Ying yang mandala

I fancied doing some plait and tally work so I drew this Cluny style, mandala decorated, ying yang symbol.  This design created quite a few interesting and challenging crossings.   

The centre dot features a 24 pair crossing because each tally had a third coloured pair added for contrast.  One of the centre crossings I made as two 12 pair crossings, using plaits for the underneath one, and tallies for the top one.  The second centre crossing used a centre half stitch filling, this meant smaller tallies but a very tightly worked centre disc. Layering up two crossings was the best result.   

Random Giraffe

I felt a bit daring so l drew an outline, some random blobs and set off with no real plan of how the threads would work out.  I just let this one happen.  

There are so many other ways this could have been made in different laces.  Honiton would have had neat markings with a definite outline, joined together afterwards by delicate links. Binche snowball ground would have made a nice evenly marked coat.  Torchon would have gone to town with the spiders. Bedfordshire would have seen this little giraffe covered in leaf tallies!