The Year of Knots
Modern Projects, Inspiration, and Creative Reinvention
B O O K A V A I L A B L E NOW
About the Book
Every day for a year, artist Windy Chien learned to tie a new kind of knot and then shared the results on Instagram—revolutionizing knot art and reinventing her life and career in the process.
In The Year of Knots, Chien describes how her knot-making project led her on a path of discovery. The book combines projects, tutorials, and transformative personal stories, all aimed at inspiring readers to make knotting—and creativity in general—part of a meditative daily practice. The knots in the book are gorgeously documented step-by-step for the many knot- and macramé-obsessed readers out there wanting to try it themselves. Knotted projects abound: a necklace, a dog leash, along with wall hangings and a hanging light.
At the heart of the story is the simple, empowering idea that a single year is all the time you need to make a life-changing creative leap.
Praise
“Knots symbolize many things, from tension, to energy, to love. The Year of Knots explores all of those things, as Windy Chien brings her gift for storytelling, her passion for her craft, and her straightforward teaching style to this gorgeous knot-making guide.”
“Windy is making waves, redefining our understanding of the capabilities of macramé, bringing an art form that was previously limited to wall hangings into the three-dimensional world. ... As such, it comes as no surprise that her work’s motto is ‘elevating the everyday.’ It’s all about being immersed in inspiration.”
“The Year of Knots a powerful meditation on creativity as a means for personal tranformation. But it’s lighter than that: it’s the story of a year spent tying a different knot every day, refining a practice every day, learning something new every day. But it’s more practical than that: the author walks you through every knot she tied in the course of a year, small and less-small marvels of design, ends in themselves. But it’s richer than that: living this year as we read through it, we begin to sense possibilities in the everyday, potential in every line-length, and opportunities for growth the simple discipline of steady practice. A truly inspiring book whose uses, like the knots it details, are manifold.”
“One could argue that Windy’s circuitous path is visibly present in her art, as though her life’s journey is translated into the fibers of her installations—wandering, meandering, and resisting stasis with every curve. Perhaps that is one of the things that is most compelling about her art, the way it almost beckons to us, giving us permission to iterate, explore, and reshape our very existence again and again, just as Windy so bravely continues to do.”
“(K)NOT EASY! Windy Chien always jokes she had three lives: Running a rad record store, working for Apple, and finally…creating art with rope. Windy is a real inspiration, for not only taking a big risk to follow her true path, but using her past to create a brand in almost the snap of her fingers, or the twist of a knot!”
“The Year of Knots is a testament to Windy’s unbridled commitment to her craft and in turn, a generous and enduring gift to us all.”
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About the Author
Windy Chien works at the intersection of function, design, history, and aesthetics to illuminate what is most fascinating about knots: the journey of the line. Her sculpture ranges in size from a knot that can fit in the palm of a child's hand to majestic, room-sized installations. Following long careers at Apple and in the music industry, she launched her studio in 2015. Chien’s clients include IBM, the National Geographic Society, Facebook, and the Kering Group, and her work has been covered by Wired, the New York Times and Martha Stewart.
