Proper Prior Planning....

It is clear and windy here today with a nip in the air. That must mean it is time to get ready for the big day. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and is carefully prepared for in my home with lists and timelines. I have make ahead versions of several recipes so that I get to enjoy the day with my family and not have to slave away in the kitchen so today was the day to get my first shopping list ready. I'll start shopping on Wednesday and start cooking on Friday.

So today I still have time to enjoy the Diva Challenge. Today's challenge was to use the tangle Tripoli. This is not a tangle I use much. I think because I used to struggle with it. But today we declared a truce and things went pretty well. I decided that the Morning Glories (2) that Helen Williams introduced last week would play well and I wanted to use some sort of color since my art class this semester has been exclusively black and white. At this point even brown feels like lots of color!

Tangles Used: Tripoli and Morning Glories (2)

I also played with the Muster Mixer challenge this weekend. The challenge this month is to combine Nzeppel and Narwal into a tangleation. I confess I found these two tangles hard to combine but I finally did come up with a few different approaches. Here is my sampler:

In closing I would like to say that our prayers and thoughts are with all of those who affected by the terror attacks last week. May peace reign.

Lightning and Thunder and Rain, Oh My!

We are finally getting some rain here in Northern California. My poor, thirsty plants a very happy!

As I hoped, I finished my exchange gift in time for the party (just!) Here are a couple of pictures of the tote bag I made.

Pocket Front

Pocket Back

All done!

Being an exchange of course I received something lovely in return

Scissors Case Front

Scissors Case Back

Sweet Bunny Scissor inside

One down, two to go (exchanges that is). But I may be learning my lesson. The second one is nearly done with three weeks to spare!

The Diva Challenge this week was to intentionally leave a majority of your tile empty. I had been playing with stacks a few weeks back when we did the stone stack challenge

and so I decided to play with that idea today but using Narwal. 

Tangles Used: Narwal, Flux, and various flourishes

A small rock garden, just right for my patio!

All Souls Day

Wow! Where did October go?! The trick-or-treaters have come and gone and now it is on to holiday preparations. I always look forward to Thanksgiving. All the fun, friends, family, and food without the pressure of gift buying! I do however, still have some exchange projects that need to be finished. I participate in these every year and every year I wonder why I didn't finish up in July and avoid the last minute rush. Next year for sure...lol!

This week's Diva Challenge was to use the new Zentangle official tangle called Gourdgeous. It took me a few trials to get the hang of it but I think I really like it. I decided to use on of my pumpkin SpringBoards (As Maria says, "How could I not?") I got out my colored pens and found that the only orange ones that would show up on this black paper was the Souffle. But was happy to find that the metallic green worked beautifully. I can't recall ever actually using Sampson on a tile except for the one when I first learned the tangle, but it seemed to fit here. And I'v always thought Festune looked like patty pan squash so here is a nod to the harvest season.

Tangles Used: Gourdgeous, Festune, and Sampson

Let the Rain Kiss You

There was a fire uphill from us this weekend, No one was hurt and the fire fighters managed to put it out before homes were damaged. But it was quite the sight to see the line of flames as it worked its way down hill and then extinguished in one well aimed dousing with retardant from a fire fighting airplane.

You can just see the line of fire through the tree.

A Cal Fire plane drops fire retardant on a 4-acre grass fire.
Photo by Stoney Meagher

The orange is fire retardant. The helicopter is looking for hot spots.

The drought here has made the hills a tinder box, ready to go up in flames with the smallest of sparks. Thankfully it rained some last night. Hopefully a portent of things to come.

On a less dramatic note I managed to complete my midterm project for one class and portfolio for the other. I teach my final class of the year tonight and then we move on to holiday related projects!

This week's Diva Challenge was set by guest blogger Paula Bramante. The challenge was to use a cairn template by Lisa Rankin as a string or to just use your own vision of stones and ceremony. I chose to use the template and had fun picking out patterns for each stone in the cairn.

Tangles Used: Lazy Eights, Undu, Yuan, Riverstones,
Scroll Feather, Partay, Tipple, Star Map, Linq, Well, and Gravee

A nice metaphor for life, one event building on top of another.

Falling into Fall

This week's Diva Challenge is to be inspired by the season. Living in Northern California we don't get nearly as much autumn color as other parts of the world. It is still quite warm although we have gotten a touch of rain. But the friendly wind blew a few leaves over to me from my next door neighbor's yard and there was some left over tea in the teapot. So I decided to tea-dye my tile using the gift-leaves as a mask. I used tangles that made me think of the season here, DL-Sunray, Drip-Drop, and Pop Cloud and tangled in the leaves. Then I heated what was left of the tea in the microwave to evaporate some of the water and make the tea darker and used that to paint in a background and some shading.

Tangles Used: DL-Sunray, Drip-Drop, and Pop Cloud

Hmmm...using leaf water to paint leaves...kinda meta!

I've been busy with classes and though I've been drawing a lot, portfolios were due last week and next week, I haven't had a chance to tangle much so this was a nice change of pace.

Hoping the wind blows something nice your way!

Sorry To Tangle and Run....

Whew! That was a long week! The usual classes on Tuesday, a stitch-in at my house on Wednesday, teaching on Thursday evening on top of my normal classes, dinner guests on Friday, a party at our home on Saturday, and a workshop on Sunday...<pant, pant, pant>...And then I had to get my portfolio ready for review for today!

This was a nice relaxing Diva Challenge today which was exactly what I needed. I fully intended to do this on a black tile but somehow the black Post-its my friend Sabrina gave me a while back decided they wanted to play with the Munchin tangle. On the second and third ones I used a black Glaze pen by Sakura which is a really fun look.

I'm keeping it short this week so I can catch up on things left undone from last week. May all your tangles be on paper!

Getting an Early Start

Having completed last month's Muster Mixer on the very last day of the month I thought I would get started a bit earlier this month. The challenge is to combine the tangles Facade and Crescent Moon into a tangleation. I usually do a sampler of ideas on a single tile but this month the ideas wanted to be on separate tiles.

In addition to the Muster Mixer there was the Diva Challenge this week. This is a first Monday of the month so that means a UMT (Use My Tangle) Challenge. This month's tangle was a really fun one called Tri-bee by Beate Winkler. I used a tile that I made over the weekend using a new stencil and a spritz of soy sauce (see last week's challenge).

Similar tile before tangleing.

Tangles Used: Tri-Bee and Tipple

Huge warning here: The soy sauce does not play well with the finer versions of Micron, Pitt, and Copic multiliner. They either clog or the ink won't flow. I used a Micron 08 to do the above. It worked well but I had some smearing problems after I was about half way done. Not sure if it was the pen or if my hand was damp from washing dishes. Another good reason not to wash dishes!