Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh my goodness, it has been a LONG time since I posted! I have actually been doing a fair amount of drawing while listening to parts of my classes... but it is all in my notebook on lined paper with whatever pen I have in hand and looks something like this

playing with Heartstrings last night in class

The Diva Challenge this week did catch my attention, however. While I was being bad and unmotivated and not folding the laundry or doing schoolwork last night I sat down and watched stupid TV and did this... Happy New Year and Happy Valentine's Day at the same time!

These are other random ones that have made it into the sketchbook for challenges but not made it onto the blog in time for the challenge itself...first Auraknot with Bunzo with a little Diva Dance thrown in... only it looks vaguely like a uterus and fallopian tubes to me so it is sort of tainted in my mind... now I can't see it as anything else. I hate it when that happens... I can't ever use Prestwood for that reason!

I liked this peice... more challenging than my usual string because there were lots of little areas to fill in. I usually choke and fill at least one area in with something that doesn't "go" or just turns out badly, but this isn't too bad... the Mi2 could be better I guess. It also includes a couple of areas of Dansk for the UMT challenge a few weeks ago.

And this one was to try out the tangle on the upper left - the name of which escapes me at this instant, but I really like it. I had also gotten into a bit of a curvy, free form rut and wanted to remind myself how to do some of the great grid based tangles out there, and have a chance to use B-Rad's Phicops again as well - love that one!

SO that's it from here... super busy with three classes - lots of reading which I have gotten slow at in my 'age' and lots of the usual kid stuff. March promises to be unmanageable so as much as I dislike February I am holding onto it for as long as possible because I won't have time to breathe in March. Have a great weekend - its a long one for us... teacher furlough day on Friday, presidents' day off on Monday. Maybe I can marshal the troops to get the house in order for once! Gotta run to robotics class!

There Ya Go!

Boom! two challenges with one Zendalla because I have almost no time anymore! I have actually doodled the Diva challenge 102, to use both Auraknot and Bunzo in the same piece, several times this week during slow points in class and class breaks but did not really care for any of them - I have a hard time making Auraknot come out as even and regular as I'd like. I also only had partially dried up pens to work with for 'real' drawing so I had nothing. An errand yesterday gave me the opportunity to get a new pen and I happened to see the template I printed out for Erin's Zendalla dare tonight and I thought "HA!, Perfect template for Auraknot!". So I have been led to stay up way too late tonight to bring this little attempt to full fill both challenges in one piece. Multitasking, people, I'm telling you, its the only way to go!

Apparently I am still stuck in snowflake mode... or maybe its the Zendalla shape. Have a great week everyone!

A new Year and many new challenges to come!

Greetings from the new side of 2013. I have not, in fact, fallen off the face of the earth (although at times it seems like a pleasant option). I have been busy celebrating the holidays with my family, entertaining some much-missed out of town family and getting everyone back to school and into a new routine, including myself (both the school and the new routine). Yes, I have gone back to school! After a Bachelors degree in Physics, a Masters of Science in Ceramic Engineering and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering I thought I was well and truly educated beyond all need and yet, here I am, in class again. I was awarded a nifty grant and admission to a masters of teaching program with an emphasis in Physics. In the end (summer 2014) I will be a certified (and possibly certifiable) teacher of middle and high school physics and related sciences with an MAT in Physics degree to add to the list. Goodness help me... I have homework, must attend classes and have to prepare group presentations again... what was I thinking?

On the creativity front... the holiday saw little action except for the finishing of the stockings I talked about here in good time for Christmas morning. Since starting back to class, and the introduction of a few rockin' new tangles on the Zentangle blog and TanglePatterns.com  I have had a burst of drawing inspiration. You should see the margins of the notes from the first two days of class! Lots of personal introductions and reviews of the class syllabus  leaves plenty of time for 'doodling'. Of course I could not pass up the new pattern Phicops featured in the Diva Challenge this week. Here are the pieces that actually made it into the sketch book...

I really like the look and potential of this pattern and I can tell I will use it a lot. I also had some cool pieces featuring Diva Dance, the last challenge of 2012, but never had the time to scan them in and write a post about them. Maybe I will slip a post in about them midweek sometime... oh wait... it would have to be when I am not either IN class, TEACHING an after school class, trying to fix a dinner that the family can finish up and eat while I am in class, do class work, do housework (OK, I seldom actually do housework anyway...)... I will count myself lucky if I can keep a little drawing happening on a semi-regular basis! Forgive me if the blog slows down... hopefully I am shaping myself into an inspiring science teacher for the next inventor of something fabulous. 

