Everyone loves a party - and a birthday party is always extra special.
This week we celebrated the fourth birthday "It's a String Thing" by working with some wonderful tangles and my string inspired by four birthday candles.
Grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy this wonderful display of celebratory tiles and very sweet sentiments. Yes, I am blushing.
Thank you all so very much for your outpouring of love and good wishes. I will keep these notes in a special place and revisit them often. I treasure this wonderful community of tangling friends.
The first tile arrived from Lily (Hungary) ~
Here is my tile for your fantastic anniversary challenge.
I wish you a Very Happy 4th IAST Birthday!
Sending a big, sincere thanks for all you do and best wishes for the future.
A lot of hugs
From Lori Byerly (Washington State) and here on her blog ~
Congratulations on making four years. What an amazing milestone. Thanks so much for all you do to bless the Zentangle community with your challenges, insights, talent, and generous heart.
Happy 4th Birthday!!!! I kept working through this tile, reminding me that there are no mistakes in zentangling (though I am highly rethinking how I did the Wud/Knightsbridge flames). Guess that's what happens when you start a tile and you stop part way! I love the bottom half, which wouldn't have happened if I had not stopped! A reminder of what a difference a day makes!
From Shirley Wohlsen (Queensland, Australia) ~
A VERY HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY ! from Australia.
I haven’t been with ‘It’s A String Thing’ for the 4 years but have thoroughly enjoyed the time I’ve participated in the challenges.
I love seeing everyone’s lovely tiles and being inspired by them.
And to you Adele – the star of the show for making this happen – you do a marvellous job – Well done!
So I’ll raise my glass and send cheers and best wish to everyone for another 4 years.
many, many thanks to you for more than 200 awesome and inspiring challenges!!! Congratulations to this special birthday! Happy 4th!
From Ragged Ray (United Kingdom) ~
Well, well - here we are at another birthday of your wonderful challenge. I feel so lucky to have been with you for much of the journey - and indulged myself by gazing back over my past celebration tiles. I thought you might like to see them too!
And then to the latest tile - 4 candles, 4 tangles that each deserve the spotlight. But Wud decided to dominate this week, with little pops and twists of the other tangles around each candle.
Well done on 4 years, well done on an enduring and entertaining challenge. Thank you for your commitment, your time, your effort and your love.
From Stephanie Jennifer (Singapore) ~
Happy fourth birthday to your blog. I just had to send in a tile to show support to your wonderful effort of keeping up these IAST challenges. Thank you so much for the work you put in. :)
From Hilary (Chicago, Illinois) ~
Congratulations on this major milestone! I've enjoyed every moment I've been part of this. It's always fun and challenging to participate.
I did this week's challenge on a a piece of origami paper. A few weeks ago I found a book full of brightly colored squares. I don't know anything about origami, but the squares look perfect for zentangles!
A big Wow!! for your thank-you card. It's just so amazing!
From Mariam G (Port Hueneme, California) ~
Happy Birthday to all! Participating in IAST is always a highlight in my week; I love that it pushes me to learn new patterns and to 'discipline' myself to use a string (I generally just go free form). Seeing the variations in all the submissions inspires me and amazes me - so many talented folks out there! And your kind and encouraging words are the icing on the cake.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with the IAST family!
From Ilse Lukken (The Netherlands) and here on her blog ~
Congratulations! Wow, 4 years of challenges... You're doing an amazing job!
Keep up the good work!
From Trudi (Woodview, Ontario, Canada) ~
Wow 4 years! I started just before your 3rd Birthday and I couldn't believe it when I saw another year had gone by. When I was a kid a year was an enormous amount of time now they flash by. I did one Tangle but I wasn't happy with it so I did a second.
Thank you for having the patience to keep coming back for us each week.
