The symmetry of the basic turkshead allows two or more like or similar knots to be interwoven in several ways to create a more complex knot. One of the most effective uses of these techniques is to produce decorative color patterns by using two or more colors in the interweave. With my usual resistance for "learning" each knot individually I will use specific knots as examples but the material will apply all the knots that meet certian criteria that make them possible in each method. In general to interweave two simple turksheads they must have the same number of bights but they may have the same number or a different number of parts. Of course any basic turkshead used must be "possible" in that it does not violate the common divisor between parts and bights that applies to all such knots. The use of pinned mandrels greatly simplifies the interweave process in that you can form a foundation knot with an open structure between adjacent parts, leaving room for the other knot or knots to be placed between them. One of the fundamental principles of almost all of the interweaves is to parallel a given part in the primary or foundation knot with the running end of the new knot and split these pairs with the running end of the new knot as they are encountered. This requires a close attention to the details of the braiding sequence but there are some tricks that simplify the matter considerably. These tricks do not alter the path of the running end but are just a different way of thinking about it. I will explain this further in the examples of the different interweaves.
The first step is to braid a primary foundation knot with a somewhat open structure with space for the second knot between it's parts. Then the second knot is interwoven into this structure by a basic process of laying a parral path between a part of the primary knot and the second knot in one pass across the knot and taking a bight to repeat the path in the other direction repeating ahe process of paralleling an old and new part. The actual interweave is done by splitting these parallel pairs as they are encountered in the braiding sequence. The way we place the parralels and take the bights determine the particular pattern that we produce. By varying these two basic characteristics we can produce several patterns.
These are just partial sections of the braid structure at the bottom of conventional coded knots to illustrate the paralleling of a part of the primary knot in red by the running end of the second knot in green. On the left we are paralleling the part to the left(on it's right ) and on the right, the part to the right (on it's left). The point here is that the new lead crosses every part that the lead being paralled crosses in primary knot in the same manner. This is extremely important in the matter of splitting the parallel pairs later in the braiding sequence. The semantic mess in the last sentences are the key to this process so stay focused here. The running end of the new knot must follow the path of the old lead it is parallel crossings of the parts of the first knot.
This is the partial template showing a parallel path to the left of the foundation knot. When the running end of the new knot (secondary) approaches the parallel pair from the upper right it must split that pair in a way that preserves the parallel status with the lead to its left. Thus it must pass over the lead in the new knot and under the lead in the old (primary) knot. Notice that this completes an over two sequence behind the "split" and an under two sequence in the previous new (green) lead. This is the desired coding of our final knot and is an automatic result of the parallel pairs when properly split. If the parallel pair from the upper right going down ti the left were the earlier parts and the green lead from the lower right going up to the left was the running end the sequence would be reversed but the result would be the same, the exact parallel path between the new and old parts. The knack of making this method work is recognizing the parallel pairs and splitting them properly. These two cases are not the only ones you may encounter in different knots but the basic principles remain the same.
Beginning in the section on the simple pineapple and throughout the other interweaves I will explain a technique based on a old rug weavers methods that I call "counting in the code" to simplify the basic principles defined above. When properly used it lets us do interweaves that follow the basic universal form in a simple manner.
When we parallel the adjacent part of the foundation knot with the running end of the interweave on the same side in both directions across the knot in each complete wrap a so called herringbone pattern is coded. This produces the color bands of the simple pineapple knot and similar forms.
If we change sides with the parallel path as we change direction at the bight in the center of a wrap we get a zig-zag color pattern typical of the gaucho coding.
Copyright Sidney Wood 5/20/07