Now the illustration/instructions for Ashley #589 is of the line and circle (indicating unders) variety. It is extremely difficult to visualize from that, especially for a knot of this complexity. He recommends enlarging the diagram and pinning everything down very carefully. Well, I was winging it freehand, and I’m pretty sure it’s not right, at least the “back side” looks like there’s a mistake (see right). The “front” side on the other hand, looks reasonable except that the loose ends extending through the loops are back to front versus front to back as in the diagram.

Unlike the inline square flower knot (see left), Ashley #588, a rectangular knot is not simply the 1x2 mystic knot (see right) with one end passed through the body of the knot to give a half-hearted extra ear (although it could certainly be done that way). The pass-through occurs earlier and still has no structural support, so the ears still need to be either “closed” or sewn in order that casual handling not destroy the knot.

Consider your standard square flower knot (see right). The structural centre is distinctly square, which is good. But, you say, there are only three ears. You say, a square knot should have four ears. I say, consider the loose ends to be the fourth ear. You, nevertheless, remain dissatisfied. A square has four sides, should not a square flower knot have four ears?