"It's a String Thing" #42 Tiles

This past week's "It's a String Thing" challenge featured the official Zentangle® pattern Knightsbridge as a monotangle.  The string line was curved and loopy and lent itself to endless possibilities with the tangle.

Because of the simple nature of the monotangle, I post the entries here with the artists' comments if they were included with their submission.  Take time to soak these in - there are many details we

Let's take a look~

Sal's tile arrived first with this note -

A one word summary is “urgh”; I didn’t enjoy this at all. But the point of challenges is to be challenged I suppose.  

Cathy Cusson wrote -

I have to admit, knightsbridge is a tangle I avoid. Not because it is hard, quite the contrary. It is so simple it looks like a why bother?! So I knew it needed something to help it along. I checked out the Margaret Bremner post on this tangle and got several ideas for sprucing it up. After trying a few of her ideas, I think I am pretty satisfied with this tile. It may not replace punzel or betweed or some of those complicated looking tangles, but it was fun to try to change it up. Now with summer upon me - finally - I may try taking a tangle and playing with ways to change it myself. That's a fun project and you learn so much.

Lily Moon has her tile posted here on her blog as well ~

Angela Carstensen wrote:

...this week's challenge was such a pleasure to do. I had wanted to draw one of those "exploding" grids for quite some time now and this was the perfect occasion, partly because I could not see myself filling the string with Knightsbridge any other way. A nice secondary effect was that I could not religiously follow the string. It kind of exploded along with the grid :) This excercise felt very liberating. Funny thing is, I do not use Knightsbridge often, although it is so easy to do. And it can look so very elegant. I just need to realise how versatile it is and that it does not have to be a plain black and white straight lines filler pattern, only to be used as a last resort. It is lovely in itself.

From Colette Horsburgh ~

Ken Zutter called his piece "Knight's Ball" and wrote ~

I thought the string as presented would be too busy for Knightbridge, so I abstracted it to a background wide ribbon and orbs.
I have to say that I grew tired of the inking, and yet I have wanted to work with sphere shapes so I pushed forward. In the end it reminded me of the 3D psychedelic doodles I did in my school days.

From Robin Grosland ~

I had all sorts of ideas for tangleations of Knightsbridge, but then ended up going traditional. Funny how what's in my head is almost never what ends up on the page.
Now, you might want to call the string line pattern Btl Joos. But since the challenge was a monotangle of Knightsbridge, let's call it a long, single row of Knightsbridge, okay?

Robin posted her tile on her new blog Tangle in Peace.

From Ragged Ray ~

What a great challenge. And if I wasn’t feeling 100% well before, it certainly distracted me for many pleasant hours!
I spent a lot of time playing with the tangle – which I’ve talked about in a blog post, where I’ve shared some of my tangleations, and also a second tile! The link is -(click here)- I’m not sure if I’ve strayed too far from the original tangle this time? But how far is too far?
But here is the tile I’m sending to you. I wanted the background to be paler so the foreground would show up. Stippling the dark areas seemed to work – and the overall look of that version of Knightsbridge looks like giant bubblewrap! The inflatable look seems to carry on with the string line and it’s chequered globes which seem to set the mood for a party. And Margaret Bremner made a great suggestion in her piece about the tangle, suggesting drawing each square individually. That’s what I did for the border!
I feel I’ve seen Knightsbridge in a new light and I’ll be pulling it out of the tangle box more often in future!

Sheryn Penna wrote ~

Two tiles this week. Your description on the waving checkered flag inspired me to play with the pun ... I turned the string into a twisted ribbon. The second tile picked up the twisted ribbon again but I wrapped Knightsbridge within the ribbon frames. It reminds me of balloons.

I've been grumpy for a few days. In New England we're simply not supposed to see our breath outdoors at the end of May ... 47 degrees was the high?! Note to self...Knightsbridge takes the weather grumps away. Thank you for prompts that inspire new perspectives.

A very warm welcome to Caremla Claessens-Soro from the Netherlands!  She also posted her pretty tile
here on her blog.

From Sindy P ~

From Brenda Urbanik ~

Sue Jacobs wrote:

...really just used the string as a jumping off point this week. As I drew my Knightsbridge in I used the flow of the string to suggest where I wanted the lines of the tangle to go. But what struck me most about the string was the perfect shapes for dewdrops. So I knew that's exactly what I wanted to focus on this week.
It will be up on my blog on Monday.

 Lucy Banta said, "Here's my challenge this week. Perhaps a bit too random, but loved trying a monotangle."

Marni Shumacher has the inside track this week!

I live in Indianapolis. Every May we have the Indy 500. For the entire month, the city is decorated with checkered flags for the race. So the use of Knightsbridge for a monotangle was very appropriate. It fit right into the celebration. But I must say I think the checkerboard pattern has been burned into my eyeballs after this month. LOL!