From Gabriela Garcia (Alberta, Canada) and here on her blog ~
Congratulations Adele on this IAST Fourth Birthday!!! The amount of love, work and dedication you give week after week bringing us this challenge and then posting all the challenge entries with your beautiful encouraging comments is truly incredible!!!... I loved your "Thank you Mandala" with all the IAST participants names , it felt really nice to see my name there and other participants I am familiar with, but I was thinking that WE are the ones that need to thank you for bringing us the joy of Zentangle and allowing us to become part of this amazing loving community. THANK YOU ADELE!!
From Jennifer Wilken, CZT (Hudson Valley, New York) ~
This was a really interesting string to play with! Thanks for the challenge!
From Anita A Westin (Dalarna, Sweden) and here on her blog ~
Happy birthday IAST! And congratulations Adele to the celebration. 4 years! That is fantastic! You make such a great job with these challenges and it is a great inspiration to follow them! Thank´s so much giving me the opportunity to be a part of this celebration! I can´t stop wondering what you will do next time!
From Thekla (Berlin, Germany) ~
First wonderful gratulation for your 4 th anniversary!! And a very big Thank You for your marvelously Work for us!
I also want to say thank you for your incredible story of your trip in Italy. I always say, when you are so excited and glowing for your passion, you will see every thing in a different color and everyone will be glowing back to you and you get fortune moments. Myself dreamed of visiting the Olympic Games and we did it in London and it was a so happy weekend with nice and astonishingly people and events.Everything [went] well.
So and by the way my tile for IAST #208. It was suprising a little on the colorful side...
From Jody Genovese, CZT (New York) ~
I’m back! I feel like I haven’t posted to you in ages. The last few weeks have been very busy, but I couldn’t miss this week because I had to wish you a Happy 4th Birthday!
As it turns out the day you posted #208, Tuesday, was my birthday too! So, Happy Birthday to both of us!!!
Thank you for all you do. I appreciate your challenges and all of the work, time and effort you put in to this for us. I so enjoy participating each week and looking at everyone’s beautiful tiles.
From Aileen (Singapore) and on her blog ~
Happy 4th! Glad to partake in the celebrations! Thank you for the weekly challenge! Rainbows and Raindrops in Sunny Singapore
A very warm welcome to Cha'Co (France) ~
First, I want to apologize because my English is not very good. My name is Cha'Co (it's my nickname but all my friends call me that) and I live in France.
This is the first time I have participated in this challenge and I loved it ! I don't no if I will participate in every challenge every week but I will try: it will be good for my english !!!
Welcome to our IAST community and welcome to our tangled map, Cha'Co!
From Tharina Durban (South Africa) ~
Happy 4th birthday to "It's a string thing", Adele! I enjoy the weekly challenges and the results tremendously. Hope you will continue to host IAST for many more years to come.
When I saw the post for this week, I felt very festive, so I grabbed my colour pens and had myself some fun!
From Sabine (Germany) ~
A very HAPPY 4th. BIRTHDAY dear Adele!
Thank you so much for all your efforts and creativ ideas to challenged us weekly.
This week 4 lovely pattern, Trella and Wud are new to me and I like them both. After drawing I take a look at the tile and I thought, there is missing something. And so I decided to give the new technic TranZending a try. It's easier as I thought and I like the result.
With sunny greatings from Germany
From Sra (India) ~
Here's my entry for IAST 208.
Congratulations on the fourth anniversary and please keep this going. Thank you for everything you do here.
From Ute (Germany) and here on her blog ~
thank you for your welcome. I’m happy to be on the IAST-World-Map. What a nice idea. And also the Mandala with the names.
Congratulations to your 4th anniversary.
Thank you for your work and passion.
Here is my tile I chose for this week’s challenge.
I made three of them. This one was the second one.
It was really a challenge.
I show the three versions in my blog
From Karen Herstowski (Atlanta, Georgia) ~
A very Happy 4th Birthday to IAST. Attached are my wishes in illustration form. I am so impressed with the visuals on the world wide exposure. How wonderful. So glad to be a tiny part of this!!! Thanks.
