How to draw CONNESSES

Connecting S’s. That’s how CZT Diana Schreur came up with the name for her new tangle, ConneSSes. Diana was a member of CZT12 and she’s one of several CZTs located in The Netherlands. This is her first pattern on the site.

ConneSSes really is a fun tangle to play with and it’s very versatile as it works well as a border or ribbon pattern as well as a section filler. I love how this grows organically by simply adding more S’s. And you can disguise a multitude of sins by connecting the S’s with the tangle enhancer rounding even when you don’t have a triangle to fill  as in Diana’s “Embellish” step. It gets a pretty, lacy effect.

Here’s Diana,

In my first 3 steps I show how 3 S letters are put together. After connecting them you have 3 S’es with a little triangle in the center. Combining more of these basic shapes leads to amoeba-looking shapes.

For making the Amoeb- looking shapes, I did start a little different, I connected 5 letter S’es into a circle, and put an arrow where the little triangles are after connecting. Every S you add starts by making the space for the little triangle. And the most valuable tip I can give, is ‘TURN YOUR TILE WITH EVERY S YOU ADD’. Then start connecting more S’es to the shape, and always think about the basic 3 S shape. After putting a S to first Amoeba shape (by completing the triangle), start creating the next amoeba by connecting S’es in a circle again. 

It looks like you have to practice, but I can assure you the S shapes don’t need to be perfect, it looks better, when they differ, from bold to flat. The hardest part of the pattern is to discover where to connect the last S of the circle when there are a lot of S’es. But after a little practice you will see it, and besides that it doesn’t matter, just make your amoeba and it looks great.

After all the S’es are connected I fill the little triangles (with black or stripes or whatever you like), and I double (aura) all the S-shapes. The little spaces can be filled with patterns, pencil or color, and the amoeba shapes can be embellished.

Diana illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing ConneSSes below and demonstrates it in action in three lovely tiles.

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may use this image for your personal non-commercial reference only. Republishing or redistributing pattern deconstructions in any form is prohibited under law without express permission of the copyright owner.

You can also follow Diana on her blog here and see her beautiful contributions to CZT Laura Harms’ weekly challenge.

Check out the tag dianas2 for more of Diana’s patterns on TanglePatterns.com.

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