"It's a String Thing" #270 Tiles

Our hearts were filled with gratitude for this challenge as we incorporated what we were thankful for into our tangling experience.  Using an idea from CZT Mary Bartrop, we either lightly penciled words onto our tiles before the tangles, or wrote them as we tangled.  

Thank you everyone for your Happy Thanksgiving wishes.  It is good to hear from so many of you and to know that your time was full and happy.  

Let's take a look ~

The first tile arrived from Simone (Germany) and here in her Flickr album ~

this is a very nice challenge again. Z-trik was new for me and I love it. I am sure that I will use it often.
Thank you for the work, you do with your wonderful weekly challenge.

From Joanne (New Brunswick, Canada) ~

Happy Thanksgiving Adele and to all my American online Zentangle friends!
Here is my gratitute tangle...so much to be thankful for. Lichen and Z-Trik are new to me...kind of fun to do. A few triangles on lichen are upside down..but since there are no mistakes in Zentangle ;) I was better off not trying to fix one of them.
Until next Tuesday!

From Sally Whiteman (New Zealand) ~

Thank you for another great challenge. I really enjoyed this one.
Have a great thanksgiving break.

From Baafke (The Netherlands) ~

What a wonderful idea.
My treasures are hidden under Z-trick.

From JoAnne (Ontario, Canada) ~

Happy Thanksgiving!! Even though we Canadians celebrated our Thanksgiving in October, it’s always good to give thanks for all things “Zentangle”. I appreciate the hard work that you put in to keep this weekly challenge fresh and interesting!
For this string, I couldn’t seem to incorporate the Z-Trick, so I just used the other 2!
Thanks again!

From Gale Sherman, CZT (Tucson, Arizona) ~

...I was surprised by the three tangles you chose for this IAST; it was a challenge!!! But once I wrapped my head around it I was in LOVE! You can see I used some techniques we worked with at ZenAgain- watercolor (Tombow) and white chalk on a Renaissance tile. I made this one as a gift for our friends who are hosting us and others for Thanksgiving dinner- in about an hour. Indeed DO I have gratitude for the words I included on this tile and so much more. Thank you Mary Bartrop for beginning this trend and you, Adele, for giving us this challenge this year.

From Dani (Indonesia) and here on her blog ~

This is for challenge #270.
Thank you.

From Jane Goddard (United Kingdom) ~

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your lovely family. Your apple pie looked amazing and of course delicious, what a wonderful idea!
My entry for this challenge I kept very simple as I didn’t have a lot of time available but I did enjoy the tangles immensely. General’s white charcoal added for highlights.
Thank you!

From Talia Maynard (London, United Kingdom) ~

Happy thanksgiving! I hope you and your family are having a lovely holiday.
Here's my tile for this week's challenge. I decided to make my words of gratitude more prominent than was explained, and make them a feature of the infinite shape within the string. I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

From Sherry Conte (Sanford, Florida) ~

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

From Priscilla DeConti, CZT 28 (Kingston, New York) ~

Lovely challenge...
I had a great time doing it..unfortunately my glitter doesn't show in pictures but its there
Hope every had a great Thanksgiving!
God bless and have a good week

From Nor'dzin (Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom) ~

Happy Thanksgiving.
This week’s challenge was three new tangles for me, so thanks for that. I enjoyed them all.

From Mariam G (Port Hueneme, California) ~

This was a wonderful way to celebrate our time of thanksgiving, so thank you! I love the string - it holds so many possibilities. A lovely focus for any blessings (or challenges) that come our way.
Hope you are feeling 100% yourself by now

From Ria Matheussen, CZT (Belgium) ~

Mostly I like to add some colours but this time I was satisfied about
the result, just finished in black/white.
The string looked difficult to me at first sight but after thinking a
bit and adding a few lines, I found my way to fill the string with
those pleasant tangles and enjoyed this challenge very much.
Thank you for always surprising us and wish you all the best,
Greetings from Belgium

From Gabi (Germany) ~

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving together with your family. By the way... your pie was looking delicious!
Trick and heartstring were completely new patterns to me and not so easy to handle. Have to practice them more than once. But time was running out and there’s my result.

From VenaC (Whitby, Ontario, Canada) ~

I was contentedly drawing lines in the middle of my shield and, when I had finished, I realized that I had Maryhill and not Z-Trick. So I did Z-Trick in two corners. This was a fun challenge. I love the look of your printemp apple pie. I don't do much baking but I do enjoy apple pie.

