver "wouldn't last a year", as I informed him, due to the softness of the metal. Six years later, he brought it back for a very minor repair, and I took this picture after fixing it. I use this image on my regular business cards. I tie knots in materials ranging from simple cotton twine to stainless steel wire, but my favorite is pure silver, the whitest and brightest of the precious metals. Most people order gold for their wedding rings, and I generally use 18K in various colors. My passion lies in teaching others what I've learned, because I think that knowledge and skills that are not passed along are essentially wasted. To this end I offer:

• Two basic workshops, addressing two-dimensional knots and three-dimensional knots
  • All tools and materials are provided
  • Students complete and keep finished silver jewelry
  • Students retain unique tools and class handouts
• An instructional DVD covering three distinct projects in great detail
• Tools and fixtures designed for those projects and many others

• Eight confirmed students per workshop, signed up for both, or eight students for each workshop
• Adequate physical space for each student
  • Room to pace back and forth up to six feet
  • Anchor points between waist and shoulder level (standing)
  • (If necessary) Chairs on casters and smooth floors for those with mobility issues