New tangle - LilyMay!

I'm very excited because I've just deconstructed my first tangle! We spent the weekend at my in-laws, and I couldn't help noticing this border on one of their decorative plates:

I wondered if I could turn it into a tangle, so I drew it out a few times in my sketchbook, modifying it to make sure it just uses the elemental strokes, and working out the best stepout. 

So here goes - I'd like to introduce 'LilyMay', named after my father-in-law's mother, who owned the plate that inspire the tangle:

In step 6, the pattern repeats the other way up - I find it easiest to rotate the tile for each alternate 'frond'. 

I don't think it needs much shading, but I quite like a little bit under the 'fescu' branches. 

Here it is in quite a large format on a square tile:

 With an aura and perfs it can be a ribbon tangle:

It can also be drawn quite small - think this would make a nice border:

Here it is as a border on a Zendala, along with LucyB's new tangle Essence (and Scrawlz by Jane Dickinson)

I'd love to know what you think - is this acceptable as a tangle?! 

Please let me know if this design already exists, or if this name has already been used. 

Diva's Weekly Challenge #360: Shattuck vs Tripoli

When I saw that this week's Diva Challenge #360 was a duotangle of Shattuck and Tripoli I had to get stuck in! Shattuck is one of my all time favourites, but I don't often use Tripoli. I quickly decided I wanted to use Shattuck as a string, or reticula, and fill the sections with more Shattuck and Tripoli. I started the tile on Monday, but didn't get very far, then work got in the way mid-week! Finally had time to finish it on Thursday evening. I think I was avoiding it slightly, as I wasn't too keen on how it was looking, but I trusted the process and once the shading was added I was much happier - as always! I've been avoiding looking at all the other challenge entries until now, as I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else, so I'm looking forward to catching up now! No doubt I'll pick up some great ideas for future tangling :-)

Square One focus: Zoya

This week's Square One Focus is Zoya, by Celia Norman. It's a fairly straightforward fragment-type tangle, which can be combined and embellished in a number of ways, so it's very versatile. After playing with it in my sketchbook for a while I decided to arrange it as three sets of four squares, diagonally the tile. I also wanted to extend the edges of Zoya beyond the squares, so Mooka seemed the obvious choice.

Having completed it, I couldn't help imagining it with ZenGems embedded in those dark spaces, so I did something I don't normally do and virtually copied the design onto a tan tile, with a couple of variations (I wasn't keen on the Paradox in the black and white version, so that got simplified). The gems are Prismacolour pencils with white gelly roll highlights, and the centre squares are gold gelly roll with Printemps in black micron over the top (not advisable with a nice new pen as it picks up a lot of the gold ink!)

Diva's Weekly Challenge #358: PickPocket

This week's Diva's Weekly Challenge ~358 is to use the lovely new tangle Pickpocket, by Tomas Padros. As Tomas himself says, it's a bit difficult to start with, and it's true that it does take a bit more concentration than some other tangles, but it's definitely worth persevering! It reminds me of a grid-based Elven in looks, but also has a bit of Huggins about it's construction. After a few practice attempts in my sketchbook I 'splashed out' on an official Zentangle tile, pairing it with this week's 'Square One: Purely Zentangle' focus, Shard (by Carole Ohl). The triangles that are part of Pickpocket reminded me of the starting point for Shard, so I figured it would make a good border. I started to go a bit 'wrong' at the interface between Pickpocket and the Shard border, so I had to quickly remind myself that there are no mistakes in Zentangle, and to just go with the flow. If it doesn't quite look like a 'ribbon' wrapped around something then that's just fine - it is non-representational, after all! So I ended up with something I'm happy with - and it may just be because we've just finished watching the films again, but I keep thinking 'Lord of the Rings' when I look at this tile!