a knightsbridge too far

This week's It's a String Thing challenge invited us to use only Knightsbridge.  Like many tanglers it was one of the first tangles I learned and I used it on my second ever tile (pictured here along with the resulting wanderings that gave me the name for this blog!).  It's a great tangle for beginners - striking to look at but easy to draw.

But I don't use it much these days.  When Adele suggested it, to work with the particularly loopy string she chose this week I realised the challenge was truly on.  I had to get to know this tangle all over again, and find what it could really do.  Armed with all the various tips and trick I've picked up over the months I filled an entire page of my sketchbook with Knightsbridge and its variants.  At times it's hard to tell what is a tangleation, and what is a new tangle - but don't let that stop us!

I particularly wanted to see if I could round the tangle a bit, if I could knock back it's extremes, both to ease up on that constant heavy black filling, but also to allow other tangles to sit on top more easily.  I also wanted to increase its shading potential.  I came up with a handful of Knightsbridges that I liked and thought I'd share them here - it's a good place to keep them safe for when I need them next, and others might also like to use them.

checked mates - <click image to enlarge>

I used a combination of the two at the top right to draw a second tile for this week's challenge.  I was intending to pattern the entire string line, but mistakenly drew the background grid first.  I had to colour the string in full black to hide the lines, but then it looked a bit like an inky slug trail across the paper, so I went in with a white Gelly Roll to add highlights - I haven't done this before, and I quite like the result although the pen is quite a culture shock after the fast drying fine point of the Micron pen!

Off the reel - Knightsbridge monotangle
on grey tinted Bockingford paper

The tile reminds me black and white films of people playing snakes and ladders.  It reminds me of a house party I went to as a teenager where the kitchen was almost as big as my parent's house - I drank a lot and spent the night mostly mesmerised by the tiled floor.