Last week we had our first tangle from Japan with the inclusion of CZT Shinmi Sato’s Fran.
Today’s lovely tangle, MA-XIII, comes to us from French tangler Chantal Florin, and I do believe this is our first tangle deconstruction to come from France and naturally it’s her first on the site.
While this may look complicated, of course it is easy or it wouldn’t be here! As Rick and Maria put it, tangles should be “magical, simple and easy to create“. We’ll get to Chantal’s how-to’s in just a moment, first let’s meet her and learn about her tangle’s inspiration.
Chantal begins, “I live in the north of France, in Amiens. There is in Amiens a beautiful gothic cathedral.”
So of course I had to go looking for the Cathedral Chantal refers to and found this photo of the glorious Our Lady of Amiens Cathedral, or more properly Basilique Cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens, courtesy of Wikipedia. With this tidbit (bold emphasis is mine):
Medieval cathedral builders were trying to maximize the internal dimensions in order to reach for the heavens and bring in more light. In that regard, the Amiens cathedral is the tallest complete cathedral in France, its stone-vaulted nave reaching an internal height of 42.30 metres (138.8 ft) … The cathedral was built between 1220 and c.1270 and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981. ~ Wikipedia
By Jean-Pol GRANDMONT – Own work, CC BY 3.0
Wow, just wow.
Chantal continues,
When I visited this cathedral with some friends on holidays at home, I saw this glorious pattern near the north portal. These are eight centuries old!
© Chantal Florin, her inspiration for MA-XIII from the Cathedral at Amiens, France.
I have named this tangle: ‘MA-XIII’, ‘MA’ for Middle Ages and ‘XIII’ for the thirteenth century, when this cathedral was built.
I am a French tangler, since 2014. I have learned the Zentangle Method with the Zentangle Kit (a gift from my son) and much time spent on your website. I have also followed lessons with the only French CZT, Juliette Flessinger last year. I love this practise !
Mini or MA-XIII, this is a fun tangle to draw with such pretty results. An alternative way to start MA-XIII is with a grid of alternating solid and hollow dots/orbs as seen in Step 4, this helps keep the placement of the solid ones far enough apart to allow space for the rest of the strokes.
Chantal illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing MA-XIII below and in her Zentangle® monotangle tile she uses different fills and embellishments for some lovely variations. Nice deconstruction!
Image copyright the artist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please feel free to refer to the step outs to recreate the tangles from this site in your Zentangles and ZIAs, or link back to any page. However the artists and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to these images and they should not be pinned, reproduced or republished. Thank you for respecting these rights.
As you enjoy any of the tangles on the site, please do leave a comment of thanks and encouragement to show the artists you appreciate them for sharing their creativity to inspire yours.
Check out the tag chantalf for more of Chantal’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.
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April 18, 2016 | 
More like this: 
Dear Chantal, I felt a flash of joy when I saw the picture of the cathedral. I visited Amiens with my choir in October 2013 and we sang a concert there. We also performed our acapella-programm in the cathedrals of Reims, Laon and Rouen. It was such a great journey and I was deeply impressed by the beauty and greatness of these ancient buildings!!
I’m going to try your pattern MA-XIII right away with happy memories of France.
au revoir
Henrike (from Northern Germany)
Lovely!!
Dear Chantal,
What a beautiful tribute to the cathedral! Thank you.
Sincerely,
Paula Commander
This is a wonderful pattern to use within the tangle piece or as a border. It is practical and a lovely addition to the Tangle Pattern family. Thank you Chantel and to Linda, too.
This one went in my log of tangles. Thanks for a great share and story.
Merci pour ce modèle!!! à essayer bien vite sur de nouvelles réalisations!! effectivement c’est une belle cathédrale !!!
Marie jo BERNARDIN
This is a beautiful tangle, Chantal! I love your story and that you chose to honor the artisans of 7 centuries past by deconstructing and offering this lovely pattern to us all.
Well, this pattern certainly brings to mind, in all its glory, the saying…..”everything old is new again”. Thank you for sharing Chantal! And to you Linda for including that fantastic photo of the Amiens Cathedral. The skill of the people who designed and built these wonderful building so long ago, never fails to amaze me! I shall think of them and the ones who probably died doing it, as I tangle Chantal’s pattern.
Very cool!
Awesome new tangle! I just love petal tangles! I will be using this one! Thanks for sharing!!
Thankyou all of you for the positive comments about this pattern and thankyou Linda for having published MA-XIII, with the beautiful photo of Amiens’s Cathedral.
Chantal
So talented and a beautiful photo of your cathedral. Brings back happy memories.
Chantal, this is absolutely lovely. I love it. This is so perfect for representing the Amiens Cathedral and Zentangle. I am very touched you mentionned me. Thank you and beautiful work!
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Chantal, que c’est beau et simple en même temps ! Je l’aime beaucoup ce nouveau tangle. Il représente parfaitement et la cathédrale et le Zentangle. Merci aussi d’avoir mentionné mon nom. Je suis très touchée. Beau travail!
Really like this beautiful pattern. It reminds me of my tour pattern that was inspired by the Eiffel Tower – another lovely French creation! Merci beaucoup, Nancy
Merci. Beautiful and simple, with so much history.
Very nice flowery tangle, I like it very much!