What you need:
*A graphics program capable of opening more than one image at a time.
*My Celtic knot kit is available FREE but if you want to link, please link to this page rather than to the kit. I seldom do anything noteworthy so I'd like credit if someone actually likes the idea. This could probably be done as tubes by someone more advanced than I.
*The basic directions are located at Marc Wallace's site. I used his directions and then created the kit to facilitate translating the resulting knots to my web site. My directions are to familiarize you with using the pieces.

In the kit, you will find:
*a small graphpaper-type background
*a short straight line (diagonal)
*a corner
*a short curve
*a long straight line (horizontal) and
*an "overpass"
*(there is also a blank square for erasing mistakes)

The basic directions for the kit are:
*Match the red dots and blue lines to their counterparts on the graph.
*Take care to note that only one piece has a corner formed by two blue lines.
*Only one piece has blue lines on opposite sides.
*One piece has two red dots and one blue line.
*One piece has a red dot in the center.

Much of this will depend on which program you are using. I have started you off with an 8x8 grid, which is considered a 4x4 knot grid because it takes four cells to make a square. The grid does not have to be square but the minimum size for height or width is three squares.

Open the graph background, DUPLICATE it, close the original and zoom in to at least 200%. Fill in your guidelines according to Marc's directions. (This formation is not considered good celtic knot form but shows all the situations you will encounter.)

Open the first piece, 01bgshrtstrt, and copy it. Close the original.
Look for the places on the graph that have two red dots with no blue lines and paste the piece between the dots. When you have pasted to all the places that look right, paste the piece one more time and rotate it 90 degrees. Copy it again. Now go paste it some more.

When you have all these pieces in place, go to the next piece - 02bgcorner. This one won't be used much unless you put a lot of blue lines perpendicular to the border. Again, copy, close the orginal, paste, rotate and paste some more.

Except for the overpass, this piece and the remaining ones will also have to be flipped or mirrored and rotated a total of 3 rotations (counting the original: 4 directions, flip, and 4 more directions).
Now you can work on the curves. There are almost as many curves as there are diagonals and you'll start seeing places where you missed a diagonal. It's easier to go through the pieces in order a 2nd time than to try to figure out which piece you need and which direction it needs.

The last building block is the long straight piece.

Now the outline is complete and we are about half way there. The overpass should be applied according to Marc's directions. Match the center dot and the four blue dots on the edges.

Then rotate the piece and start on row 2.

Now you can erase your lines. Most programs have a color replacement tool. Choose your eyedropper and sample the white for the background and sample the red for the foreground. Set the color replacer to a small diameter and replace the red outside the knot with white. Now you can change your tool to a much larger size and replace the red inside the knot with purple (pink?). Do the same for the dark blue and the light blue. If you want to change the color of the knot, use your fill tool. (This is when you find out if you actually have one knot or several.)

Here are some of the special effects I have added to the basic outline.
 
Notes: The chrome knot was created with my diagonal kit. Instructions for the diagonal kit. It's a lot different but you should be able to use it once you have finished this first one.
The border for this page was created with my extra small kit. Tedious work, but worth it. (Copy and paste is a must.)
The purple knot was made with a kit for knots with thinner lines, which has an extra piece to make long curves.

If you have trouble with my directions, please give a holler.

graphics created with love by