For my friend

This evening I got a message from my best friend´s wife.  My friend is ill. Very ill. There seems to be just one way to go for him now. I have expected this message for some time now and feared to receive it. All day I have been working on my exhibition. Working with frames, fixing details and painted. Now I realize he won´t be there this time. And there is nothing I can do about the way life is. In this sad mood I sat down tangeling. A black tile.  I love black tiles a lot. They are special. And I worked on my personal string-challenge, which has come to no. 127.

Black is holding things together, to keep a kind of safety inside when things are to busy and threatening around on the outside. The patterns that came around in this tile are Antidots (Anita Roby Lavery), Xav (Adele Bruno), Papyrus (Suzanne McNeill), Knightsbridge and Tipple. Doing this my thoughts were with my friend from the first stroke to the last. 

Zentangle-makeover

This week our challenge from the Diva is different from other challenges! She asked us to look through our stacks of tiles and find one that we wanted to turn into something more satisfying. A sort of remix or makeover. I didn´t have to go back too far! The one I choosed is one I made 11th of January with Henna Drum in focus.

Henna Drum (Jane McKugler) was followed by Aura Leah (Carla DuPreez). Both patterns are so pretty but my outcome seemed to me too boring! So I went on with it:

Now I am much more satisfied with it and I don´t find it boring any more! Thank´s to the Diva, Laura Harms for a new great challenge!

Diva´s red and IAST 150

A little bit late but not too late I hope for IAST 150. Adele Bruno´s celebration no 150 is such a fun challenge. The string has got a lot of movement and the patterns are her own so beautiful ones!
First I made it in black and white only, but looking at it I had to add some red, not only because the Diva´s challenge, but I wanted to make it more like a celebration-tile. Here are both versions:

I liked the first one too, but I think the one with red added just fit perfect for this occasion! the patterns of Adele Bruno are:
Iza, Teenos, Uncorked and Xav. Xav I had not seen before and that is an amazing pattern! I will play with that some more time!

Cirkular string with Maryhill

I made this for Joey´s circular challenge this week:

The string consists of two circles and then we should use Maryhill (Betsy Wilson, but not in the centre. I made this in my sketchbook. The other patterns are Beadlines (Margaret Bremner) and Crescentmoon.

Add some red and Kassandra

The Diva´s challenge this week is bringing the color of red into our tiles. It is a beautiful challenge, I think we need some red today! 

I gave the red color to my own pattern Kassandra this time. The other patterns are Dex, Fescu and Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead. The string is no. 125 in the library of Tanglepatterns.com.

About the pattern Kassandra: I made it about one year ago and the name is from our cat Kassandra. I studied her paws and made a lot of sketches on the pattern she had on her toes. I wanted to put it in focus on this tile today, because this is the day we knew would come but we didn´t want it to! She became 19 years old and she has been with us for 12 years now. When we brought her and her sister from the shelter of Stockholm we never belived they would be with us so long, because they were not in a good condition then. Bessie, her sister left us 13th of December 2013. And now Kassandra is gone. This tile is for her and we miss her deeply. She was beautiful into her last moment. 

This picture of her I took this morning. I had hoped the vet would tell us she could live for a long time yet, but that was not the case and deep inside we knew that.

Travelling tangles 1

Travelling tangles project was something that I had seen something about but I didn´t know exactly how it worked until I was invited. Now I have tried it and it is fun indeed! You start a tile, don´t finish it and send it to someone you have got as your partner. You get an unfinished tile back and finish it. At last present the result in the group. Here is mine unfinished that I sent to Jolanda Baan:

And this is the result:

It was special indeed to see the outcome. And so fun. As I had looked at this it was like a part of another person took place in a part of me. Very exciting! Than it was my turn! Yesterday I found a letter in my mailbox and there was a wonderful little creation. I felt a little afraid to destroy it going into it with strokes that might not fit! But today I made it! Here is the wonderful letter I got:

And here is what I made out of it:

I had such a great time doing this! Thank you Jolanda for giving me this wonderful gift!

Wavy Grid

The wavy grid is special. It is also known as Ogee-grid and appears in many patterns.I have practiced it many times, not only in zentangle. I have used it earlier in knitting, in bakery and in my paintings. When I think about it I should be really good at drawing this grid! But it is always some kind of a struggle to just draw the grid! Then making a pattern in it is something else! It always appear to be much easier to do that! The Groove-pattern (Eden Hunt) is based on a wavy grid. 

I wanted to do one more monotangle of Groove using string 124. But that didn´t happen, because Discoleah (Tina Akua Hunziker)wanted to play too. And that pattern I can´t resist! You find the step-out here. 

