Featuring Knotwork by Sharron Taylor

What is not to love about Sharron’s work? Not only does she create some wonderful decorative knotwork, but much of her work is salved from the sea! In general when we create decorative knotwork it looks fine, but often knotwork looks better after time when patina adds to the look of the work. Sharron’s use of salvaged rope, gives her work an instant patina and give her work and instant aged look.

Salvaging Rope from the Sea

Often Sharron will head out to the local beach and not pick up all the garbage that has been washed up, so in a small way removing some of the plastic from the sea. The bonus of doing such a thing is, you end up with a truck full of odd lengths of old rope. Sharron was rather please with a certain beach clean, as she managed to get over 700 feet of rope into her van. I am sure that there is also a great sense of pride in removing this harmful stuff from the sea, then upcycling it into something useful.

Decorative Rope Mats

Just look at this rope mat, it really is a thing of beauty. because it has spent a long time at sea, the mat looks like a grizzled old sea dog. Don’t get me wrong, a new mat does look good, but I personally love the added patina that comes with age and faded by the sun.

Below are some more rope mats that have been made from some of the rope salvaged from beach cleans. I have to applaud Sharron and others that go on beach cleans, as long lengths of wet and sandy rope are very difficult to get off the beach, they sometime weigh an absolute ton! However, it is is well worth it, just look at the stunning results below:

Pedestal Rope Mat

Not just content with making the simpler shaped rope mats, Sharron has also created this Pedestal Rope Mat. This Celtic knot pedestal rope mat caused much head scratching, but after 5 hours of creating and getting rid of the slack a fine rope mat has been created.

Decorative Rope Sennit

As you can see Sharron is not only a great mat maker, but her skills also extend to creating a 4ft, eight strand, doubled edge strap. This can be found in Ashley’s Book of Knots 2996.

Woven Basket and Decorative Knotwork

Here you can see the finished woven basket, with it’s decorative sennit and also included is a Celtic Heart knot.

If you want to see more of Sharron’s work, you can find her in some these Knotter Facebook Groups, you can also find her on Instagram: Willow and Waves.

I hope that this inspires others to head to the beaches and make use of some of the items that has been washed up. Don’t just pick what you like, take home a bit extra, so that it can be properly disposed of,