Tuesday Tangle

I used "That's Torn it, v1" as my string, making what looks like a stack of torn pages on top of each other, each revealing a spiraling zentangle underneath.

Freeform Netted Necklace

I finished my freeform netted necklace late yesterday afternoon, and it is now available in my Etsy shop.

freeform netted necklace in citrine and bronze hues

detail - freeform netting

freeform necklace toggle closure

Wanna know a secret?

The necklace pictured above is NOT the WIP in all the previous pics on this blog - for example - this pic:

freeform netting WIP (iteration 1)

If you look really closely, you can spot the differences - here is a cheat sheet, pointing out a few of them:

• the ends of the WIP are wider than the finished necklace ends you see in the 3rd pic above
• the WIP contains a lot more large pieces of citrine (big nuggets) than the finished piece
• the WIP contains faceted hessonite garnet, in a burnt orange color

Here's what happened:

At about the time of my March 14 update post, the ends of WIP had reached the width I was shooting for, so I stitched up the toggle bar you see in the finish piece, and attached it AND the Swarovski Cosmic Ring to the ends, so that I could better gauge the finished length of the necklace.

Then I moved in about 5 inches from each end, and started adding more width and chunkiness/fullness to the center of the necklace, in a graduated fashion - in my mind, I saw a sort of a V-shaped overall silhouette to the necklace, with it being widest at the center front, and coming to sort of a "V" when worn. So I moved back and forth across the center with my stitching, while moving further away from the ends with each pass, so that the necklace width kept growing symmetrically in the front.

I was about 30 minutes away from being finished on March 26, which I mentioned at the bottom of this post. The necklace was about 3 inches wide in the very center, and almost had the "V" I was shooting for. Just a couple of more stitches to add. I was so excited!

And for some reason, I picked the necklace up to survey my results - I think I was looking to make sure my last few stitches got exactly in the center. But something bad happened. Very bad.

I call it "turtling", but simply because I refuse to call it by what it really reminds me of.

You know how when a cockroach dies, it always seems to die on its back?

Well, this freeform necklace I had been stitching for weeks "cockroached" on me when I held it up: the thick, wide, chunky center section turned face down, revealing its un-embellished backside - and I imagined it would look like nothing so much as a sparkly feedbag when worn, lying there underneath the chin, waiting to catch crumbs:

Sorry - In my despair, I didn't get pics of my cockroaching necklace.

I tried several things to stabilize the center, but the necklace now had a life of its own, and wouldn't behave at all. It was too heavy, chunky, and wide, and it just lay there, like a hammock. So after about an hour of fretting, I grabbed some sharp scissors, laid the necklace flat on my bead mat, and cut my way right up the center of it, severing all the strands right up the middle. Then, one at a time, I picked up a severed half, and "milked" all the beads off the severed Fireline and into a tupperware container. And then I started sorting them. And then I started stitching all over again.

So the new necklace's silhouette does not "v" in the center, and you can bet I checked how it was lying frequently while I was stitching!

Tangle Tuesday

I have been exploring the use of tangles themselves as strings, and here is another attempt:

For this design, I used "Eyelet + Ribbon" as the string. This particular pattern presented my hardest challenge - trying to make it look like a ribbon coiling back on itself. I have ZERO formal art training, and no skills at 3-D rendering or perspective, so these are really hard for me. I threw 3 loops into my eyelet lace, and am not really happy with any of them. Plus, the eyelet lace effect is really lost now, with all the tangling around it - when it was the only thing on the paper, it really did look like lace (except for my pitiful loops!).

Other tangles I used here:

• punzel
• cracked
• podz
• betweed
• confettus
• zebra
• diamond net
• cables
• sponge

 I especially  like the podz (lower right corner)! I still need to work on my punzel. And cracked (lower left) was tons of fun! I just wish my lacy ribbon showed up better!

Google Nose

Have y'all seen this new Google feature?

I got in on the Beta Testing - take a look!

While searching for some images on Google today, I saw this:

Google Nose

I clicked on Google Nose, and was taken to the Beta Testing Page:

Try Google Nose Beta

I'm normally not keen on Beta Testing, but who could resist this scentsation?

How Google Nose works

The "how it works" page was a little vague, but WTH, right?

I decided I could smell "wet dog" any time I want, so why not go big, and try "Abraham Lincoln"?

You have chosen Abraham Lincoln: "Old, Musty, Remnant of American History"

Bring your nose close to the screen, press enter, and start smelling!

Transmitting scent .... am I smelling the Lincoln Memorial?

since Lincoln smelled more like "laptop", I decided to search the database for laptop - and there it was!

"Lincoln" and "laptop" smelled the same. Google Nose was pushing "used napkin", so I clicked on it, too.

used napkin

I finally gave in to my curiosity, and pulled up" wet dog":

Google Nose database: Wet dog

I loved how Google Nose provided pics of wet dogs, along with the scent. Only one scent in the database, though. Maybe all wet dogs smell the same.

You can share your scents with your circle on Google+, too. Of course, I am not ON Google+, nor do I know anyone who I want to share taxi cab smell with.

share the scent on Google+

The Googleplex itself is in the database, too:

Googleplex

So, that's my experience with Google Nose - hope you got to try it!

Ahhhh .... those wacky Googlers.

Tuesday Tangle: Mosaic Ammonites

"Mosaic Ammonites"

This zentangle was inspired by "Not Atoll," a mosaic by Sonia King. I love her mosaics, and this particular one had elements I thought would translate well to zentangling. (Her website was down at the time of this writing, so here is an alternate link to "Not Atoll").

