The Beauty of Ribbon Tangle Patterns

Hi and welcome back to the Chrissie Murphy Designs Blog. This is the second post in a series I’m doing about different types of tangle patterns. Today I’m sharing my thoughts about the beauty of ribbon tangle patterns. So let’s get into it and have a look at why I think ribbon tangles are amazing.

What are Ribbon Tangle Patterns?

If you have attended any of my Tangle Index Time Live Events you’d know what I consider ribbon tangle patterns to be.

This is my definition of what I think they are:

A ribbon tangle pattern is any tangle pattern that is able to be created in a row (straight or curved). They are perfect for borders. Meer and DooDah are great examples of what I consider Ribbon Tangle Patterns to be.

Chrissie Murphy

Why I love Ribbon Tangle Patterns

If I had to pick one reason why I love them, it would be their ability to move your eyes through a tile.

To give you an example, in the Magnified Fragments Project Part 1, our E5 fragment had an enhancer where we were prompted to add dimension. I chose to do some zentwining and I wrapped the main component of my fragment in ribbon tangles. When you look at the fragment below, pay attention to what your eyes do.

Did they dance over the tile following the ribbons? I just love how ribbon tangles can do that.

Another thing I love is there ability to be stacked or layered one on top of the other. Magnified Fragment E2 had us working with the light and dark technique, but the fragment was perfect for ribbon tangles. They stacked and laid on top of each other beautifully.

I wanted to combine these aspects and see if I could use ribbon tangles to have my eyes to travel through a tile even though the ribbons I used were stacked. I chose a Phi tile for this.

Would I be able to have the variety I needed to ensure the tile was interesting? Would I be able to clearly follow the ribbons with my eyes, or would I get lost? How would the stacking stack up? Let me know your thoughts. I think the ribbon tangles did their thing perfectly.

Having them categorised in a Tangle Index helps

If you have come along to my Tangle Index Time Live Events, you would be aware we try to work on different types of tangles each week.

Ribbon tangles is one of the tangle types we work on. Just like filler tangles, I’ve been collecting Ribbon Patterns for my index for a while and I have quite a collection.

Having sections like this in a Tangle Index helps when you want to create a tile using particular tangle types. This is because the patterns are handy and you can generally find something to tangle with quickly.

What’s next?

In this blog post series, I’ll be looking at Focal Tangle Patterns next. I’ll be blogging about this in a few weeks. My aim is to look at one different type of tangle pattern each month. I hope you’ll join me.

Perhaps you might like to leave a comment about how you feel about Ribbon Tangles. I’d love to hear your thoughts and maybe share some of them on my stories.

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Until next time, listen to your heart and sharpen your coloured pencils. A masterpiece awaits!

Bless you my friend

Chrissie xx