Chinese Knotting: The Flower Knot (酢漿草, 几帳結び, 생쪽매듭)

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Generalities

This particular knot has many names and seems to be a sequential variation from a number of different families of knots. I've chosen to give it the name of flower knot because I've always thought of its basic shape and ordinal variations as flowers.

Nomenclature

Chen 1: Cloverleaf Knot (酢漿草, 酢浆草) [zuòjiāngcǎo] (3, 4), Round Brocade Knot (團錦, 团锦) [tuán jǐn] (6)
Ruri-Ishikawa: 几帳結び (きちょうむすび) [kichoo musubi] (4), 錦結び (にしきむすび) [nishiki musubi] (6)
Ashley: #2449 (1), #652, #2448 (3), #2451, #2477, #2479, #2482 (4), #2453 (5o1), #2455, #2484 (6o1),
Korean: Ginger Knot (생쪽매듭) [saengjjok] (4), Plum Blossom Knot (매듭매듭) [maehwa] (6)
Owen: Butterfly Knot (3)
Hensel: Dragonfly Knot (4)
TAoCaWK: Double Loop Shamrock Knot (3), Shamrock Knot (4), Petal Knot (5-10), Ruyi Knot (如意) [rúyì] (3(1)x4)

Translation Notes

Strict translation of the Chinese (酢漿草, zuòjiāngcǎo, 酢浆草) for the triangular flower (3 petal cloverleaf) or square flower (4 petal cloverleaf) gives oxalis corniculata or woodsorrel, a clover-like plant.

The Japanese (几帳結び: 几帳(キチョウ)(きちょう)(kichoo) 結び (ムスビ)(むすび)(musubi)) machine translates as "screen".

The Korean (생쪽매듭, saengjjok) translates as "ginger knot", which in French is "gingembre".

The hexagonal flower knot is more commonly known as the round brocade knot (團錦, tuán jǐn, 团锦) which machine retranslates (iTranslate) as "mission jin". Individually, the characters 團 translate as "ball" and 錦 "brocade" (noun) or "glorious" (adj). A final note to the Chinese translation fun, is that the simplified version (versus the traditional above) of these same characters are very different (团锦) unlike the simplifed for the square flower.

The Japanese (錦結び: 錦(ニシキ)(にしき)(nishiki) 結び(ムスビ)(むすび) (musubi)) machine translates to English as "brocade".

The Korean (매듭매듭, maehwa maedeup) is known as the "plum blossom knot" but literally "knot knot". "Plum blossom" is "매화" (maehwa). I've seen this more than once, though, perhaps it's a typo that's been repeated via cut and paste? To round out the list of languages for which I have official or semi-official translations or canonical names, the French name for this knot (as translated from Korean) is "prunier".

Similar Knots

The Treasture (Bao or Star) Knot

How To

5o2.

General Tips

keep the loops that form the centre of the knot similarly oriented. That is to say, as a general rule keep the part of the loop that leads from the already completed body of the knot aligned to the top of the knot and the part of the loop that is closer to the free working end aligned to the bottom of the knot. You can reverse this orientation if you wish, as long as you are consistent with all the loops.
keep the centre loops as short as will still allow you to work, the petals will take care of themselves. Keeping the centre short and tidy will be closer to the final structure of the knot and easier to control than if the centre loops are allowed to get long.
you'll find that if you pull hard enough, that you can take up slack from one petal to another. This is not recommended because the larger the knot, the more this type of activity will deform the central structure of the knot. Also, you may find that you are tightening the knot too much, so that when it is time to adjust and fine tune the final structure of the knot (or take it apart because you made a mistake in design) that it is exceedingly difficult to do so.

4 Flower

The 4 flower is probably the most common of the flower knots, especially since it is easy to combine many of them into a single design. For this reason, detailed instructions are given for this particular flower.

3 Flower

The procedure to make 3 flower is exactly the same as the 4 flower except that you do step 1, skip step 2 and go directly to step 3.

5 Flower

The procedure to make 5 flower can be exactly the same as the 4 flower except that you add an extra loop between step 2 and step 3. As you can see from this illustration, however, the centre is already getting quite large and loose, and if the centre doesn't hold the whole knot will fall apart. A modification that will be introduced for 6 flower can also be used for 5 flower. As always, the option is yours.

5 Flower with Overlap of 2

This variant of the 5 flower is made with the same centre doubling strategy as is used in making the 6 flower except, of course, leaving out step 3 so that you only have 5 petals.

6 Flower

As the flower knots get larger, the centers become larger and looser, holding together more poorly. With the 6 flower knot, we introduce the construction variations that can be used to remedy this problem.

7 Flower

This 7 flower is made with the same centre doubling strategy as is used in the making of the 6 flower.

8 Flower

As the 6 flower is constructed with a "doubled" centre, so the 8 flower is constructed with a "tripled" centre.

9 Flower

This 9 flower is made with the same centre tripling strategy as is used in the making of the 8 flower.

n Flower

As you progress from the 4 flower through to the 8 flower, the pattern of how to make a flower as large as one has the patience for should become clear. Make as many loops as you want. Increase the overlapping of the centre loops as the centre becomes larger/looser than you want.

CLW

Creation Date: Mon Aug 3 22:40:51 PDT 1998
Last Modified: Sunday, 26-Sep-2010 03:21:13 UTC
Page accessed at local time: Tuesday, 21-May-2013 07:27:29 UTC