When last week's challenge was issued, I wondered if the four circles in the string would limit the diversity of the results. I was pleasantly surprised find that it had the opposite effect. The creativity of this group coupled with the practice of Zentangle is a constant source of inspiration.
Prepare to be amazed...
The first tile arrived from Cheryl Stocks (Arizona) and
here on her blog ~
I'm playing catch-up with this one! I thank you for your challenges and this one was nice and light and easy. The last two required much focus, in comparison. They're all posted on my blog this week.
Happy June! It's heating up!
Tangled Tidbits -
*black filled spaces in Pixioze circle
*dots repeat in Blooming Butter and Zinger
*Zinger bumble bee
From Hilary Merola (Illinois) ~
This one was fun! I opted for huge Blooming Butter with Pixioze in the background. Great patterns, both are new to me. I know Zinger, but I'm never quite sure what to do with it, so I just had a few sprouting from the sides.
Again thanks for your creative challenges.
Tangled Tidbits -
*Purple Pixioze background
*shading and curved detail lines add dimension to Blooming Butter
From Sarah (Michigan) ~
Used only two tangles on this one. Shading is impossible to pick up on camera. It's just pretty I suppose.
Tangled Tidbits -
*various sizes of Pixioze
*clusters of Blooming Butter, all inter-connected
From Sandra (Germany) and
here on her blog ~
thank you very much for this nice challenge :-) It was a very special string this time but I had a lot of fun to do this! Until now I had difficulties with Blooming Butter but this time it worked better :-)
Tangled Tidbits -
*outlined border accented with details
*shaded connecting lines of Blooming Butter
*free floating pieces of Pixioze
From Karen (Canberra, Australia) ~
Interesting that you’ve chosen one of Shelly Beauchamp’s Tangles this week. I’m spending a couple of days drawing with Shelly in July. While we are both in Australia, we live over 700km or 440 miles apart. I’ll spend a couple of days learning from Shelly then the rest of the week elsewhere in Tasmania doing my own thing.
Advice to other Tanglers - don’t let distance get between you and a CZT. Jump on a plane and visit one who lives somewhere interesting.
Tangled Tidbits -
*Fabulous advice for all of us, thank you! Give our best to Michele.
*Pixioze in a flower shape
*white highlights make Blooming Butter shine
From Beth Gaughan (North Carolina) ~
Here is my tile for IAST 147. I liked how these patterns and the string came together, although I wondered when I saw the string if you are a Clemson Tigers fan! 
Tangled Tidbits -
*lovely middle swatch of Pixioze
*even spaces in the aura of Blooming Butter's petals and connecting lines
From Joanne Faherty (United Kingdom) ~
Beautiful tangles and string matched so well with this week. Loved this one nice and relaxing. Only done minimal shading as I wanted to keep it light and airy
Tangled Tidbits -
*string's circles are left as white space with just a touch of Zinger
*Blooming Butter appears only in partial sections
From Ilse Lukken (The Netherlands) and
here on her blog ~
Time is flying, it's already June! I loved your Flower-like challenge.
Tangled Tidbits -
*shadowed shading
*Pixioze has added depth with inner shading
From Audrie Weisenfelder (Arizona) and
here on her blog ~
Until this challenge, I had totally forgotten about Blooming Butter. It was fun to work with; just fell right into place on the string. Maybe too easy. Anyway, here it is:
Tangled Tidbits -
*all Blooming Butter connect
*weighted lines and deep shading in a pretty field of Pixioze
From Anita A Westin (Dalarna, Sweden) and here on her blog ~
Hello Adele! Here comes my blooming tile! In the sudden summer´s heat we have got here this was the right thing to do!
Tangled Tidbits -
*Zinger filled large string circle
*dark, sparkled sections of Blooming Butter
*wonderful shading
From Michele Wynne (California) ~
I really enjoyed this weeks challenge. I had made several water colored tiles a few weeks ago and this was the last. It felt like the perfect fit as the orange in the corner wanted to line up with the big circle. I tried a new approach to an old fave-Zinger in the round.
Blooming Butter is new to me and I really love it. Pixioze is another one of my favorites.
Tangled Tidbits -
*Zinger "in the round" - fabulous
*curves repeat in Blooming Butter
*white Pixioze
From Toby (Chicago, Illinois) ~
It's been a while since I had the time to participate in the challenge, although I always check in to see everyone's tiles. Happy spring, everyone!
Tangled Tidbits -
*light Blooming Butter made prominent with darker shading
*Zinger tipped connecting lines
*Pixioze background
From Chris Leach (California) ~
Pixioze, Blooming Butter and Zinger with a touch of watercolor. I will be honest, I chose this one over the other two tiles. My Blooming Butter needed some TLC.
I added some watercolor to my pencil shading.
I love circular tangles so this string was calling my name.
