Embracing the Yuck - A Diva's Weekly Challenge

This week's guest blogger at Chez Diva challenged us to embrace the yuck and draw our piece entirely with our non-dominant hand. For me that is my left hand. I am one of those people who can manage to do simple things with my left hand, but never, ever drawing! I found myself going back to basics. Slowing down the pace, using a simple string, rotating the tile, nibbling on  chocolate....

Tangles Used: Festune, Kathy's Dilemma, Fescu, Msst

I enjoyed the process and can imagine doing this to break through an "artist's block."

Ketchup Day and A Diva's Weekly Challenge

No, not National Ketchup Day. That was in June. But it has been a busy couple of weeks since I last posted and want to catch up. So here goes....

First up was an ornament exchange. I had nearly 10 months to stitch this but naturally I left it until the last week. It is done on 32-count (very fine) linen which is also very navy blue and done entirely in Queen Stitch. All of which would have been easier to do eleven years ago when I first took the workshop. Are you sensing a pattern here?

The Queen's Berries by Diane Clements

Next, I wanted to finish my Inktober project. I already knew it was going to be a very busy several weeks because of teaching and kitting for classes so I decided to keep the project manageable and did inchies. Here they are in no particular order:

Inktober 2014

Then there was the above mentioned teaching and kitting plus several family events. And finally, while I wasn't posting I was thinking about the Weekly Challenges and got caught up this week.

Challenge 191 - A Betweed Monotangle

I enjoyed this and thought that the variation I did in the diagonally aligned squares looked a lot like the Queen Stitch.

Tangle Used: Betweed

Challenge 192 - Use My Tangle: Seton by guest blogger Cris Letourneau

I really enjoyed playing with this one and can see all sorts of possibilities. This turned out to be another monotangle with a nod to one of my favorites, Star Map.

Tangle Used: Seton

Challenge 193 - TriTangle: Trio, Huggins, and XYP (THX) by guest blogger Holly Atwater.

I have practiced Trio and XYP in the past but have never used them on a tile. I really enjoyed the result and will definitely use them more in the future.

Tangles Used: Trio, Huggins, and XYP

Well, I think that has me all caught up. I have kitted the last kits for this year and will teach my last class of 2014 tomorrow. Of course, a group contacted me this morning for a class next year, and another group wants me to design them a snowman...until next time!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month - A Diva's Weekly Challenge

Like so many others, breast cancer has touched the lives of many women that I know. Some have been cancer free for decades since that first diagnosis and others are no longer with us. The fight continues and this is one we will win. But only if we keep our attention on reaching that goal. In this spirit here is my submission for the Diva's Weekly Challenge.

Tangles Used: Finery, Vitruvius, StarMap

The Giants Win the Pennant!!

OK. I admit it. I'm a baseball fan. Big time! During the Division playoff I did a couple of baseball related tiles. I enjoyed combining a couple of my favorite things so I decided to do another one this week during the League playoff. I finished it last night but didn't have time to post it. But the Giants clinched the series tonight so the time to post is now.

Tangles Used: Nipa, Festune, Echoism, Cadent, 'Nzeppel

It is on to the World Series so I will have to see how else I can tangle these two loves together. It takes two to tangle!

3:10 to Yuma- a Diva's Weekly Challenge

I'm doing another two-fer here. I combined this week's Diva Challenge with Day 36 of "One Zentangle a Day" and came up with this tile. The challenge was a UMT (Use My Tangle) created by Tina-AKUA, CZT which she calls Yuma. The Day 36 prompt was to use the tangles Zander and Stickers. I enjoyed this challenge very much and also had fun doing the shading with the ArtGraf stick that just came in the mail. (Woo-hoo! Always happy when I get new art supplies!)

Tangles Used: Yuma, Zander, Stickers

The Yuma on this tile makes me think of clouds and wind...perhaps because it was cloudy and unusually windy here yesterday. I think Yuma has lots of tangelation possibilities although I kept quite close to the original here and look forward to playing with it more.

A Giant String

Last weekend I started to make a tile for Day #28 in the One Zentangle a Day book that I am working my way through. I started working on it while watching game #1 of the NLDS playoffs between the SF Giants and the Washington Nationals and on a whim decided to use the SF logo as a string for the tile. For those who don't know, a "string" is penciled in to divide the tile into sections before inking in the patterns. The logo has an overlapping S and F, can you see it?

Tangles Used: Eke, Sez, and Star Map

The next day I decided to skip a few lessons ahead to Day #40 and use a letter for my string. In this case I used a G from the los Gigantes version of the Giants' uniforms.

Tangles Used: Vega and Jetties

Now that they have won their division and are playing for the league championship I will have to come up with a new tile to celebrate! Stay tuned.

National Coming Out Day - a Diva's Weekly Challenge

Today is National Coming Out Day. This is an event I wasn't aware of until this week's Diva Challenge was set by guest blogger Daniel. I did a little research and found an image that was so simple and clear, a yellow equal sign on a field of blue. I used that image as my string, drew my patterns, and then painted in the color. I would like to thank Daniel for setting this challenge and wish all a peaceful and supportive day of celebration.

Tangles Used: Linq, Gutz, BeadLines, Tipple