Roman Numeral Xl

I had a bit of a problem finding the step-outs for this week's Roman Numeral Challenge. Two of them were on Pinterest and I don't have an account. I managed to find the step out for Vachel on Genieve Crabbe's blog but was unable to find Shons anywhere else. As I didn't want to create an account just for this I just used Susa, Zippa and Vachel. They were all rather large tangles so I just took the diamond fragment from Zippa for the side of the tile. I even left off the top and bottom of the string to make more room as I was struggling to fit things in.

Crux

At long last the weather is good enough to get out into the garden. We had our back garden done so that it is low maintenance but nevertheless we still need to tidy it up. At least there is no lawn to mow anymore. We love the sea and anything to do with the beach, so that was the theme we went with. We even had the shed at the bottom made to look like a beach hut and we are in the process of doing the inside up with all the gear a beach hut would have.

I finally exhausted myself and came in to do the Diva's Challenge. At first I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, I tried it out using Maria's 'Graphite Is The New Black' method :-

Then I did a Zendala using Crux with a little Zinger on a tan tile and I enjoyed this one much more. In fact it almost looks like flowers on a garden trellis so the garden must have inspired me :-)

Roman Numeral X

I'm all behind after my little holiday. There is washing everywhere, hospital appointments to attend and I can't seem to get a whole day to myself. I finished my Joey's Roman Numeral String Challenge tiles on Monday, but haven't had time until now to post them. Do we all get extra brownie points for using all five of the tangles Joey suggested in the four sections?

I used all the tangles in my first tile. I wasn't sure that Showgirl really turned out as it was supposed to, but nevertheless here we are:-

The links of Snookums were crying out to be done in gold so I added a top and bottom line to the X and chose to use just Diva Dance and Ticking in the sections of this tile.

Stripes

We have been away for a few days, staying with friends in Kerry, which is a county in the south-west of Ireland. It has been fabulous, the weather glorious and there was time to both relax and do some touring. We thought we lived in a rather picturesque fishing village on the east coast, but the views from their house are amazing! There is an almost 360 degree view around with about 180 degrees of it framed with mountains. Unfortunately photos of panaramas never come out well, but this is the view from one of their kitchen windows which will give you some idea:-

We drove all around the Dingle Peninsula, the Ring of Kerry and Killarney, which is the Lake District of Ireland and saw everything from the ancient Gallerus Oratory (6th century)

To the more modern Ross Castle (15th century) :-)

We also saw where they are making part of the new Star Wars movie, I was very excited even if it was in the distance. We tried to get closer but they were stopping everyone and not allowing photos. I did manage to get this from further away. They are midway between the Grecian urns, up on the very top of the hill. You can just about make out the metal road they have had to lay down the hillside if you click on the photo to enlarge it. Yes that is how mad I am about Sci-Fi, sad isn't it :-D

So here i am back at home, enjoying the east coast again and starting on this week's tangling challenges. The Diva has gone all stripey this week. I was a bit stuck about how I wanted to draw my tile and decided to try a small vertically striped square in the centre of diagonal stripes. I used Shattuck, Zander, Natti and Meer. This was the result:-

It wasn't quite what I had in mind so in order to jazz the subject up a bit I decided to draw one of those tangle folk wearing a stripey outfit, which made me feel a bit happier. lol.

Roman Numeral lX

There are seven sections in Joey's Roman Numeral String and she has chosen seven tangle patterns to use too!!! :-) Two of them are very similar - Betweed and Ragz. In fact a lot of people draw Betweed in a similar way to Ragz.

In my first tile I have used all the tangle patterns Joey chose. I am not sure I entirely got the hang of the Mei tangle, especially as it seemed to need a lot more room but at least it is in there. I shall be interested to see how you all fitted it in to your tiles.

In my second tile I just used the tangle patterns I really enjoy. I used one of the Ragz variations that I liked which makes it look less like Betweed. I love the way it makes it look like wooden planks nailed down. This is my favourite of the three tiles

The third tile is my gold tile. I used the original Ragz tangle pattern for the gold numeral and just used Mooka and Zinger to keep the other sections lighter.

X Marks the Spot

Just a short post this week, I think I exhausted myself last week and I can't really think of any news today :-) 

The Diva's Challenge this week is to make a globe and then tangle it. I must be ahead of my time because if you remember I did a globe of Fassett last week!

I used a tan Zendala tile (or as near to tan as I can obtain) and Renaissance colours. For the X I used my own pattern Measles, and the two black patterns are Kinetic and Slice. I have to say I didn't enjoy this as much as an ordinary Zendala. I don't like the grids going into strange small shapes at the edges.

Roman Numeral VIII

I had a feeling the string this week was going to be tricky - a V and three l's was going to be a lot to fit on a little Zentangle tile! Not only that but Joey has challenged us to use four tangle patterns in it too lol.

I made matters worse in my first tile by making a broad border! Not only that but I did three types of N'Zeppel, a regular version, an irregular positive version and an irregular negative version. I hadn't drawn Marnie before but it was much easier than it looked at first glance. This is my favourite tile of the trio, even if it is a bit busy.

Determined to give myself more room I drew a Zendala for the next one in the trio. I wove Fandangle in and out of the Vlll which gave more room for the other tangles and used a graphite Nzeppel background behind some of it.

For my gold tile there was only room to outline the string in gold, so I added a touch of gold to the centre of Marnie for a touch of extra glamour. I seemed to have much more room on this tile and was able to draw more of the tangles.