Page 24 - Lydia Chen - The Complete Book of Chinese Knotting

02 Four Meth of Bsc Knots (17-27) rp08 5/30/08 5:59 PM Page 21

2. Changing the Knotting Sequence of the Ear Loops
For all Chinese knots formed by overlapping, pulling and wrapping, for example, the
cloverleaf knot, round brocade knot, pan chang knot, constellation knot and good
luck knot, a change in the sequence of the overlap, pull and wrap is all that is needed
to produce modified knots with overlapped outer loops. For example, follow a 1, 3, 2
sequence instead of 1, 2, 3. There are plenty of illustrations on this point in “Creative
Chinese Knotting Designs” on pages 115–159.

Round brocade knot with ten overlapped
outer loops.

Round brocade knot with
ten overlapped outer loops.

Pan chang knot with its compound outer loops Round brocade knot with ten compound
shifted. outer loops.

3. Extending the Ear Loops
With the round brocade knot, cloverleaf knot or constellation knot, where the ear
loops are tied using the “pull and wrap” method, the ear loops can be deliberately
extended whereby whenever an ear loop meets another, the former is pulled through
and wrapped around the latter. The new knots made in this way have more compli-
cated weaves than the original basic knots, and are known as the compound round
brocade knot, compound cloverleaf knot and compound constellation knot.

The dotted lines indicate the forward
extension of the outer loops.

Cloverleaf knot with four outer Cloverleaf knot with four outer loops.
loops wrapped and pulled. The outer loop is wrapped forward.

Cloverleaf knot with four outer
loops.The outer loops are pulled
and wrapped forward.

Cloverleaf knot with four outer loops.The Cloverleaf knot with four outer loops.The outer
outer loop is pulled and wrapped forward. loop is wrapped, pulled and wrapped forward.

NINE WAYS OF MODIFYING BASIC KNOTS 21