Fun string!
Tangled Tidbits -
*wonderfully weighted lines
*delicate Zinger tops
*black centers of Pixioze
From smgg (Taiwan) and on her
Instagram ~
Have a nice day!!!
Tangled Tidbits -
*large string circle of Pixioze
*lined aura of Blooming Butter
From Val Steele (Johannesburg, South Africa) ~
My tile for the challenge. I had great fun doing this whimsical tile.
Tangled Tidbits -
*sparkled alternating light and dark aura of Pixioze
*deeply shaded centers of Blooming Butter
From Susan (United Kingdom) -
I enjoyed adding the Zingers to the tile. It doesn’t look like a very interesting tangle when you first see it, but it is really fun to draw.
Tangled Tidbits -
*Zinger topped lines of Blooming Butter
*layering achieved with overlapping Zinger
From Ragged Ray (United Kingdom) ~
And so to this week's challenge. I struggle with Pixioze, so I disguised those struggles with heavy shading - creative surely rather than cheating?! And Blooming Butter is so beautiful, it feels somehow wrong to alter it, but I thought it might be fun to mirror those Pixioze auras within its petals. And Zinger made the perfect light border.
Tangled Tidbits -
*delicate and creative use of Zinger for a border
*three finishes to the inner aura lines of Blooming Butter
*detailed shading
From Jean Beckstom (Alabama) ~
What a lovely challenge with so many posibilities. I could have gone on and on with ideas but as this crazy week would have it, I needed to just settle for one today.
Thank you for all you do for us participants. You are very much appreciated.
...thank you - I am one grateful moderator.
Tangled Tidbits -
*clever combination of Zinger and Blooming Butter - notice how the lines layer in Hollibaugh fashion
*multiple aura for Pixioze
From Rebecca (Stamford, Connecticut) ~
I truly enjoyed this challenge! Blooming Butter was new for me and I really liked how it turned out, so much so that I thought it deserved a touch of gold. :-) Thanks for introducing me to this tangle.
Tangled Tidbits -
*gilded Blooming Butter
*thick field of Pixioze - notice the fill of black around the edges
From Marla Mendenhall (California) ~
Interesting challenge ... in more ways than the expected.
Tile 1 seemed obvious in placement of patterns, but still I was pleased with it. I inked Pixioze in a lighter gray pen for the illusion of distance, but not this light. When showing the tile to Hubby, he fumbled it twice, once to the floor, and the second time right into the cat's water bowl! Rushing to the kitchen, I patted it dry. No harm to the tile, it's watercolor paper, and the black ink and graphite survived nicely, but the gray ink ... water-based. That's one way to find out. (The other way is to read the label.) Oh well. No paramedic called, for either him or me.
In fact, I didn't even throttle him when he questioned why there was so much negative space. So I filled it up on Tile 2.
On Tile 3 the Pixioze 'flowers' are tangelations from two of my own patterns, Dally On (as in medallion) and M-Pell, a propeller-like design. And I set two Zingers against each other to create 'buds' for the Blooming Butter vine. Fun stuff.
As usual, my right brain won out in the end when my left brain looked at the string and patterns, folded its arms and harrumphed. Raspberries to my critical voice!
Tangled Tidbits -
*Pixioze faded just right, thanks to "hubby and cat" :)
*fabulously filled tile with the tangles defining the string sections
*symmetrical Pixioze filled string circle
*double Zingers
*exciting variation of Pixioze morphed with Marla's own tangles:
A doubly warm welcome to Kathrin and Anne Bendel (Wuerzberg, Germany) ~
here you will find our...
Sister act - from Anne [Beginner] and Kathrin Bendel [CZT] (Wuerzburg, Germany )
Our first participation at IAST :)
My „little“ sister Anne is living with me for some time and sometimes she likes to tangle with me.
This week I told her about IAST and she wanted to participate. Well, and then we began to tangle our tile independent from each other.
Anne said: At first I wasn’t sure whether the tangles would fit together … and then suddenly the string disappeared. I was really impressed. I actually like my tile:)
Tangled Tidbits -
*Pixioze surround for Blooming Butter - both with dark outline
*delicate Zinger
Kathrin said: I really like your newsletter, Adele. I watch every week the pictures of the participants. I did participate once, but unfortunately forgot to send in the tile.
In the meantime I’ve seen so many tiles filled with Pixioze and wanted to try it myself for a few weeks, this weeks challenge was thus perfect to give it a try!
I sincerely hope that I will find the time to participate at your challenge more often.