"Not Atoll", a mosaic by Sonia King

Unfortunately, the pic of my Zentangle doesn't show the effect I achieved by using Sargent Art Metallic Markers for the blue and silver - they gave a wonderful metallic shine to the piece!

Here's a little recap of my weekend full of "Possibilities:"

Naturally, beading won out. No surprise there. I had taken home a pattern from an old, old Beadwork Magazine - I had torn the page out of the magazine way back when it came out, and the page doesn't even have the date on it. Sorry!

So this is how I spent Sunday afternoon: The pattern is called "Beaded Pillow Beads" - and basically calls for stitching up 2 peyote/herringbone triangles, and then stitching them together to make a puffy beaded bead.

This is the same pattern I played with weekend before last, but I had chosen galvanized beads, and the colors were coming off on my fingers (leaving no color on the beads!) - so I had chosen some non-galvanized beads this time.

Here is my bead:

The pattern called for making the triangles have 13 rounds; I stopped at 11 (it has to be an odd number of rounds, in order for the triangles to stitch together properly). I'm glad I stopped at 11, and didn't waste any time making these any bigger, because I'm not real thrilled with the result.

It's cute, and a clever idea, but if you look at the pics, you can pretty quickly see that these "beads" don't have any holes for stringing.

My plan had been to make 5 of them: 1 larger than this one, 2 this size, and 2 smaller, and then string them as the centerpiece of a beadwoven rope. But I don't want to mess with trying to string beads with no holes - I know it can be done, I just don't choose to. Plus, the triangles are really tricky to sew together; if you look at the last pic (click to enlarge), you can see my thread showing at the lower left, where the corner of the bottom triangle (the dark blue beads) meets the middle of the side of the top triangle - I should have pulled harder and reinforced this stitch, but I didn't see it until this macro shot called it to my attention!.

So I have a little, lone, novelty peyote puffy bead.

But wait .... there's more!

I naturally spent several hours Sunday and Monday morning on Pinterest (which was on my list of possibilities). Check!

Sunday afternoon I made the bead. Check!

Monday afternoon (hold on to your hats...) I vacuumed and mopped my whole downstairs. That's a big deal for me. I wanted to do the upstairs, but once I had finished the downstairs, I was over it.

Clean house - partial Check!

Then I spent several hours finishing my Zentangle. Check!

So I was surprisingly productive! I even squeezed in a little reading. Yay!

Now, back to work on my freeform netting, which is almost finished - double yay!

Possibilities

Aahhh ... what to do today?

I'm sitting in my warm bed, under the electric blanket - all toasty! Drinking my White Chocolate Raspberry cappuccino, pondering my day. I have 2 full days off stretching in front of me!

I slept in - an extra 90 minutes. Great start!

Got up, let the dog out (after a 5 minute search, blind, for my GLASSES - I really need a clapper for the damn things!). Made the cappuccino. Back to bed.

Turned on GMA (thank you, DVR!) - only to discover that today's "news" is all basketball, all the time. That isn't news, folks - it is sports. Yuck. Fast forwarded through all of it.

It is nasty cold and rainy outside.

I am just a few hours away from finishing my latest freeform beading design, but because it involves about 40 individual piles of the various beads I am adding to it (I was bored on Friday, and I counted - 47 piles!), it is not really portable, so it is over in Georgia, sitting on my beading table at the shop.

I brought home a new project, one I tried to start last weekend, but the galvanized beads I had hastily chosen on my way out the door last Saturday evening were being naughty: As I worked the project's first few rows, my fingers started turning purple, and the purple beads starting turning silver. Hmmmm. I have never had that happen with galvanized beads, although I have heard about it. I decided I didn't want to waste time working with those beads, so I scrapped it. Now I have some non-galvanized beads to try, but I'm not as thrilled about the colors - but anyway, beading is a possibility.

I started a new Zentangle last night, so I could work on that.

I could read. I have hundreds of books on my Kindle that I'd like to read - especially the excellent one I'm in the middle of right now: Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore!  I discovered this book on my friend Karin's blog - and it is excellent. It is truly one of those "can't put down" books - I want to know how it ends, but I will be so sorry when there is no more of it to read!

Mr. Penumbra - one of the best books I've ever read

And of course, I could waste spend the entire day on Pinterest ...

Here's what I NEED to do: clean the house. Ugh. 2 whole days? I could really make a dent in it!

Possibilities:

• bead weaving
• zentangling
• reading
• Pinterest-ing
• cleaning house

4 of my 5 choices allow me to remain in my warm bed, in my PJs!
1 is comparable, in my mind, to getting a root canal while listening to an endless loop of fingernails on the blackboard.

So, how should I spend my day?

Tangle Tuesday: Moo(ka)lips - Happy Spring!

Mooka is a challenging tangle pattern for me, because of the curving lines: curved lines are hard for me to tangle with - they want to go everywhere except where I want them to go!

When I look at mooka, I see flowers; tulip buds, to be specific - Mooka looks like a tulip, waiting to unfurl. I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to use Mooka as actual flowers, and this is the result:

"Moolips"

I call this one "Moolips"- tulips made of Mooka!

Naturally, I wanted big, bold, red tulips! Tulips are my favorite flower ever. When I lived in Indiana, I used to plant hundreds of tulip bulbs every year, adding to my growing tulip explosion in the Spring, but here in the South, they just do NOT come back every year, because our winters just don't get cold enough, so I ultimately gave up (after trying for a few years). I miss them! But I still have my daffodils!


In addition to Mooka, some of the tangles I incorporated into today's Tangle include Toeter and LinQ.

green parrot tulip - do you see the resemblance to Mooka?