A beautiful day

I am really tired. It doesn´t make sense. Whe have been to the international dog-show in Leksand. We didn´t exhibit our Pumi 10 month old. We just went there so she could meet other Pumis. That was wonderful and overwhelming! She had a wonderful time and we could she how beautiful she really is among them! But I am exhausted and so tired. When I started to tangle I wanted to use Groove (Eden Hunt)and string 123. To work through the strings in Tanglepattern´s library is a personal challenge of mine. The rest of the tile I filled with patterns I have as my go-to:

There is Crescent Moon, Knight´s Bridge and Afterglow (Carole Ohl). It was so nice to rest in the string and just do what I knew by hearth and I feel grateful with a great amount of satisfaction. It has been a blessed day.

Dad and IAST

Adele Bruno´s string d-a-d is really nice. Her challenge this week is for dad´s daycelebration in the USA. We celebrate it in the late autumn here in Sweden, so I´ll keep the string for that occasion!

The patterns included are Dex, Afterglow (Carole Ohl) and Double-D´s (Judy Murphy).

The monotangle

This morning when I opened my iphone, I was introduced to a group called "The monotangle adventure" on Facebook. Because of that I will set the Monotangle in focus for this post. The monotangle is simple: Only use one tangle! I have done it a several times and I find it very relaxing and very much being in the zen-zone ! Here is the zentanglemethod at it´s most pure form. Just repeat the same pattern for a while, finding new ways for it to develop and change into tangleations! I also have experienced that doing a monotangle, I am not at all focused on the result, but the process, the line going out from my pen. That should be the case when I do an ordinary tile, but it is very easy  for me to judge myself and get lost into planning. With a monotangle I really don´t mind the result, it is just about being in the moment. As I saw the FB-group I said to myself, I must do this more often!

This is my morningtangle from my sketchbook. I tried the focustangle from Square One called Groove by Eden Hunt. As usual in my sketchbook I used my Lamy fountainpen. The pattern I haven´t done before and the wavy-style of the grid is something that I have to practice, because it doesn´t come natural for me. The string I used is the one from Joey´s first circular challenge 116. As I started to do the tangle, I wasn´t sure if I liked it; too similar to others I know. But monotangeling it made me change my state of mind. It works! After having used it some more time I might even have fun with it! I am curious about where this will go!

Another round with Rundl

After a day working on my exhibition coming in july, I had to do some tangeling! I picked up an old string of mine, which now is in the library of Tanglepattern.com. It is string 208 and that string is one of the first I ever done! I like to go back to it and it never turns out the same. 

As Rundl (Ela Rieger) is such a flowing tangle and the focustangle in Square one, I wanted to give it one more round this week. Here it appears with Aura Leah (Carla Du Preez), C-Stem (Agneta Landegren), Wud (Joni Feddersen) and Tipple. By the way Wud and Tipple comes back to me frequently. 

4 circles

Next cirkular challenge of Joey contains 4 circles. A pattern Socc (Erin Koetz Olson), which is new to me. Socc is very similar to Puf but is more irregular. My first intention was to fill the inner circles with Socc, but then I changed my mind and went into three variations of Tripoli and let Socc surround them.

The shading might be too hard, but this is the way it came out. The most difficult with this tile was to draw the circles by free hand. I am satisfied I didn´t cheat on this task, even if nothing in this tile is perfect. But who cares. The perfection is not the goal. But the relaxation in repeating the patterns.

Beads of courage

I am the Diva`s challenge this week is all about Beads of Courage. You can read all about it in her blog. I am not so much of a "beadperson", i thougt, but I started. And made it in color as well.  As I went on I found I had pretty much fun all the way! 

Thank´s to you Laura I might go for it again. I tried the Hefty Hack-technique as you can see! And I belive that Beads for courage is a wonderful project! 

There is this garden thing

Yesterday - no tangeling. The garden was taking my time. When I am among the plants, digging in soil I can´t do many other things. I feel good when I can make the garden feel good. I try to work in the garden as if I was tangeling; take one step at a time not thinking and planning about everything that I don´t do at the moment. Our garden is big. There is no chance to keep everything on top. So I train every minute to just be in the moment and dig where I am. It is the same thing really as in meditation. And in tangeling. It fits together.

But today I went into the Rundl again. It is a funny pattern created by Ela Rieger CZT. It is also easy to learn. The step-out you find here. I really like it. Rundl can be used as a solitaire as well as a filler. 

I combined it with string 122 and the patterns: Morse (Margaret Bremner), Yah (Emily Classon)and Fescu. The string is from Adele Bruno and one of those go-to-strings in my tool-box. It is a string with similar quality as Rundl; it is easy to learn and easy to go with into a flow that never´ll be the same. Now I´ll return to the garden.

