At previous posts in this thread, (1)-(2), I have posted some pictures of the
Clove bend ( the bend made by two interlocked clove hitches).
In those pictures I have tied the most "natural" clove bend(s), where the two rings are in touch to each other. We can tie the clove hitch and the clove bend(s) slightly differently, ( so the two rings are in one rope diameter a distance to each other ), if we interchange the positions of the standing end and the tail as they cross each other under the riding turn. See the attached pictures, for this B variation of the Clove bend. It might not look as compact as the first one, and this was the reason I had not considered and presented it until now. However, the fact that the two rings stay a little apart to each other, may have some advantages: They cover the oblique riding turn of the other clove hitch in a way that might be beneficial for the stability of the knot form under heavy loading.
As with the Strangle bend and the trefoil bend, the Clove bend should be better tied with two clove hitches of the same orientation, two right-handed OR two left-handed hitches. Look carefully at the two pictures, and you will see that the Clove hitch tied with the orange/red rope is identical, has the same handedness, to/with the Clove hitch tied with the white rope.
Because this has happened in all the
"interlocked-hitches" bends that I have tied until now, I dare predict that it is
a general rule : Contrary to what one might have expected,
the two hitches of such a bend are better interlocked when they have the same handedness, they are both right-handed OR left-handed.
Of course, all the swans
were white - until we have met the first black one !

1)
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=1919.msg16425#msg164252)
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=1919.msg16522#msg16522