From Laurel Davis, CZT (New York) ~

I loved your Printemps pie crust! It brought back fond memories of my mother making pinwheels out of leftover crust whenever she made an apple pie. So much to be grateful for, especially you, Adele, for making these wonderful challenges every week!

From Gudrun S. (Germany) and here in her flickr album ~

Thank you for this challenge and best regards from Germany

From Lynn G (Florida) ~

From Lin H, CZT (Florida) ~

Speaking of being grateful, Adele, I’m grateful for the chance to participate in your challenges. Have a wonderful holiday season!

From Lynn F (Florida) ~

Today was a peaceful day out on the lanai doing the challenge after a busy week enjoying the frenzy that holidays bring.
I hope you and your family, and all of our USA Zentangle family, had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Here is my tile for this week.

From Sue Agnew (Tucson, Arizona) ~

I hope you are fully recovered from your flu and were able to enjoy the "mayhem" of a big family get-together! Your apple pie looked absolutely fabulous!
This week I was enjoying playing with Lichen so much, I decided to do a monotangle. I guess you could say I took a "lichen" to it LOL. Of my three words, I was afraid "fulfillment" sounded a bit selfish, but I was trying to find a word (that started with "f") to encompass all of the creative things I enjoy, including cooking and art-making and music. This is a challenge I look forward to each year.

From AmyL (Connecticut) ~

What a fun idea with a fabulous string and some great tangles! I am glad to be back to these challenges. I hope to get back to doing them more regularly. Happy Thanksgiving! I am grateful for you, Adele and all that do for us!

From Jane Rhea (Indiana) ~

Thank you for your endless supply of ideas and encouragement! YOU are a special treasure to the Zentangle community!

Two former students of mine were married today, so I wrote their names and today’s date inside the string and tangled over it for this week’s IAST tile. I’m working on a zendala for them to honor their special day, but perhaps I’ll tape this tile on the back before I frame it up. I didn’t think I’d have time to draw a tile yet today, but am glad I squeezed it in!
Blessings to you and yours!

From Sharon Fite (California) ~

This is certainly a reflective time of year...counting one's blessings and giving thanks. And what a lovely idea to write the person or thing you're grateful for under the tangles. I took a more literal approach by writing in my big three in the ribbon-y areas and at the center of it all...the most important of all! Wishing you all lots of love!

From Maike (Germany) ~

my tile for IAST 270 is finally finished. I liked the idea of hiding words!
Wish you a nice week!

From Antony Visconti (Milan, Italy) ~

Happy thanksgiving.
My thanks to God for life, light and love.
And thanks to you for this challenge!

From Katharina (Germany) and here on her blog ~

Hello, Adele I was very delighted by the Idea of Mary Bartrop to fill the string with words of gratitude. The string was not enough, I covered the whole tile.

From Felicity Strohfeldt (Velddrif, South Africa) ~

Tile 270. Happy Thanksgiving Adele and all the family. Thank you for your energy, adding brand new challenge every week. Thank you for your enthusiastic and kind words for every participant each week. I sure all the participants agree you are a star!. A word of thanks to all great tangle pattern creators, especially this week’s clever artists Jennifer Hohensteiner, Yamit Fridman and Helen Williams.

From Susie (St. Louis, Missouri) ~

From Margarete Gilge (Germany) and here on her blog ~

thank you again for your enjoying challenge. I really liked your string. The idea of ​​registering things there that one is grateful for and thinking while drawing on this topic has certainly been very interesting to many. The result is very individual. Gratitude is an important trait that one learns in the course of one's life. Unfortunately, some people never learn it and only see what they do not have.
You can also see my tile on my blog under the link . Maybe I will draw another tile.
I wish you a wonderful thanksgiving and a nice weekend!
Best wishes from Germany

From Susan Theron (Velddrif, South Africa) ~

Weren't those tiles amazing? Each one is a treasure.

I am grateful for each and every one of you, your sweet notes, and good wishes.

Many thanks to the artists whose tangles we used in this week's challenge ~

Lichen by Jennifer Hohensteiner

Z-Trick by Yamit Fridman

Heartstrings by Helen Williams

Now we are all caught up with IAST results - yay!!

Have a wonderful week and don't forget to check out IAST #271 featuring CZT Jody Genovese's new tangle, XLNT.  