Tangled Tidbits -
*sparkled darkened aura of Pixioze make the tangle pop
*detailed shading adds to sense of depth in the tangles as well as the white space
From sra (India) ~
When I finished this drawing and showed it to my uncle who was sitting across me, he said it reminded him of the British girls who had photographed themselves with fairies, setting off a true-false controversy in the early years of the 20thcentury, and confessing several decades later that it was false. I looked them up on the Internet. The photos are of these young cousins with tiny, gauzy fairies amidst a lot of leaves and plants. You can look up The Cottingley Fairies on the Internet. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, got taken in by these photos, which are now museum exhibits.The other anecdote this drawing spurred is amusing, at least to me. I was chatting with my much younger cousin on some messenger service and sent him some pictures of my attempts on this challenge. “Penthouse?” he asked. Even as I wondered what about this drawing reminded him, anyone, of Penthouse, there was a follow-up question: “Pentopus?” I asked him if the second question was a hasty attempt to negate a naughty joke and he swore it was a typo, he had meant to ask me if it was a five-tentacled octopus.
So there you are, that’s what my magnum opus looks like!
Tangled Tidbits -
*wonderful visuals and story to accompany this tile
*Pixioze flows along the border lines
*Zinger springs multiplies as it grows
From Stephanie Jennifer, CZT (Singapore) ~
I tweaked the string a little so that the circles overlapped each other. Pixioze is one of my favourite filler tangle, right along Printemps and Sand Swirl. When I draw Zinger, I always draw it really thick, so this was a change from the usual.
Tangled Tidbits -
*rings of delicate Zinger
*shaded layers of Pixioze and shadowed Zinger
From Sabine (Germany) and
here on her blog ~
here is my contribution for this week. Blooming Butter was one of the first pattern I have learned last year, but for a long time I have not used. Thank you for [the reminder]!
Many greetings from Germany
Tangled Tidbits -
*Pixioze and Zinger filled Blooming Butter
*Pixioze center for Blooming Butter
*multiple variations of Zinger
From Linda Gonclaves (Pennsylvania) and photographed on a
Tickled To Tangle frame, thank you Linda :) ~
Really thankful I had time to tangle this week and loved working with these. I still need the structure of your choices of tangles and strings to be really satisfied with the end result. I am happy with this.
Tangled Tidbits -
*dotted aura of Blooming Butter
*Pixioze topped Zinger
From Talia Maynard (London, United Kingdom) ~
Here's my tile for this week's challenge. I've been so busy recently, I haven't had time to participate for the last few weeks, but I managed to squeeze this one in and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.
Tangled Tidbits -
* Zinger filled Blooming Butter lines
*four variations of Blooming Butter
*outlined border filled to the brim with Pixioze
From Sidney Kapinos (Virginia) ~
It's been a while, but I'm back with a tile for It's A String Thing #147. :)
I think Pixioze, Blooming Butter, and Zinger were great choices for this springtime challenge, and worked well with this week's string. My goal was for my tile to have a light, breezy feel (which hopefully I managed to achieve).
Thanks for another fun challenge!
Tangled Tidbits -
*delicate stems of Zinger
*softly shaded Blooming Butter sans connecting lines
From Aloyna Pakhomova (Toronto, Canada) ~
Here is my tile for this week. Very lovely tangles.
Tangled Tidbits -
*Pixioze aura compliments Zinger
*Blooming butter is shaded along the outer rim and along the connecting lines
*sparkled black orbs of Blooming Butter repeat around Zinger
From Kate (United Kingdom) ~
The weather here in the north of England has been wet and chilly for the
last few days, not very June-like at all, but Blooming Butter has
brought a little taste of summer!
Tangled Tidbits -
*each string circle has a different tangle, or combination of tangles
*dark, sparkled aura outlines Blooming Butter
*softly shaded tangles
From (Richmond Hill, Ontario) ~
Enjoyed this week's challenge. It was fun to treat the circles like little windows.
Tangled Tidbits -
*thickly outlined 'windows' to summer - wonderful idea
*pretty Pixioze background
From Sue Agnew (Arizona) ~
How on earth did it get to be #147 already??!! (How on earth did it get to be June already??!!)
I didn't expect to have an entry this week. I played around a bit but couldn't really figure out where to go from the individual tangles. Then I noticed that in one of Michele's examples of Blooming Butter, she connected the lines separating the "petals" to lines of another "flower." So I tried doing that to create a bigger circle, and it wanted to come out in sixes instead of fives.
I originally thought I would vary the string to use only three circles, but they turned out much more compact than I'd predicted, and I had room for a fourth circle. That's why they're not in the same size configuration as the original string.
It's mostly a Blooming Butter monotangle with a few Zingers thrown in.
Thanks for this fun community of tanglers!
Tangled Tidbits -
*striking variation of Blooming Butter
*Zinger adds movement
From Julie Bazuzi (Washington) and here on her blog ~
I have to say I really appreciated this challenge for making me work in new ways. I couldn't find my inspiration until I decided to work with white ink & chalk pencil on black paper. It's not something I try my hand at very often, but this week I jumped in to see what I could create.
