stripes; string 55; y

This week is full of different types of stripes and I seem to have gone a bit overboard with them.

First up is a rather strange entry into The Diva's  challenge #182: stripes.  I drew some disappearing strips (the pattern ohoho) and gave them stripes.  It got away from me a bit and became not quite regulation size, so let's call it a ZIA.  (Be grateful I am not subjecting you to any of the other 3 or 4 striped tangles I did.)

 

                           patterns:  barber pole; esses, metal plate, stripes and
                                                 jessicup  and two I don't know the names of.  The
                                                 holes are a  pattern called ohoho



Next up is It's a String Thing  from Tickled to Tangle.  This week's task was to use string #55 and the pattern Stripes  with a sparkle.  Not particularly pleased with this one, but didn't feel like redoing it with all that black ink.

Next is Artful Creations Tackle it Tuesdays.  This week's letter is Y.  Wonder what we are going to do when we run out of the alphabet?  Again, I'm not overly pleased  This is my first semi-successful use of the pattern yful-power, so I decided  to go with my first effort, using the letter y as a string.

                                                
                                                           patterns:  yuan, yful-power, yang


Have a safe and happy last long weekend of the summer, if it applies to you.

23 Joey's challenge - calendar

Due to the imminent approach of school, Joey at Made by Joey has asked us to tangle a calendar.  Well, I've sort of stretched the rules a bit, because, odd though it seems, calendars make me sad.  They always seem like a way to tick you life away day by day.  Oh, I use one like everyone else to keep my appointments straight, but I don't like it.  Weird, I know.  Also, this time of year depresses me because I am a teacher who can no longer teach.  I am on long term disability because of rheumatoid arthritis and I really miss teaching.

This being said, I still wanted to participate in another of Joey's marvelous challenges.  So I decided to use a depiction of a Mayan calendar and tangle around it.  Hope this is acceptable.  I did it once in black and white, and then added a little bit of colour.

Pattern used:  footlights esses, warts and wobbles, golven (inner ring); featherfall variation, eyelet and ribbon, sonnenbrand, and one whose name escapes me (outer ring).

Happy Tangling.

182 Stripes Diva challenge

This week at I am the Diva the subject is stripes.  Having only recently joined the tangling community, I had never done one of these before and happily dug right into it.  I first wanted to make one where the stripes looked rounded because I always like other people's three dimensional work.

Patterns used:  metal plate, copada, chainlea, a-fog, Shattuck, btl jooz, hearstrings.

Then I decided I wanted to see if I could do stripes without the outer straight line.  This one needed colour to distinguish the various patterns.

 

 

 

Patterns used:  flower vine, chainlea, luv-a, esses, snugz, string of beads, ruf-l.

 



I don't think this one was quite as successful.  Maybe I'll try again.

Happy tangling.

Every Inchie Monday: Quartz Crystal

This week's word at Every Inchie Monday is quartz crystal. 

After gazing at many gorgeous photos of crystals and crystal diodes, I decided I couldn't do them justice with my drawing.  Then I thought of all those lovely Swarovski crystal beads I have.   They are sewn on to what is going to be a crazy quilting patch.  Don't you just love all those delicious colours that rainbow through the crystal?

Then, after I made the inchie, I decided to do some research.  It turns out that Swarovski crystals are actually made of glass.  I was so disappointed.   But then I dug further and found this sentence elsewhere: "The highest quality glass has the chemical formula SiO2" (silicon dioxide).  Well, this is also the formula for quartz, so I felt much better.  (This is a little too simplistic to really address the issue, but for this week, it is what it is.)

Some of the shimmer comes through in this scan, but it is much prettier in reality. 

Have a sparkly week.

Joey's #22 challenge - Two's

Hello fellow tanglers,

This being Joey's twenty second challenge at Made By Joey she has challenged us to "tangle two of something".  So let's see how many two's we can get.  I drew a duotangle, using the two tangles, Well and Esses; it is a mirror image with two sides; Esses itself is a mirror image tangle; and Well is done in two sizes, one of which is twice the size of the other.   Whew.  (It also took me two days to come up with an idea I liked, but I don't think that counts.)  Hope you like it.

 

Have yourself a great week.

181- I am the Diva Challenge

.
The theme this week at I am the Diva for challenge #181 is Water.  This seemed like an ideal time to get out my Inktense pencils and create a nice watery background.  I also love to draw little gardens and scenes, so, while not particularly challenging, this is what I did.  I'm still working on something a little more unusual.

