Sh'rock

If I had thought about it harder I should have realised what the theme would be for the Diva's Challenge this week. Although I am, and always will be, a Yorkshire Tyke at heart I retired to Ireland where I am currently living, so this challenge is right up my street.

I will let you in on a little known secret, the Irish people captured a real live leprechaun to be their President ! Look at this photo, do you see what I mean lol? Shh, don't tell anyone I told you or they might kick me out of the country.

For the challenge I drew a string shaped like a leprechaun's hat and tangled it with Sh'rock and Ahh. The Sh'rock tangle pattern is an obvious choice, but I added the celebratory Ahh tangle pattern around the outside as this year Ireland is celebrating 100 years since the 1916 Rebellion (Easter Rising) which was one of the pivotal events leading to Irish Independence.

For added good luck I also drew this tile featuring a shamrock.

Something I discovered when I moved here is that you can buy shamrock and sour cream flavoured crisps, delicious!. 

M-O-N

We seem to be going through the days of the week at the moment, using the first three letters to choose tangle patterns from, for the Tackle It Tuesday Challenge. This week it is M O and N, rearranged these are all next to each other in the alphabet. I chose to use Mak-rah-Me, Maryhill, Minline, Nymph, Nipa and Organic.

Joey's lll

It seems that a trio of tiles is going to be my norm for Joey's Roman Numeral Challenge as I have done it again. I like to do a tile using the string exactly as Joey draws it, then I like to do one with the numeral outlined in gold and then a third just seems to appear from my pen:-D

My first tile was going to be exactly as Joey presented the challenge, but I was stricken with a bout of tangle dyslexia. I thought the first tangle pattern was Blooming Butter and it was only when I finished the tile that I read it again and realised it should have been Buttercup!

In the centre I used Quipple instead of Tipple. I am very unsure about the difference between a new tangle pattern and a variation. Quipple and Tipple are both official Zentangle® Tangles and yet, if asked, I would have said Quipple was a variation. Anyway here is my first tile:-

My second tile has the Roman Numerl lll outlined in gold and filled it with Tipple. I did the proper Buttercup tangle around the edges, although now I wish I had drawn it a bit smaller.

Lastly I did a Zendala especially for Joey as she is currently rather excited by Mandalas and has drawn two lovely Mandalas this last week which you can see if you scroll down her blog.

Sun

I've been rather busy lately but I am back with a two tile ZIA for the Tackle It Tuesday Challenge which is taking SUN as the letters to focus on. I have drawn Stoic, Static, Snail, Shattuck, Nipa, and Unme.

Joey's Second Roman Numeral string.

We are on to the second Roman Numeral string this week for Joey's Challenge. I have done a trio of tiles for this. The first uses the Japonica tangle to outline the string, Hi C's is in the centre and Rick's Flux is at one side with Maria's Flux at the other.

I wanted to make the numeral more prominent and so I created this second tile shuffling the tangle patterns around and outlined the numeral in gold. The string is still tipped to the left, but when the tile is stood on it's corner it makes the numeral vertical.

Lastly this tile has been drawn literally following the string and shuffling the position of the patterns once again. 

Metallic Tangling

We had guests last week so my tangling tackle had to be cleared away and I simply didn't have any free time to tangle on my knee. Of course it is all good because we had such fun. The weather was glorious and we had some lovely walks along the beach.

We have three islands just off the coast which people are always entranced by, here is Shenick Island which has the remains of a Martello Tower on it. At low tide you can walk across to this island, but you have to be quick because the tide comes in again very quickly.

Now that we, and most of our friends, have retired there seems to be a new game everyone likes to play. Several times lately we have been asked to get the blood pressure machine out to see who has the lowest blood pressure!! It is sad what our lives have been reduced to :-(

For the Diva's Challenge this week we have a guest CZT, Amy Broady, who has given us the challenge of using something metallic. My first thought was to rush out and buy a Kit Kat so that I could use the metallic wrapper to tangle on, but I have given up eating chocolate so I was very good and resisted. I suppose someone else could have eaten the Kit Kat, but that wouldn't have been fair -:( Instead I got some aluminium paper out of the kitchen drawer to use instead. I thought I would try using the Identi pen I was given for Christmas and managed to produce this:-

I decided that it was rather basic so I used the Vermal tangle around Amy's name to create this tile. The letters are drawn with a metallic gold pen.

Roman Numerals

Well I made it, just in time before the next Jeoys Roman Numeral Challenge! We have had visitors this week and there hasn't been a moment to spare. I didn't want to miss the start of the challenge because it sounds such a great idea for the string and we have suggested tangle patterns to try too. I have come across Fleavy before and Dillo, but haven't used them much. Clue is new to me. I like Dillo but am still in the practising phase with it. I can draw one fine, but when I try to draw them together I find it difficult to know where to start the next ones to achieve that curled around look that others seem to get.

Here is my Roman Numeral One tile. I am going to save them and fit them all together when we finish this series.