"It's a String Thing" #269 Tiles

We spent time with the sun and the moon for this challenge using the tangle Soluna by Pegi Shargel, CZT, using a technique that was demonstrated by Maria Thomas at zenAgain.  Working from opposite corners of the tile, we tangled large and smaller Soluna - sweet, simple, and surprising.

Let's take a look ~

The first tile arrived from Simone (Germany) ~

it was a very hard challenge for me. I usually use one size of a tangle and feel good doing it in this way. If I paint it very much bigger or very much smaller, than this is not really comfortable. And now in the end it looks like big old car tire :)
Adele, thank you very much for your ideas.

Tangled Tidbit - 

But just look at the depth you created - very nice!

From Joanne (New Brunswick, Canada) ~

Here is IAST 269...Soluna, big & small.

Tangled Tidbit -
*wonderfully weighted lines and darkened spaces


From Jane MacKugler, CZT6 (Vermont) ~

was great meeting up with you at ZenAgain 2018!
Here’s my tile... I cropped it in my photos but it didn’t seem to carry over to my mail. Ah well. It was fun to tangle!

Tangled Tidbit -
Thank you, Jane, it was great to meet you, too.
*fabulous overlapping and shading
Welcome to IAST, Jane, and welcome to our Tangled Map!

From Sherry Conte (Sanford, Florida) ~

This was a fun challenge full of dimension.

 Tangled Tidbit -
*striking, gradual change in Soluna's size


From Talia Maynard (London, United Kingdom) ~

I managed to jump right onto this week's challenge and get it done really quickly! I genuinely found the tangle this week very therapeutic to draw. As someone who has trouble relaxing and switching off, it really worked for me this time.
I enjoyed the way the large circles contrast against the smaller ones. I think it works really well.

 Tangled Tidbit -
It does!
*sparkled dark orbs, simple embellishments, and tight overlaps add great depth


From Laura Emler, CZT (Ohio) ~

I miss seeing you but was thrilled to meet you at ZenAgain. You don’t meet such kind and creative goddesses everyday!!!! lol. You have a great sense of humor as well as playful!
Here’s my tile for the challenge this week. I haven’t used this tangle before and found it fun. There are so many things to draw inside the circles. Will continue to add more as I go this week.
Hoping to make your map with my name

Ah, Laura, you are too kind!  Thank you, it was a treat to meet you and spend time with you.
Tangled Tidbit -
*fabulous detail and narrow stream of smaller Soluna complete with rounding

As it turns out, you've been on the Tangled Map since the beginning♥.  Your first tile for IAST was for #67 - long before the Map - so I wrote your name, along with all previous contributors, the day I made it.  Here is your 'spot' ~

From Maragrete Gilge (Germany) and here on her blog ~

thank you for this interesting challenge. I am not so happy with my Soluna tile because this pattern is not really my favorite and so I placed many different patterns in it. But now it looks a little bit overloaded. Maybe I will try it again. You would find it on my blog under the link
Best wishes from Germany

 Tangled Tidbit -
*grand detail and variation, colors pop against darkened in between spaces


From Sue Leslie, CZT 22 (New Mexico) ~

What a fun play with soluna and 2 green pens in my IAST journal. How different it can be just reversing the two pens. Thanks for sharing a Zen Again idea with all of us. I would love to go to Zen Again one of these years.

Tangled Tidbit - 

*light and dark color changes do look vastly different  and accentuate the tangle sizes

From Lisette, CZT 32 (Switzerland) ~

Herewith my contribution to IAST #269 with Saluna and a Remo-Border. Thank you, Adele, for the inspiration with doing one side BIG and the other small! In our FB-Group the weekly focus is on Poke Root and Poke Leave. I’m attaching a tile with these two tangles with the same “string-idea”.
Hugs to everyone

Tangled Tidbits -
*wonderful combination of tangles, color, and sparkle

How fun to use two different tangles for the same exercise!  Thank you for sending in this pretty tile.


From Ria Matheussen, CZT (Belgium) ~

Thank you for another unique challenge which I enjoyed very much. I
like the idea to start tangling from two different directions: below on
the left and above on the right.
As you can see on my tile, the tangles also meet in the middle. I
created a few open spaces but Soluna is growing high on the left side
and growing down on the right side.
To finish, I couldn' t resist to take my colourpencils for adding a few
tints of cold colours.
Warm regards from Belgium

 Tangled Tidbit -
*color, white space, light border, dark surrounds - glorious details


From Jutta Gladnigg, CZT (Germany) ~

Thank you for this sunny challenge with its opposites of large and small, light and dark and of direction. I chose a tile which I had distressed with stamp pad re-inkers (therefore this vibrant yellow). There was a natural border between yellow and greenish colours which became my string.