IAST 148

I had to go one more round with Fengle! I like the shape of the pattern and my last round with it (previous post)the Rundl-pattern took over the zendala and the shape of Fengle is hard to find! There is no trouble with that, because using it as a string it is a string. And a string can disappear while working on it. But this time I wanted to keep the Fengle-shape! So here is my second try for IAST 148:

The patterns except Fengle are: Tipple, Appearance (Sandra Strait, Kassandra (mine) and something that looks like Papyrus (Suzanne McNeill)

Black Zendala-day

Today was another Zendala to be created.  In Square One Rundl by Ela Rieger is the focustangle. I have been playing with Rundl before but I kept it in my sketchbook for coming needs. And now it was the right thing to do on a zendala-tile. A black one. So many things has been going through my head today. 

Black has a calming effect most of the time. So here Rundl came along with Wud (Joni Feddersen) and Tipple. To be true I started with Fengle as a string for IAST. But Rundl took over completely, so I think I will do one more for Adele Bruno´s challenge of the week. This trio of patterns gave me release from what has been going on today.  

Circle-strings

Joey´s new challenge for some weeks on sounds so exciting to me! It is going tobe about tangeling in circle-strings! I love circles! A circle is the hardest thing to draw properly on freehand. And to me it is the most challenging to work with. So inspiring. Here is my first attempt on a lovely string from Joey!

The challenge was also about Flux, which I started with. Then came lovely Niuroda (Tina Akua Hunziker), tipple and something in the corners. Loved to do this! 

String-thing

Staub Korn has made a tangleation of Flip-Flap, called C-Wing. It is an easy-to-learn tangle and will sure be a favourite of mine. Here I tried it on string 120:

The strings as well as zentangles are supposed to be nonrepresentative, but they are not always! String 121 has the shape of 1/8 note. Now when I have got to that one I was first disturbed. I had to look in another direction and find something else out of it. I slowed down. Went away from it and got back. Remembered to breath and then I started with Skye (Margaret Bremner. As I find this tanglepattern very relaxing and craving my focus I just had to go on from there.

I have wanted to try Floating Discs (Suzanne McNeill) for some time so here I had the opportunity! And C-Wing (Staub Korn) is the focustangle in Square One and there it was! Yes I had some fun!!!

Roman Numbers I-XV

The challenge from Joey with Roman numbers I-XV was so interesting to do. Now I have gathered all my numbers into one pic. It was worth doing because I am surprised myself  about the outcome! I like it.

There are two more tiles, but I choose these to be the final result. So much fun in this challenge! I´ll try to frame them together because I would like to show them together! Don´t know yet how....

Tanglers-get-together

Yesterday we were 4 tanglers in Gärdebyn, Rättvik. We were tangeling all day and had a wonderful time in Bystugan. A lot of talking, laughing and creativeness!

As three of us had not tangled too much before, we worked with basic patterns:

Here are the happy tanglers except me who took the picture:

From left to right: Gabriella, Margaret and Gerd. Margaret and Gerd came all the way from Uppsala by train! So much fun this wonderful tangeling saturday! Hope we meet again having a day like this!

The meaning of zentangle

Last night I was so tired. The summerheath has arrived so quickly this year. Almost no spring at all or the spring has been so very cold. I have been walking our doog every morning with the wintercoat on! And suddenly we have +30 degrees Celsius in the late afternoon! That´s hot and that also means I was in a real hurry to get all plants done and seeds in the earth! My back was aching and my head was empty. But I sat down tangeling and I made the tile for Joey´s challenge with roman number XV. Why? Because it is so simple to find out what to do. The string is given and the patterns too. When I was finished I couldn´t estimate the tile weather the result was satisfying or if it wasn´t worth displaying. But I was relaxed and went to bed filled with confidence that a new day would bring new possibilities!

The patterns Joey had choosen are all there: Chard (Linda Farmer), Seedings (Damy), Black Eyed Peas (Suzanne McNeill), Corn Rows (Suzanne McNeill) and Garlic Cloves (still don´t know the name of the tangler who has created this). I liked this challenge because it immediately put me into the "zone".

Today I went on with the IAST for this week. Adele has choosen three beautiful tangles: Pixiose (Margaret Bremner), Blooming Butter (Michela Beauchamp) and Zinger.

This became a tile that really means summer to me. I am curious about that the tangeling so often reflects what  we are into! It is an abstract tile. But in a way it isn´t, because I can see what I have done and it makes me smile. It is all about being presence in the moment!