From Nadine Roller, CZT (Germany) and here on her blog ~
...I am soooo sooooOOOO happy that i could take part at your special challenge this week!!! MANY CONGRATULATIONS to you!!!!!
I appreciate your Blog and Challenge so much!!!!
Here is my contribution to IAST#208, i hope you like it :-)
Thank you so much for this weekly string challenge! I always marvel at how enthusiastic and positive you are about each entry and how you find original and different things to say about each one. What a lot of work it must be!
A friend from high school recently posted results of her first Zentangle class, so I recommended your site and explained that it had given me back the joy of Zentangle, because I had turned it into something I was trying too hard with. Also, it's good "discipline" (kind of like being in a book group) to be "assigned" certain tangles to use, instead of always just falling back on favorites. Leads to some fun surprises!
This week ...
Copada I never do anything more creative than I did, because I like it so much ... the converging lines give it kind of an automatic 3-D effect, although I shaded it just a bit to enhance it (that's why I doubled up Candle #1, because of the natural curvature). With Knightsbridge (Candle #2) I always enjoy doing the dew-drop, and I thought black would stick out too much so I filled in half of the squares with fine lines. For Wud (Candles #3 and 4) I did a modification so I could write you a message (hint, if you can't see it turn it on its side). And for some reason Trella wanted to "hold hands" so I let it (don't we hold hands to sing "Happy Birthday to You"? If not, we should!).
Thank you ... and thank you for the lovely thank-you Zendala!
From Michele Wynne (California) and here on her blog ~
Congratulations on 4 years of inspiring challenges. Thank you for all you do for this group and the community by presenting It's a String Thing in such a unique and generous format. I love looking forward to the gallery show every Monday whether I've been able to participate or not.
You are amazing!
From Sharon Fite (California) ~
Congratulations on 4 years of strings, tangles and tiles! You make it look easy, Adele. Thank you!
From Felicity Strohfeldt (Velddrif, South Africa) and here on her blog ~
Happy 4th anniversary celebration of It’s a String Thing weekly challenges to you. See what I’ve attached as my South African bouquet for you. This is what a shower or two of rain can do in a drought - strickened, area on the west coast of SA. Two and a half weeks ago this indigenous, town garden was bone dry and there wasn’t a flower in sight. Now this photo, taken on Friday, 18 August is my gift to you for all your tireless enthusiasm, creativity, (delicious peaks into your world) and, all your hard work over the last four years, to keep us all participating each week in IAST. I’m sure I’I can vouch for all and say that everyone has thoroughly enjoyed all these zenterludes over the years. Good luck Adele with the new year of IAST.
Thank s to Adele, Margaret, Maria and Joni for this week’s inspiring challenge. I have one concern, Adele what happens on our 5thbirthday with your traditional birthday string? That’s a challenge I’m looking forward to!!
Happy anniversary all.
From Jenny Hopkins (Australia) ~
Happy 4th birthday. Four years of enriching the lives of people all around the world; four years of sharing your talent, passion, love and life with people you haven't even met; four years of kind words and encouragement; four years of being a treasure to the Zentangle community. Please enjoy the celebration.
From Ria Matheussen (Belgium) ~
Thank you so much for the great job you are doing for us tanglers all over the world.
Congratulations for your 4 th birthday. I hope to join very regulary in the future.
Warm regards and all the best from Belgium
From Sharyn Penna, CZT (Massachusetts) ~
... Happy fourth birthday to your baby ... It's A String Thing ... and many more!!
Fun, fun, fun prompt ...
Cheers to all that is good in our world!
From Simone Menzel, CZT (Germany) and here on her blog ~
First of all I send you my congratulations to your 4th anniversary with the IAST challenge. Four years are a long time and I am proud to say that I have shared two of them with your challenge! I remember my first contribution very well.... it was IAST#101, shortly after the 100 (I know I saw your 100tangle and decided to take part to IAST soon..)