Tangled Tidbit - 

*Wow!  This came together beautifully.

From Priscilla DeConti, CZT 28 (Kingston, New York) ~

Soluna is a great tangle for this exercise. I had fun doing it on one of my colored tiles.
Hope everyone is well. We just had our first snow of season...way toooo early
Have a blessed Thanksgiving all!

 Tangled Tidbit -
Here's to warm and cozy tangling time!
*Tipple filled smaller Soluna and aura for the larger ones


From Nor'dzin (Wales, United Kingdom) ~

Thank you for this most interesting challenge. It was indeed a soothing exercise.

 Tangled Tidbit -
*curve lined detail and shaded overlapping add wonderful depth



From Kate Ahrens, CZT - 1 Art Lady Kate Tangles - (Minnesota) ~

Hi Adele, So much fun to chat with you during ZenAgain. I made some time this week for this challenge using Soluna. I had some fun using lots of variations. Have a great weekend.

 Tangled Tidbit -
And you, too, Kate - it was so good to meet you.
*a fabulous mix of color, highlight, shading, and tangle sizes


A very warm welcome to Elke Puetz (Bremen, Germany) ~

Here is my tangle für IAST#269. It is my very first for your challenge and I enjoyed it so much.
I love to colour my tangles with aquacolours first and than go forward with the Zentangle process.

 Tangled Tidbit -
*tangles accentuated by lovely coloring and highlights
Welcome to our IAST community and welcome to our Tangled Map!

From Sally Whiteman (New Zealand) ~

Attached is my tile for challenge 269. Circles are always a challenge for me, I can never get them round. I guess that all adds to the charm of zentangles.

 Tangled Tidbit -
Yes, and if you think of them as orbs it is much more relaxing to draw them because they don't have to be exact :)
*just a few pops of thicker black add great interest to both large and smaller Soluna


From Gale Sherman, CZT (Tucson, Arizona) ~

Adele, it was WONDERFUL meeting you and having and opportunity to chat at ZenAgain! You are a dear!!! This is the first tile I’ve had a chance to create since I got home. Life = laundry, houseguests, showing them around and teaching = has occupied my time. In this fun mono-tangle I used colored Micron 01s and the colored charcoal pencils we got at ZenAgain and some I bought at the RISD art store. (BTW, If any of you go to Providence stop at this store. I’m sure they’ll have things to tickle your art imagination.) Though the Thanksgiving next week is an American festival, I wish all worldwide tangles Happiness and Peace!

Tangled Tidbit -
Likewise, Gale, it was a privilege to meet you and being able to visit was an added treat.
*captivating colors and depth


From Susan Theron (Velddrif, South Africa) ~

My contribution...

Tangled Tidbit -

*stand out striping and shading

From Sra (India) ~

Here're the entries for IAST 269.
I was fascinated by the idea of the challenge. So I couldn't wait to do a tile, but not before practising! The first one is the tile crowded with Soluna. I was happy with it but wanted to do another one that was not so crowded. I thought an even bigger Soluna would be interesting to do. I have something called a Circle Master, which is a sheet of plastic that contains circles of several radii, and I used that for the Soluna in the next tile, from the smallest to the largest, I even made the crescents with those. As always, I wish I could improve the shading, but that's an ongoing endeavour!
Have a nice week ahead!

 Tangled Tidbits -
*grand field of Soluna, darkened spaces add depth

*lovely variation in sizes


From Dolly Bolen, CZT 15 (Alberta, Canada) ~

It has been a while since I participated in your IAST challenges but I am back! I hadn’t tried Soluna before, it was a nice relaxing tangle to draw, I enjoyed trying to create a different take on it from the step out. My signature bling style had to come out to play, I started a tile I cut from watercolour paper then tissue paper stained which gave a colourful string. Instead of outer radiating lines I drew wavy lines in the Soluna shapes, to give a little different look. I used Sakura Micron PN Pens, Glaze Gelly Roll Pens, Stardust Gelly Roll Pens and Moonlight Gelly Roll Pens plus for extra sparkle Spectrum Noir Crystal Clear Glitter Brush Pen and finally Prismacolour Premier Coloured Pencils to enhance the tissue paper stained colours. The composition in the end made me think of a bunch of yo-yos having a party!
Thank you so much for all you do for the Zentangle community!

