Making is part of the experience at Mystic Knotwork.

Most stores are designed to hide how things are made. The product arrives finished, gets put on a shelf, and that's where the story begins for the customer.  At Mystic Knotwork, with our two shops in Mystic, Connecticut, you'll often find us tying the things we sell right in front of you.  You can see the cord and rope, watch our hands work, ask what we're doing, choose colors, and watch your own piece take shape.

For us, making isn't something that happens behind the store,
it's part of the store.

Come up to the workbench.

Some people watch for thirty seconds. Others stay for twenty minutes.  Visitors don't need an appointment or a demonstration time to watch us work.

Kids want to know how the knots work. Sailors recognize things. People tell us about a bracelet they wore years ago. Someone needs a different size. Someone else sees two colors of cord lying next to each other and asks, “Could you make one like that?”

The answer is usually: let's find out.

Both of our shops have fully skilled knotwork artisans who can make custom sailor bracelets for you while you watch. Pick your colors, tell us the size, and watch a few pieces of cord become your bracelet.

But those conversations don't always end with a bracelet. Sometimes they lead somewhere we didn't expect.

Some of our most creative pieces have started with a customer standing at the workbench and saying, “What if you tried this?”

Our baby snowmen, Christmas gnomes and even our anchor bracelets grew out of conversations with customers. An idea gets tossed across the bench, somebody picks up some cord and starts playing with it, and occasionally something completely new comes out of it.

That's one of our favorite parts of working where our customers can see us.

They're not always just watching the creative process.

Sometimes they're part of it.

No two knotters are quite alike.

Spend enough time around our workbenches and you start to discover something else: every artisan has favorite knots.

My grandfather, Alton Beaudoin, opened our first decorative knot shop back in 1957, making us the oldest knot shop in the USA. We still use the fundamentals he passed down, but individual knotters naturally develop their own specialties. One of us may particularly enjoy a certain decorative Celtic knot while somebody else becomes the person everyone turns to for a classic monkey's fist.

That's part of what keeps a traditional craft alive. We work alongside each other, learn from each other, borrow the occasional good trick from each other, and still develop our own ways of doing things.

And new ideas don't come only from us. A customer may notice a knot being used one way and wonder whether it could become something else. Those are exactly the sorts of questions that can send one of our knotters off in a new direction.

So ask the person at the bench what their favorite knot is.

The answers are as different as our artisans.  Personally I love tying trivets, Jill her macrame owls

And if you have a design idea, we enjoy talking to fellow creative people.

At Olde Mistick Village: cotton, color and the softer side of knotwork.

At our Olde Mistick Village shop, you'll see a lot of our work in cotton.

This is a particularly good place to see our hand-knotted bowls and trivets taking shape. What eventually looks simple and finished on a shelf begins as cord on a workbench and grows one knot at a time.

Watch for a while and you begin to understand the rhythm of it.

While we're working, don't be afraid to ask questions or throw an idea at us. That's part of the creative fun here.

Downtown: rope, orders and the working side of Mystic Knotwork.

Our original downtown workshop on Cottrell Street has a somewhat different rhythm.

Here you're more likely to encounter manila rope, along with keychains being tied, larger projects underway and orders being assembled.

You may even get a glimpse of the other end of a handmade business: shipping.

Because after we tie everything, somebody has to get it where it's going.

There are coils of rope, unfinished pieces, boxes, tools on the bench and whatever orders we're trying to get finished that day. Our downtown workshop operates in an 1832 building originally built for rigging and sail repair. This isn't a recreation of an old-fashioned knot shop. It is a knot shop.

Two shops. The same hands-on tradition.

The materials and projects you encounter may be different depending on which shop you visit.

At Olde Mistick Village, you might find someone building a cotton bowl or tying trivets.

Downtown, someone may be working through a large order of keychains while another artisan has manila rope spread across the workbench.

But there's something you'll find at both locations: people who know how to tie.

Mystic Knotwork is a working knot shop where the products sold in our stores are made by our own artisans.

And while we're usually working on whatever needs to be made that day, at either shop we love to chat and even help you choose the colors for a sailor bracelet and make it for you while you watch.

Artisan work as theater.

We sometimes think of what happens around our workbenches as artisan work as theater.

Not theater because we're putting on a performance.

Quite the opposite.

The interesting thing is that it's real.

Something needs to be made. We're making it. You're welcome to watch.

And sometimes the audience talks back.

For most of human history, buying something from a craftsperson meant meeting with the person who knew how to make it. You could ask questions, suggest something, see how the artisan worked the material and participate in the exchange of ideas that has always been part of the creative experience.

Somewhere along the way, shopping and making became two completely separate activities.  

We think it's more fun when they're put back together.

Take home something with a story.

Of course, you can simply come in and shop.

You can ask what knot we're tying, why we use a particular rope, choose colors, ask about an old sailor bracelet, or wonder out loud whether something could be made a little differently.

Sometimes you'll simply watch for a few minutes. Sometimes you'll become part of the process.

You might leave with something that didn't exist when you walked through the door, made by someone you've now met.

Or you might leave behind an idea that becomes something we make for years.

And that's a pretty good way to remember Mystic.

Come see what we're making today.

Visit us at Olde Mistick Village or our original workshop in Downtown Mystic.

We can't tell you exactly what you'll see being made.

That's part of the point.

There is no demonstration schedule.

We're not demonstrating.

We're working.

And you're always welcome to watch.

Visit us at the Olde Mistick Village or Visit us in Downtown Mystic