@alyssahb08 you're totally right! that's how i would've done it instinctively, but i realize that's not as clear on the pattern itself (i'm very very new to actually diagraming them vs freehanding) thanks for the additional instruction : )
once im done ill include a picture of what this is actually supposed to look like but after the fox is done you have to knot the outer orange strings around the 3 strings to the left if you're knotting on the right side and vise versa for the left side, i recommend doing 6 backward forward knots or forward backward depending on which side youre on.