I used the tangles nipa, fern, angel fish, zinger, tearce, shiraz and flux.  We're expecting rain here in Southern Ontario tomorrow so have a wet and wonderful week.

 

 

 

I decided to edit in a second, somewhat more sinister tile.  Here I used fishface. squiggle, squid, suckers, msst, flux and viaduct.  I used my lovely new Staedtler triplus fineliner pens - the set of 20 yummy .03 colours, and some prismacolor pencils.  Watch out!

 

 

 



Every Inchie Monday: Quick

This week's word at Every Inchie Monday is quick.  It's a great word because there are lots of different meanings: fast, intelligent, part of the fingernail,  the living (as opposed to the dead).  There's even a hockey player named Jonathan Quick.  I thought of quicksilver (mercury).  But, with a slight change of spelling, I decided to go with something from my childhood.  I used to love putting heaping spoonfuls of that powder into my milk to get the chocolaty  flavour.  Yummy.

(Sing with me).    N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestles makes the very best -- chooooocolate. 

 

 



 

 

 

I don't know if this product is world wide, or just North American, so go here to see a vintage commercial.  The song, with Farfel the dog, comes at the 40 second mark.

Have a delicious week.

 

 

 





Tackle it Tuesday 'W' and It's a String Thing #53

The letter for this week's Tackle it Tuesday at Artful Creations is 'W'.  I have used the tangles Well, Wired and Wist.

 

 

 

 

It's a String Thing challenge #53 from Tickled to Tangle uses String #54 by Hope Martin.  From the suggested tangles to use that begin with the letters of her first name, I have used Onomato and Pokeleaf.  To complete her name I have added Heartstrings and Eddyper. 

 

 

 

 

 

I then decided to add some colour using Prismacolor and Derwint coloured pencils.  I'm not sure which one I like better.

 

 

 

 

 



Hope you enjoy them.  'Til next week.

 

 



I am the Diva challenge # 180: MacDee

This is a 'use my tangle (UMT)' week at I am the Diva .  The tangle chosen for us to use is called MacDee by Anneke Van Dam.  I adore this particular tangle, probably because it reminds me of my Scottish heritage (I have 3 Scottish grandparents , and 1 Irish).  To honour my grandparents even more, I first did a little ZIA using a Scottie dog (or more correctly a Scottish Terrier). 

 

The colours used are purple and green, the colours of Scottish thistles, and heather.

(edit)  I had to darken the green and rescan the Scottie to get a better idea of the colours. 


I've been wanting to try Aquafleur for a while now.  Other people seem to make it look so beautiful and three dimensional.  I don't think I've quite achieved what I was going for, but it is my first attempt.    (For some reason the green shows up better here.)

 

(edit)  My tiles are a little simple this week, especially after I looked at other people's work.  Oh well, maybe I will try again.

 

joey's weekly tangle challenge 21: the sun

This week, acknowledging that we are approaching the end of summer, Joey at Made by Joey asks us to tangle a sun.  This was a lot of fun to do.  I did it once and then decided to add a just a touch of colour to suggest a sunset and the end of the day/summer.  (I've just realized it takes a similar form to that of Lori's - sorry about that, I didn't notice.)

I used the tangles curio (without the centre diamond), japan diamond, efilys and in the rays of the sun, something that looks a little like hibred, but isn't quite.  Is it Shattuck?  Can anyone help me with the name of this tangle? 

Every Inchie Monday: Plum

This week's word at  Every Inchie Monday  is plum.  I chose to go with the old standby:

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said, "What a good boy am I!"

 

 

Thumbs are awfully difficult to draw.  This is the first inchie I drew.   It seems to need some juices from the Christmas pie running all over the digit, but I didn't want to get my sketchbook sticky. 

 

 

 

 

 

My first attempt seemed to warrant a second,  Here I borrowed an image from Google to depict the whole story. Still no juices, but can you see the sparkle on the plum? 

 

 

 

 

 

It feels like I should have more to add!  I'm kind of sorry I'm caught up.  What am I to do now?

 

Alpha Tangle for Beez in the Belfry Contest

Beez in the Belfry is running a contest to win some of her new Alpha Tangle cards.  The challenge involves tangling you name or nickname.  This is my second version as I must learn to read all of the instructions carefully before I begin.  The criteria for this challenge involve using traditional tangle patterns (which I interpreted as being anything posted on Tangle Patterns ) and using only black, white and/or red.  I used the tangles  Pais, Huggins, Bales, Jalousie and a red ribbon of Laced and Mak-rah-mee. 