Snow Flakes on the Brain

Whew! IT about 2:30am on Saturday, but I actually finished a challenge this week! I was really interested to try Erin's snowflake zendalla template technique from Challenge #35. I thought I would whip out a trial just for fun this evening, never figuring to be done in time to have a weekly entry. I really liked the result and kept going. It does not happen often that each thing I add to a piece makes it even better (making the pressure to choose the next element even greater of course!) but this one seemed to be working out that way. So, when everyone else had gone to bed I had no other barriers and no good 'stopping places'. So here we are, middle of the night and I am scanning in an entry for a challenge!

Since the challenge was to fold paper like I was cutting a snowflake in order to come up with a zendalla template I had snowflakes on my mind. I think it heavily influenced the outcome! This is the original...

This is the result... oddly it looks very little like the original in my opinion. It is about 7" across. I am interested to do this template again and see if the second one also looks 'flakey' or if I can make it look totally different. To see what everyone else who felt called to this challenge came up with check out Challenge #35 on Erin's blog over at The Bright Owl. NOW I am going to sleep!

tanlges include, Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Fescue, Dragonair and Finery

A NEW holiday project... Yay!

Oh Brother! I have a holiday wreath project half quilted. I have a winter/holiday top with backing all ready to go. I have two quilt tops that need quilting for the show deadline in March, one has a back, the other has a back design. None of these much delayed projects will likely get done before the holiday because I have decided that I need to use up the last of the fabric remnants from making the children's stockings. I love this fabric. I bought plenty of it 12 years ago when I made my first child's stocking. I knew I would have lots left over to make the next child's stocking, and the next if it ever came to that. I have made three from the set and that is all I will ever need. All different block patterns, all different backing and cuff material with the same lining. All have solid cuffs of different colors and all sport merry sounding bells.

My husband does not have a stocking from his childhood. As nearly as I can tell his family got new, plain  stockings every year from Santa. I still have the one my mother made for me... a red felt 'french boot' trimmed in lace with my name on it. It is elderly now and worn and I am afraid that Santa will tear through the thinning felt while stuffing in my surprises (because I am always SO good!). I have decided to make two stockings for us from what is left of the childrens' stocking fabric. His will be made of equilateral triangles (3 sides = 3kids) and mine will be made of rail fence blocks (three rails = three kids, two rails of one value = two boys, one rail of a different value = one girl). Ours will have some of all of the fabrics contained on the fronts of theirs, plus some of each backing. I hope to have enough of the lining to do both. I may make the backing of mine out of the actual pieces left from when I made the kids' and his (yes, I still have the extra squares I cut 12 years ago). I may cuff both of ours the same so they will match when the kids are all gone and have taken theirs to their own holiday hearths.

The one on the right is sewn together and needs just a smidge more at the top which I will add with a plain strip as that will be hidden under the cuff anyway. The one on the right is still in the lay-out stage. Already I see two blocks that could be swapped and I will likely need a few more once the seam allowances make this number shrink up a bit. I hope to be able to share the finished product some time before the holidays have come and gone... but you never know with me... I may come up with ANOTHER project that needs to be started immediately! (insert eyeroll here!) To see what other holiday wonders people are working on this week check out Judy's blog at Patchwork Times: Design Wall Monday.

45 minutes

45 minutes... that is how long I have spent in the sewing room in the last month or so. Maybe its been twice that much. I went up there some time back to quilt on a holiday project I want finished and found a few scrap 9 patches I wanted to do something with because they look wintery and got involved in that. I got two of 6 blocks done then and had to stop. Its been at least a full month since then with no action and I managed 45 minutes up there this morning and finished the next two blocks. Now I have no idea what to do with them, haven't made any headway on finishing the holiday project, but the sewing machine and iron were turned on and actually used today so I think that calls for a Design Wall Monday post! What have you been up to this week?

Another UMT Challenge

This month's "Use My Tangle" challenge landed on Socc, one of my all time favorites for ease and the way in which it disguises its origins.  I thought I might try it in a different format than my usual so I used one of a few mandalla patterns I came up with by tracing the edge of a cast off lid from a cup of coffee.

This did not come out how I envisioned and I really didn't care for it in the in between stage, but it has grown on me since I finished and shaded it. This next one is more the way my 'usual' Socc comes out...

Clearly I need to practice my Knyting, but that tangle is fun too.

These are a few other things I have been up to, trying to keep up with Art Every Day month. The first one was partially inspired by some paving stones in Washington DC. Can you guess which part?

This one was a Bunzo I did not finish in time for last week's challenge. 

And the last one is the other coffee lid mandalla pattern I made up. It was not supposed to be quite so "checkerboard" as it turned out to be...I feel like I am winning a Nascar race! I started with the tri-Sparkle and thought it would come out more organic and flowing, but apparently it had other ideas. I did manage to echo the shapes of the Sparkle with a little tri-Arabella which also brings in the high contrast of the Knights Bridge. I will have to redo this mandalla string and see if I can make it come out differently.

So, that is what I have been up to. I think I will have a quieter week or so before things get hopping for the holidays. Have a great week!