The Tour de France is over for another year and I didn’t realize the serendipity of the tangle I’d planned for today until I looked at the name again.
Kitl is a tangle pattern from the UK’s Jem Miller. And the cyclist who won yesterday’s final Stage of the Tour on the Champs-Élysées in Paris?? Germany’s Marcel Kittel. Life’s a little strange at times.
Easy to tangle, Kitl has a pretty, soft puffy aspect to it and the basis for its construction is simply an assemblage of “unbalanced” figure 8’s. Kitl is more flexible than you might imagine, as Jem writes, “let the loops push you around bends.” And as you’ll see below she’s shown several ways to vary her tangle.
Jem shared her fun and unusual Snag with us a while ago — another “loopy” tangle — and for today’s pattern she writes,
“I was recently drawing Looby Loo and it reminded me that some months back I’d started working on a new tangle. I dusted off my original ideas and got to Kitl. I think it has nods to Eke, Echoism and other loopy tangles, while hopefully offering something new.
Kitl began with me just allowing my pen to roam about on the page and seeing what shapes it felt good to draw. Figure 8’s felt good and then I started seeing ways to unbalance the 8 and noted how with one half larger than the other, when placed next to each other, they naturally formed curves. These could be put together in different ways to form a fair variety of patterns. They remind me a bit of those Spirograph loops. But I named my tangle Kitl, because one on its own looks like a skittle!“
Here are Jem’s step-by-step instructions for drawing Kitl and she features it in a beautiful Zentangle® along with Looby Loo and the official tangles Crescent Moon, Tipple, Jetties … did I get them all? I really like Jem’s use of white space in the Zentangle, very nicely balanced.
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.
Check out the tag jemm for more of Jem’s patterns on TanglePatterns.com. And you can find more of her Zentangle art on her blog where she goes by Ragged Ray.
Related Links
- Looking for tangles by Artist or Type? For details visit the ABOUT > HOW TO FIND TANGLES BY ARTIST OR TYPE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site.
- What is a Zentangle? — if you are new to the Zentangle Method, start here for the fundamentals.
- Zentangle terminology — a glossary of terms used in this art form.
- How to use the site — an excellent free video tutorial showing how to use the site as well as pointing out lots of useful features you might have missed.
- Linda's List of Zentangle-Original Patterns — here is the complete list of original tangles (aka "official tangles") created and introduced by founders Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, including those not published online. If you are new to the Zentangle Method I highly recommend learning a few of the published Zentangle classics first.
- "A Zentangle has no up or down and is not a picture of something, so you have no worries about whether you can draw a hand, or a duck. You always succeed in creating a Zentangle." Thus patterns that are drawings of a recognizable naturalistic or actual object, figure, or scene, are not tangles. A pattern is not always a tangle — here's what makes a tangle. TIP: tangles never start with pencil planning.
- Un motif n’est pas toujours un tangle — Qu’est-ce qu’un tangle ?
- Un diseño no es siempre un tangle — ¿Qué es un tangle?
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July 28, 2014 | 
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Kitl looks a bit like Kittel’s hairdo too! At least a tangled version. It was an awesome tour this year. I have to thank you Linda for turning me on to the tour through your web page last year.
That’s great Jeni, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it!
this looks very interesting, lots of uses. well done I’m having fun. thank you Sara
This has really taken me back this morning. I used to draw this pattern obsessively as a child on everything I could get my hands on!!! It will be an exercise in nostalgia for me ??