 Tangled Tidbit -
*Wow! Great bling, color, and tangles


From Gabi (Germany) ~

The simple things sometimes are very difficult - so have a look at my variation of Soluna. Think I’m going to try some coloured ones to because it seems to be a pattern with many variations!

Tangled Tidbit -
*delightfully detailed Soluna and deep shading



From VenaC (Whitby, Ontario, Canada) ~

We woke up to white outside yesterday, a really early snowfall. But, later it started raining, a soft rain but, enough to melt almost all the snow. It is dull and overcast outside so no bright light for my pic. Your Thanksgiving will be arriving soon. Have a fun-filled celebration.

 Tangled Tidbit -
Brr!  Your weather sounds chilly.  Stay warm tangling :)
*various sizes of Soluna pop through and behind multiple border lines


From Hilary (Chicago) ~

Well, I ended up doing two of these. First of all because it’s a fabulous idea, and secondly because I wasn’t happy with my results. I’m not thrilled with either one, but that’s how it goes sometimes. This way I’ll be even more eager to see everyone 's wonderful work!
Wishing you and all our fellow tanglers a happy and blessed thanksgiving

 Tangled Tidbits -
*golden Soluna against a sea of beautiful blue

*fabulous field of large and tiny Soluna - you have good eyesight!


From Katharina Sasse (Germany) and here on her blog ~

Hallo Adele, Soluna was a true challenge for me, looking so simple and being so difficult to draw satisfyingly.

Tangled Tidbit -
How very fun that you and Hilary chose a similar color scheme, world apart.  I love when that happens.
*differences in size, density, and color - great contrasts


From Susie (St. Louis, Missouri) ~

I’m not thrilled with it, but it is what it is. I hope everybody in the path of the California fires is safe.

Tangled Tidbit -
*blackened spaces and border serve to accent Soluna


From Ingrid (The Netherlands) ~

Here is my IAST tile # 269 for this week.
Much love and have a blessed week

 Tangled Tidbit -
*marvelous multitude of Soluna in light, medium, and dark shades


From Jane (Surrey, United Kingdom) ~

Thank you so much for these challenges, it was so nice to do one which you had experienced at zenAgain!
Here’s my tile, I may add more detail to it later.

 Tangled Tidbit -
*added contrast using black and brown, weighted aura, and shading


From Lynn G (Florida) ~

Tangled Tidbits -
*wonderful white 'luna' accents


From Jane Rhea, CZT (Indiana) ~

“By the light of the silvery moon...” Thank you, Adele, for such a fun lunar zen experience!

Tangled Tidbit -
*very fun tangles and nod to the moon (and I love that song!)


From Maike (Germany) ~

Here is my tile for IAST 269 - a nice new experience with the two different sizes of a tangle. I really liked it.
Greetings from Germany

 Tangled Tidbit -
*creative embellishments, bold 'luna', Fescu filled divide - fun!


From Shirley Wohlsen (Queensland, Australia) ~

Attached is my tile for It’s A String Thing Challenge #269

 Tangled Tidbit -
*scattered black rings anchor the tangles and accentuate the contrasting sizes


From Sharyn Penna, CZT (Massachusetts) ~

On the lighter side, my daughter sees wood slices on my tile ... on the eerie side, as I look at this tile I keep hearing Rockwell singing ‘sometimes it feels like somebody’s watching me’.
In this week of thanksgiving, May we all focus on and offer up all the goodness, compassion, and kindness in our hearts. This world needs every drop of positive energy we can all muster up.
Cheers to your always positive energy and cheers for sharing a lesson from zenAgain.

Tangled Tidbit -
...and Cheers to your positive thoughts!
*wispy enthatching - a lovely variation


From Felicity Strohfeldt (Velddrif, South Africa) ~

Hope you are well and settle back to the routine. As you know my promised routine to myself has once again backfired on me.
But here I go again and here is my effort for challenge 269.
Have a peaceful week.

Tangled Tidbit -
*impressive array of Soluna variations and embellishments


This is my tile.  I was in the mood to work small, so I tangled with an 005 Micron on a Bijou tile.  A few added aura and just a bit wobbly, but it was relaxing to tangle...

Many thanks to Pegi Schargel, CZT for the lovely Soluna.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone for your wonderful tiles and your patience with me in posting them.

Check back tomorrow for the results of IAST #270 as we get back on track.