Cheryl Rotnem said ~
              Here is my tile w/lots of "Knightsbridge" variations.  This was a lot of fun to do.
              I even tried doing the transparency...

Sherrill Herron said that this was a fun challenge for her and her first monotangle ~

Cheryl Anne Day-Swallow sent along another lovely tile and poem ~

She calls her art piece, Friends.

Cute ladybug friends, just wanting to hang out
Found a trail and wanted to know, what it was all about
They were ready to give up, and started to sigh
And all of a sudden they saw a beautiful butterfly
They asked the butterfly to be their friend
The butterfly said yes, lets Zentangle until the end.

Of the monotangle, Peggy Kohrmann wrote~

     ...I really liked having many variations shown this week and I believe six different ones.
     I especially like a basket weave so I had to try one.  Had to have a bit of color this
     week so added the red to highlight the switch in patterns.  Really had fun...

Juul wrote~

I hope you and your family are all fine and healthy and having lots of sunny days....
Here is my contribution to this weeks challenge. Yes,you talked about those racing flags didn't you? Well, I had them kind of in my eyes whilest I was tangling. But never mind! It was fun again! Merci pour ton devouement envers nous.

 A very warm welcome to Holly Dodson, this is her first submission ~

From Annie Taylor ~

     I'm really enjoying Knightsbridge this week.  I hardly ever think to include it but when I do
     use it, I find it so very versatile.  So, having used it in the Diva Challenge this week -
     partly in preparation for your challenge! - I really enjoyed doing my String Thing yesterday
     evening.
     I've stuck to simple variation and couldn't resist putting a balloon string on one of my loops!
     I'm sure the entries this week will be wonderful, and I'm looking forward to seeing
     them all.

Ingrid Coventon said that this was a fun challenge to play with and loved the "whismsical part of Knightsbridge" in her tile ~

From Annemarie with wishes for a "great, sunny weekend" and she also posted it here on her blog ~

Val Brandon said that she really enjoyed doing this.  She wrote, "I have noticed that some tipple sneaked into the monotangle!  I think I just got carried away."  She pictures it here on her blog, too.

CZT Kate Ahrens said that she did this tile "to save her sanity" as she is closing  up a school year.  She also featured it here on her blog.

Gillian Middleton said, "Herein is my tangle for #42 Knightsbridge.  My goodness it takes a lot of ink!"

Sue Agnew wrote ~

Here's #42. I know you wanted us to play with warping the grid for Knightsbridge, and I tried it, but I really wanted to play with the "dewdrop" effect, and when I had a warped grid behind it it got too confusing. For me at least :-)

Jackie Becker said,  

I'm afraid my Knightsbridge is a little wonky where I was curving it, but I just kept on going. I really liked your furled version and was hoping to use it in a bigger space than I ended up with. I think it would make a great feature as a fan. I'm eager to give that a try.

Charlotte Carpentier wrote ~

I love knightsbrigde. I love how it can be focal or fill, and that grids can be any shape. I was showing a friend I tangle with how to do this, and we were just doing all kinds of crazy grids.

Deanna Spence said that after completing two tiles this week she is "seeing black squares after filling in all of those spaces!" ~

A very warm welcome to first timer Cheryl Craver.  She wrote, "...this is my first submission but I have been following along for quite a while….don’t know why I got brave with this one !! Lots of fun and lots of coloring."

Dorothy Allison said that she "really enjoyed exploring Knightsbridge with this one." ~

From Joan Delony ~

 Jenna Wheatman wrote ~

At first I thought this challenge was going to be really fun but it became a bit confusing as I tried to add lots of variations. There was so many variations I wanted to try, I think I lost my flow as I wanted to try and get it to look like it was moving and 3d. I definitely wanted to include the bubble effect not quite sure it worked, it needs more practice. Overall lots of new variations learnt but next time, i'd keep it much more simple.

And now...the tile for honors this week was created by 

 Jocelyne Pigeon-Bernier from Quebec, Canada!

Jocelyne said ~

What a challenge this week! With a single design, I think it must be brainstorming a bit more. Also, I had a little trouble finding a way to this tile. ;-))
I like this kind of pattern, I go into my "bubble" and nothing else exists around me. Total rest !! 

Jocelyne added depth, demension, movement, varied the size and shape of her tangle pattern - she captured all of the beauty of it and and then shaded it just so.  Add to that, the fact that it was "total rest" for her and you have one very fabulous tile!

Congratulations to you Jocelyn.  I have a little something coming in the mail for you.

The tiles for this week are a treat to behold. So many variations with just two variables - the string line and the tangle pattern Knightsbridge.  Thank you to all of the talented tanglers for sending in your works of art.

Many thanks to the creative minds behind the challenge this week:

Barbara Finwall via Linda Farmer for String 028

and Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas for Knightsbridge.

Check back tomorrow for "It's a String Thing" #43!