I drew the tile with two candles (#104), with three candles (#156) and now with four candles .I wonder how the time will run and we draw five of them ;-).
Thank you very much for the motivation and encouragement, for your beautiful "Words of Wisdom", your "Tips For Tangling..." and the insights into your tanglng life.
Sometimes it seems like I know you for ages, like a good friend...
This is now my contribution to your IAST#208. I hope you enyoy it! The background has been created by my CZT-friend Sabrina, she dyed the paper with soft pastell and gave me some tiles to use. I thought it were appropriate to this challenge
From Vena C (Whitby, Ontario, Canada) ~
Happy 4th Birthday IAST. What is a party without colour and some balloons!
From Susie (Thailand) and here on her blog ~
Happy birthday to IAST and thanks to you for giving birth to this great idea 4 years ago. Please forgive my candles. They got a bit soft in their knees and almost melted off the tile. However, I managed to get Knightsbridge in; Wud as well; remaining Trella pieces at the top and bottom; and Copada…it’s in flames.
Also tons of thanks for that amazing contributor wheel. Needless to say, I had to check whether you may have forgotten my name, but no, it is there! West of the middle, 9th row; or 10th row from the outside in. It didn't have the (Thailand) identifier, but I take just "Susie" anytime.
From Lynn Gotham (Florida) ~
A Very Happy Birthday IAST.
From Jessie Plouffe (Connecticut) ~
It's been a looong time since I've submitted a tile, and this week seemed like a great time to send one in instead of just lurking and admiring :). Happy fourth birthday to IAST!
From Lin H, CZT (Florida) ~
Happy 4th Birthday to the IAST Community! What a wonderful accomplishment, Adele. Thank you so much for your challenges. This week's Wud tangle was new to me and I love it. I got my pastels out and had a zenful time adding color to my tile.
From Margarete Gilge (Germany) and here on her blog ~
Happy birthday! Four Years of weekly new ideas are fantastic! Congratulations!
Here is my candle tile for this week.
Thank you for the new challenge.
Best wishes from Germany.
From Marla Mendenhall (California) ~
A hale and hearty CONGRATULATIONS to Adele on this anniversary, and a joyous celebration to all fellow IASTers!
That said ... a string of candle shapes with flames and a bit of negative background, and four (count them, FOUR) tangle patterns - oh my - and my brain nearly exploded. Try as I might (several ruined tiles later) I couldn't get all four patterns to happily interact (not that they can't, and I'm anxious to see how others accomplished the feat). So I thought I'd try to see the string as merely spacial shapes and not "candles" and I'm rather pleased with the result, especially Knightsbridge which on a curved grid became more harlequin than checkerboard.
Tile #2 incorporates all four patterns too, albeit in a more festive fashion. Alternating strips of "vanilla" and "chocolate" cake form the four layers of the celebratory confection (I actually saw this done once - yummy) decorated with cream cheese frosting and delicate Trella swirls. (Sadly, among my other myriad talents - HA! - cake decorating is not one of them, as all can tell.)
The Grecian-look border just inside the Copada surround is actually the numerals 5 and 2, ie. 52 weeks in a year, both right side up and upside down (for as anyone with too much time on their hands at work can tell you, the numerals 5 and 2 are mirror images when you turn the calculator upside down). And even though there are four sides, I placed the number 4 in each corner too.
Four years of fifty-two IAST challenges - Hazzah - and looking forward to that, and many, many more to come. You're the best, Adele.
We have been treated to all manner of birthday surprises - even birthday cake!
Thank you all so very much. It warms my heart to belong to such a loving and talented community.
Many thanks to the creative minds behind the patterns we used along with my string and Trella ~
Knightsbridge - by Maria Thomas
Copada by Margaret Bremner, CZT
Wud by Joni Feddersen, CZT
IAST #209 - The beginning of our 5th year will be pushed back one day - tune in on Wednesday afternoon for the details.
Such wonderful, varied interpretations! Thanks for the round-up, Adele! - Sra
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