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| You can see - bands of it running through my twisted rope string tile - it edges Batumber on my grey tile - I use it to create a simple but favoured fill for Dreamcatcher, and it was the perfect choice to finish a Travelling Tangle sent to me by Elena Greer |
For a long time I thought it wasn't really enough in itself to class as a tangle. It has so many tangle-relatives, which it shares less or more characteristics with. To mind come Isochor, Indyrella, Barberpole, Marasu, Sugarcane, Starcrossed, Ticking and Kristillis - I'm sure you can think of more? All of these tangles particularly appeal to me, and all rely on those repeated curved lines for detail. But each has a particular initial shape which defines it and the detail lines are almost an afterthought. I wondered what would happen if the lines became the star of the show, and the structure merely the framework to hold them...
And so Clob was born. Clob because the little lines work best for me when I draw them as I would a CLOsed Bracket! Of course the name might not suit you if you prefer to draw open brackets instead!
I find the repetition of the Clob line so relaxing. Shading is so simple - you just pop a line of pencil into the valleys and smooth it out a bit, making it as dark or light as you like. And suddenly the tangle is transformed - it really seems to shine, and jump out from the paper.
There are so many variations possible, depending on how you lay your initial lines. Parallel or not, straight or curving or spiral, closer together, far apart, laid over each other, or with gaps between. You can even embellish within the little brackets. And of course it plays well with other tangles.
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| White on black - always the trickiest combination for me. Clob accompanied by Flux. |
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| Renaissance tangling - Clob dances with Henna Drum and Cat-Kin. |
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| Call it washed-out or call it dreamy? Blue and purple tones give a soft look to Clob with big bright Printemps. |
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| Last but not least the simple elegance of black and white. Abukas with bands of Clob and a handful of Fescu. |
Perhaps by now you can see why I think those little shiny lines deserve a tangle and a name all to themselves? I hope you have fun playing with Clob and I'd love, as always, to see your results.
[Hopefully this pattern doesn't replicate any existing tangle I might have missed, in name or appearance, but please let me know if it does.]
