Happy Spring Egg Gourd


I tangled an egg gourd instead of an egg today, Easter, to bring to a friends house this evening as a gift.  I thought it would be something fun, although she would probably rather a bottle of wine, but there will be plenty of that.

This reminds me of a story not so long ago when we lived a close knit neighborhood in the suburbs and my husband and I used to host a winter open house to keep us all from going stir crazy.  One of our older, very eccentric neighbors showed up with a butternut squash under his arm.  He had grown it himself and stored it for winter.  I thought it was a humble and wonderful gift and we enjoyed his harvest with a smile on our faces.

I hope this too brings a smile.

You can order egg gourds here.

More Mooka!

I just could not stop.  One more mooka.

                                    

Organic Garden 101

This weekend I learned how to draw on tonal paper and *grow* an organic garden
from tangles and imagination.  Thank you Meredith Yuhas for teaching us a such a fun technique!

Here is my garden:

                 

Weekly Challenge #111: "More-Mooka-Madness Monotangle-Mania" 


That's a mouthful!  It just goes along with the weekend I just came off of.  I spent my weekend in Northampton MA at Tangle U!  Hopefully the first of many.  The group was a manageable a size and I was able to connect with most of the attendees which adds to the fun and friends on facebook!  There were many wonderful courses from color to mandala strings to meditation.  All fabulous and extremely informative.

Mooka is such a fast tangle it was easy to complete two.  I found that meditatively breathing before each tile slowed me down, relaxed my hand and helped me find my strokes more smoothly.  I thank Meredith L. Yuhas, Ph.D., LPC, NCC, Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Zentangle Teacher, for the wonderful reminder to meditate and the exercises she guided us through this weekend.

Challenge #110 Outside the Box

First of all, thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes.  You are all very kind.

Secondly, I was the proud recipient of Maria's beautiful heart tile from her E Unum Pluribus  post.  This was a very special birthday surprise that I will treasure.  Thank you again, Maria and Rick.

This weeks challenge from the Diva is working with something that you might not be comfortable with or have not dared to try.  I love Zentangle because I am kind of a black and white type person.  Most of my wardrobe is black or white with a little grey, maybe some dark blue thrown in.  So Zentangle was a perfect comfortable fit for me.  Using color was way to far outside my comfort zone and when I have tried it (talking lots of color) it did not suit me. There are many clever ideas from participants on the diva's blog and I was at a loss as to what I would do.

As I sat at my desk my eye fell on the beautiful tin of Zendalas, only one of which I have finished.  I realized I had given more Zendalas away to others who wanted to try them than I have completed myself.  It is something about repeating a pattern and wanting them to all come out similarly that made me nervous.

This challenge actually took two sessions to finish.  The first day I gave up because my hands were jittery and I was feeling really anxious.  Go figure, this is suppose to be relaxing right? Today I sat down and thought I couldn't feel much worse then yesterday and just finished it.

I am sure the next one won't be so tough.

Ensemble

Ensemble: A unit or group of complementary parts that contribute to a single effect

This group of nine tiles was pre-strung as one complete set so that the string ran through all nine tiles to "connect" them.  One can either complete the ensemble as one piece of work or individually complete tiles and bring them together.  I chose the later to complete my ensemble as this will be a swapping item at the next local CZT meet up.  The plan is to have all 55 attendees, or those who want to participate, to complete and entire ensemble and then we will swap out all but the middle tile and end up with our original tile and eight tiles from different CZT's.  I think this is an awesome idea and I have found great pleasure in tangling mine.

Here is the final ensemble.  I will post later my "swapped" version.

Challenge #109 Tangle To Be Named At A Latter Date

I celebrated my birthday this week.  The best thing about that is it means spring is close at hand.  So much to do, seedlings to start, garden to plan, yard clean up, some warm sun rays to soak up!

This tangle caught my fancy when I first saw it posted on the Zentangle blog and my many sketches were fun and easy to do, but then out came my tile and things just did not flow.  I am not going to fret about it.  So much has gone well with my zentangle experience I am going to except it as a learning experience and move on.  I post my tile no matter what the outcome, so here you are.  There are no mistakes in Zentangle so the finished product is what it is.  I was fortunate to have the time to practice.

:)

Get Out'a Town

Early Thursday morning I dognapped my husbands dog and drove north just as the first snow flakes were falling from the sky.  This is not always a wise thing to do because usually, what Boston gets Maine will get too and visa versa.  This time I was fortunate and today we have only a dusting of snow, power, sunshine and mild temps (44ºF).

With a quiet house and a very tired and sore dog, he gets his run of the woods and is gone for hours at a time, I whiled away the morning tangling. My mind wonders occasionally to my husband who has to navigate his way through the slippery conditions to work and back, but I must say it has been a beautiful morning for me and his dog.

Auraknot, Bunzo, Mooka, BTL Joos, Marasu

Challenge #108 UMT Whyz

I seem to have lost my way for a bit.  I had painstakingly planned out my finished product before I had even begun.  Then, to make matters worse I compared my piece to others work. That is just not a good place to find yourself.

It was when I started to tangle an ensemble recently that I realized how far away from the Zentangle philosophy I had strayed.  Away from the breathing, calm, relaxing enjoyment of following a string or not, filling that string with tangles, admiring your finished product, and learning that the outcome dosen't really matter it is the process that counts.

I suppose it is with all things that we have an idea how it should be.  I have been reminded once again it is not where you are going, but the journey that you are on that matters.  Feels better.

The challenge this week was a "Use My Tangle" which was brought to us by Jane MacKugler, CZT and you can find instructions for the tangle "Whys" on her blog here

This is my tile:

Thanks for stopping by.

Ensemble

Zentangle® sells and ensemble of 9 pre-strung tiles in sets of 2.  One has curvy lines and the other straight lines.  These are my first four tiles of the curvy set.  It is suggested that you work on one tile and hide the rest.  I could not bring myself to do that since I like a little control on what the finished ensemble would look like.  Maybe I will let go a bit and try it on the next one.

Tile #1 (upper left corner) Opus, Tripoli, Quabog

Tile #2 (middle left) Zander, Florz, Tripoli, Quabog

Tile #3 (lower left) 'Nzeppel, Beelight, Henna Drum, Purk

Tile #4 Quabog, Tripoli, Demi,Paradox