I was working on the main page for the mystic knot and decided that I really needed to have my own illustration of the ru-yi knot (如意, rúyì, halfway between a 장고매듭, jang-go-mae-deup, and a 가지방석매듭, ga-ji-bang-seong-mae-deup).

So, I grabbed my example shoelaces and quickly discovered that I had an orientation issue. The square flower knot centres would rotate in different directions (some clockwise, some counterclockwise). That was odd, I thought. I didn’t remember having this problem before, so I tied the knot again in regular round cord (see left) and it was fine. The problem, it seems was that the cord twists between flowers which is invisible tied in round cord, but undesirable when tied in oval cord.

Before tying the centre square flower knot, the flower ears are oriented alternately (see right). This was achieved by being very clear which end is the incoming and outgoing ends, then twist the cord 180° and tie the next flower ear, twist again and tie the last flower ear and then tie the centre flower.