Hello again. I have decided to mess around a bit and finally ended up obtaining what I was looking for. What I did was, having the excluded paths (as per third image in my first post), I selected the segments that I wanted gone at each intersection (alternating between the two side ones and the inne...

Thank you all for your responses (and Lazur's signature is now making me uncomfortable). I'll try out what you've pointed out quite soon.

Pattern in question: http://images.clipartpanda.com/simple-celtic-cross-clip-art-Celtic_Knotwork_Basic.png I have tried recreating (basically by adjusting the bezier curves manually) the shape drawing two paths, and the result was a good enough outline (one of the paths set to red to show its shape)...