 

Joey's Weekly Challenge #20: 5 point star

Over at Made by Joey this is challenge #20.  Because of her experience looking at an awesome nighttime sky, Joey has asked us to tangle a 5 point star.  She has also suggested we use 3 'star' named patterns.  Well, I was so excited  by what I wanted to do, that I began the challenge without reading all of the instructions.  I started using Purk for each point of the star.  Then I remembered about the 'star' named tangles.  I tried.  Really, I did.    I did two more tiles, but I didn't like either one as much as I liked my original Purk, so that is what I am posting.  I did manage to get Starmap in though!

Diva Challenge 179: Bijou

Hello Friends,

This weeks challenge at  I am the Diva  is  to use the new 2" x 2" tiles that have been named Bijou (similar to the format known elsewhere on the net as "Twinchies").  These little tiles are very addictive.  Because I am used to drawing inchies, ( see here  and here for some examples),  the size was not really an issue for me.  I enjoyed doing them immensely, as I really like the smaller format.  (Mine are not on official tiles.  All my drawing is done by measuring squares in my sketchbook.  You'll have to take my word that they are the correct size.)  Like a lot of others, I had trouble stopping at one!

Also like a lot of other participants, I had to get Bijou himself into the picture.  I liked the idea of a garden (again as a number of others did -  the first one I saw was by Susan Bowden   -- hers is much better than mine. I didn't realize until I went back to look at it how similar it was and how I had used a lot of the same tangles-- sorry Susan).  I used the tangles flux, poke root, poke leaf, angel fish, sprigs and chirps.  Here is my first little jewel:

Next, I did a monotangle using a pattern new to me: Jasmin. 

 

 

 

 

And finally, I did one using Purk and Fassett, two favourites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's all for now.  Thanks for dropping by and thank you very much for the lovely comments you have been leaving.  I really appreciate them.

 

P.S.  If anyone leaves a comment could you please tell me whether or not you are asked to prove you are not a robot?  I don't know how to check this myself and I'd rather not have it there, if it is.

Evey Inchie Monday: Privacy

This week's word on Every Inchie Monday   is privacy.  Not a very original idea, but  where else would you like privacy more?

 

 

 

 

 

This week I suddenly remembered that I have a one inch square punch.  So I dug it out and made some nice frames for my inchies, instead of the unsteady ink borders I was using.  Neat-O.

 

 

And here they are, my last set of catch-up inchies. 

 

   

Killer:  I dislike violence and horror so much that I haven't seen a horror movie since the Exorcist came out in 1973.  So I chose to draw a killer whale, making him as benign looking as I could.

 

 

I

 

 

 

 

 

 

Khaki:  Such a difficult colour to portray.   I decided to go outside the box and draw the phonetic spelling of the word.  Of course, there are two ways to pronounce this word and my picture only works for one of them (although I suppose a crow could say cack as well as caw).

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Legal:   Legal eagle is the phrase that came to mind.  I borrowed the picture of the eagle from google, but added the scales of justice.

 

 

 

 

 

Lavender:  Last but not least:  Lavender.  "Lavender Blue, dilly, dilly, lavender green"  -- for some reason I sing these lines to myself all the time.  It's a very old folksong, but the meaning is obscure.  So here is my first inchie for lavender:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I love the colour lavender and wanted to do it justice, so I found some lavender Swarovski crystal butterflies and added a few other lavender beads to a cross stitched base.

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

That's all folks -- I'm caught up!

 







Tackle it Tuesday: letter 'U'

This week's letter over at Artful Creations is 'U'.  I used the patterns Umbtry, Upholstered and Up and Across.  This one was difficult for some reason and I'm not completely happy with the results.  Nevertheless, here is it. 

It's a string thing #51

This week's It's a string Thing #51 at Tickled to Tangle uses Tangle Patterns string 51 and tangles starting with the letters 'FA' for its creator Linder Farmer.  I used Fassett, one of my favourites, Famcy Nancy, Fans and Fanz.  I actually stopped before putting in the line of Fanz, leaving some white space, which I usually like.  But upon looking at the two versions, I decided I actually like the more crowded one better.  Go figure.  So here it is.