I've written a bit about this week's challenge on my blog, if you wouldn't mind including the link. Perhaps other tanglers would enjoy reading how mixing it up helped me get unstuck from my "artist block."
Thanks for holding space for this community!
Tangled Tidbits -
*Julie's journey to create this tile is inspirational. She writes about it on her blog (link above) - please take time for yourself and read it when you can.
*Pixioze fades as Zinger shines
*Blooming Butter shines with white highlights
From Becky Welty (North Carolina) ~
Tangled Tidbits -
*a burst of Zinger stretches out to fill three of the string's circles
*outlined border and string circles
*super shading
A very warm welcome to Matt W. (Princeton, NJ) ~
Attached is my submission for IAST #147. It is my first submission and i look forward to continuing my contribution to the group and improving on my work.
Tangled Tidbits -
*Blooming Butter fills the string's circles
*dimension added to Pixioze with shading and black filled spaces
*graceful Zinger
From Susan Theron (Veldriff, South Africa) ~
Tangled Tidbits -
*shaded string circles filled with two variations of Blooming Butter and Zinger
*pearl-like centers of Blooming Butter
*lovely Pixioze background
From Felicity Strohfeldt (South Africa) and here on her blog ~
Made it this week with challenge 147. Great challenge. One glance at the string and it all came together. I’ve used these tangle quiet often before, so this probably added to the comfortable use of them in your string. Bloomin Butter by Michele Beauchamp immediately suggested Spring flowers and Pixioze by Margaret Bremner works well in a puff shape and naturally, Zinger by Maria Thomas added the “Zing”.
End of Spring on your side of the planet, but in the Westerncape, South Africa, the drought (worst in 100 years) continues. Probably means that we will see very few spring flowers this year. Think of us in your prayers.
Tangled Tidbits -
*prayers for rain, to be sure...
*exquisite variations of Blooming Butter - sparkle, Tipple, shading, aura...
*sparkle and darkened centers for Pixioze clusters
*thick and thin stems of Zinger
A very warm welcome to Jonesy ~
Tangled Tidbits -
*weighted lines of a large Pixioze
*thick, shaded line of Blooming Butter flow into Zinger
*tangles move from small to large
From Sindy P, CZT ~
Never thought I was a perfectionist... But this took me so long, I guess I have to give up my stance.
I printed your string, then hand drew bunches of permutations and interpretations.
I settled on this one and reprinted the string. Yes, hand drawn but then I imported it into an app that I used to clean it up, and recolored some of the pieces.
This painting app is called Procreate and it is made for Apple devices . But there are lots of painting programs for all platforms.
Thanks, Adele I had fun with this...
Tangled Tidbits -
*ribbon-like strands of Zinger push passed the border lines
*double outlined string sections
*glowing white highlights
From Adri van Wyck (South Africa) ~
Enjoy this so much ... I have to do it twice.
Tangled Tidbits -
*large Pixioze, weighted lines, shading, and rims of smaller Pixioze
*sparkle, aura, perfs - fabulous touches
*outlined string circles filled with the three tangles
*interconnected Blooming Butter
From Sharyn Penna (Massachusetts) ~
I loved your Wednesday post featuring your nephew's tea pot creation ... he inspires us all.
And speaking of inspiration, your string and pattern choices this week captivated my attention.
Cheers!
Tangled Tidbits -
*beautiful variation of Blooming Butter floats over a sea of Pixioze
*Zinger tipped Blooming Butter
*white space aura surrounds Zinger
Lastly, this is my tile ~
I initially thought to fill the background with Pixioze, but filled in the larger Blooming Butter instead. I tangled each of the others a bit differently and then finished off the lines with Zinger. This left a bit too much white space and something resembling a dancing ostrich, so I added Tipple and shaded in more Zinger :)
And now...
the tile for honors this week...
was sent in by...
Gesine from Germany ~
loved this one! Great tangles and an unusual string - I immediately thought of something light and airy to fit the nice late spring weather we are supposed to have now (not this sticky mess mixed with crazy rainfall as we have in most of Germany at the moment…).
Tangled Tidbits -
*detailed, yet uses white space to accent the tangles
*tangles and shading define the string's circles
*Pixioze anchors the tangles flowing upward
*three variations of Blooming Butter
*a Pixioze butterfly
*super shading and shadowing
Congratulations, Gesine. I have a little some thing coming in the mail for you.
Thank you to the creative minds behind the tangles used this week with my string:
Pixioze by Margaret Bremner, CZT
Blooming Butter by Michele Beauchamp, CZT (also on TanglePatterns)
Zinger by Maria Thomas, Zentangle ® co-founder
Many thanks to everyone who shared their creative work with us this week. You inspire and encourage all of us.
Check back Tuesday afternoon for "It's a String Thing" #148!
