Chinese Knotting: The Coin Knot


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Generalities

Unlike most of the core Chinese knots, this one has only a single layer and there is no clear progression to how it can be extended, but The Book of Ornamental Knots is composed almost entirely of knots based on the Double Coin Knot. Mats of almost unlimited size and shape (and a generally Celtic flavour) belong to this family. This knot is also often considered a member of the extended macramé family.

Nomenclature

Chen 1: Double Coin Knot (雙錢結, simplified: 双钱结) [shuāng qián jié] (1), Ten Accord Knot 4(1)
Ashley: #817 Carrick Bend (1), Josephine Knot, Bosun's Knot, Basketweave Knot; Chinese Knot (3x4), Napolean Knot, Boatswain's Lanyard, Whistle Lanyard; #819/820 Prolong Knot; #821/822 French Sinnet; #823 Ocean Plat
Hensel: Josephine Knot (1), Sailor's Breastplate Knot (1)
Lunger: Pretzel Knot (1)
Shaw: Half Carrick (1/2), Single Carrick (1/2), Double Carrick (1)
Ruri-Ishikawa: 淡路結び [あわじむすび, awaji musubi]

The Double Coin Knot of Chinese Knotting is the same as the sailors' Carrick Bend and the macramé artists' Josephine Knot. Basketweave Knot and the generically descriptive Flat Lanyard can be used to refer to this class of knots. The incredibly ambiguous (especially in this context) Chinese Knot can be use to refer to 3x4 or bigger versions of this knot. Mat and plat often refer to knots of this class. Ashley #818-841 explores extensions and variations.

In naming this family of knots, I waffled between Coin and Josephine. Coin is nice, short, descriptive and succinct, but Josephine, a woman's name, is a nice contrast to all the male names that sailors have applied to knots. Also, Josephine is the name of one of my best friends while growing up. So for political and sentimental reasons I almost opted for Josephine, but succinct and descriptive won out in the end.

The Chinese (雙錢結) machine translates as "double money", "double coin" back translates as "雙幣", but these are just machine translation issues. The Japanese (淡路結び) has no direct English translation. Google Translate simply gives back the romanization "awaji". wwwjdic gives no translation but does give the meaning "var. of knot often used to tie mizu-hiki; (2) woman's hairstyle, braided in this fashion". Two websites and all my books seem to indicate that Korea is not all that familiar with this knot except as part of a compound butterfly knot. I find this extremely odd.


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How To

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Creation Date: Thu Jun 6 02:43:50 PDT 2002
Last Modified: Sunday, 20-Jun-2010 00:52:20 UTC
Page accessed at local time: Thursday, 28-Mar-2024 13:49:43 UTC