Ireland, Scotland and Northumbria
Celtic Knot
One band, no ends, crossing over and under in strict alternation.
- Motifsplaitwork · triquetra · carpet page border · zoomorphic terminal
- Line weightintermediate
- Available onprints · apparel · home · tech · books
The story
Where Celtic Knot comes from
The rule that makes a knot a knot is alternation: every time a band crosses another band it must go over if it went under last time, and under if it went over. Break that rule anywhere and the eye notices immediately, even if it cannot say why. The scribes who drew the carpet pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells worked on a grid of dots and built the plait from it, exactly as a kolam is built. Our designs stay with true knotwork rather than the knot-shaped ornament that gets sold as Celtic — which means every band in every design can be traced with a finger from start to finish, and in most of them there is only one band.
Samples
Four from this family
Everything it is on
1 product
In print
The books this family lives in
Unfold Your Artist
Draw Geometric Patterns
128 pages
Want this design on something we do not make yet?
Tell us the product and we will say honestly whether our partners can print it and whether the drawing survives at that size. Some of our families do not work on small items, and we would rather say so than sell you a blur.