About The Rope Doctor

I am dedicated to producing the highest quality, most authentic, traditional and modern day nautical rope items.   

   My name is Donald Allen. I grew up in the small town of Aylmer West, Ontario, Canada (nowhere near the Ocean).
 
   My interest in knots began in the summer of 1994 when at the age of 19, I moved from Aylmer, Ontario to Tofino, British Columbia, Canada. Tofino is a nautical little coastal community located on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Several of the businesses, homes and boats in Tofino are adorned with bits of fancy knot work. This fancy knot work appealed to me but I did not think much of it.

   It was in late fall/early winter of 1995 that I started working with oysters. This is where I was introduced to my first two knots, the clove hitch and bowline. These are two of the simplest and most practical of all the knots. Learning these knots made working with boats and ropes much easier. Knowing this, it occurred to me that there were many other knots that would make my job easier yet. Seeing as I had access to miles of rope and that I was going to be working with it on a daily basis, I figured that I might as well learn how to use it properly.
 
   At about the same time that I began studying knots, I recalled a few fancy, nautical rope doormats that I saw on the porches of some of the local Tofino residents. I desired to learn how to make a rope doormat for myself. Just about any knot book out there will contain at least one very basic rope doormat design but most do not go into any great detail about how to make then. I had to figure this out for myself. I soon made myself two simple, blue polypropylene rope doormats. One for my cabin and one for my boat.

   It was in the late summer/early fall of 2003 that my partner suggested that we make some rope doormats and try to sell them at the local Tofino and Ucluelet street markets. We tried a few very small and simple designs. The response was overwhelming. We then decided to buy some 'real' rope and make some 'real' mats. We bought about 250' of 1/2" Manila rope, cut it in half and made two simple rope doormats. We sold the two mats and used the money to buy 500' of rope. We cut it into four piece and used it to make four mats. We sold these and used the money to buy 1000' of rope etc...
    
     For the first while we only carried a few very basic/traditional designs that we learned from books. I soon figured out how to expanse these basic designs to larger sizes. after about three years of weaving these basic designs I learned how to incorporate the Celtic element into the simple traditional designs. It was in February of 2007 that I actually created my very first, own original, modern day, Celtic style, endless knot, doormat design. Since then I have created hundreds of designs.

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Donald P. Allen
The Rope Doctor