"It's a String Thing" #223 Tiles

This post is a "day late and a dollar short" as my grandmother was fond of saying, but I think you will agree that the the wait was worth it when you see the beautiful display of tiles below.

We used star inspired tangles for this festive time of year. 
There are Christmas greetings here from all over the world - Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and a dozen states - truly a universal celebration.

One tangler completed her goal of participating in every IAST this year - read on to find out who made this remarkable resolution.

Be sure to check the end of the post to see who wins the random drawing for my new eBook written in collaboration with Dorian Eng, CZT (Click on the photo to the right for more information.)

Now, let's take a look ~

The first tile arrived from Lily (Hungary) ~

...here is my rsponse for your weekly challenge. I used chocolate brown colored paper for this piece.
Zenhug:

From Sandra (Germany) and here on her blog ~

once again such a wonderful challenge :-) I like patterns looking like stars and so I really loved this challenge a lot!
I combined Widgets to Stella and Aah and tangled on a black tile.
Have a wonderful week and a contemplative pre-christmas period,
many greetings from germany,

From Ria Matheussen, CZT (Belgium) ~

Thank you for another beautiful seasonal challenge with the beautiful tangles Stella and AHH.
Again, I have made my entry on one of my eco-dyed tiles. and enjoyed making this drawing very much.
My husband and I are living in the south of Belgium but our sons in the north. Next week we are going to spend some days with them and there, I will not have time for tangling. So this was my last challenge of the year. Again I wanna thank you for so many interesting challenges and I hope to join also many times in the New Year.
Greetings from the heart from Belgium

From Gale Sherman (Tucson, Arizona) ~

Though I haven't participated in recent months I've been enjoying all your beautiful and creative tiles. And from your comments I find it interesting how individually we are REALLY challenged by different string and pattern challenges. I know I'm challenged by straight lines so usually I bend/curve them to suit by fancy. However today I say the opportunity to make a big #Stella (I've never used this before) creating cells in which I could include other tangles. Hence, you have #betweed. #zinger, and #flux with some #ahh and one #starawan flying around. I used a bit of GellyRoll Metalic gold, and yellow watercolor in addition to our regular tools. 'Twas fun! Happy Holidays, Adele and other Worldwide Tanglers!

From Shirley Wohlsen (Queensland, Autralia) ~

Attached is my Tile for ‘ It’s A String Thing #223’ challenge.
I love Jana’s ‘Tangle ‘Stella’ and ‘Fiore’ has been a favourite of mine from the first time I used it.
This week’s challenge was a joy to Tangle.
I have just purchased Tiny Tangled Houses, haven’t as yet read it all, but it looks like a lot of fun, so I’m about to start cutting the tiles to build my little houses.
Then onto the joy of tangling them, Thank you Dorian and Adele for coming up with this lovely idea.

A very warm welcome to Michelle Wood (California) ~

Welcome to our IAST community and to our Tangled Map (right near Gara💗), Michelle!

From Lisette (Switzerland) ~

This is my contribution to IAST# 223. Stella is a wonderful pattern. I tangled a Shnek-border around it. Ahh (like CO2) always amazes me. How can such a simple form be so expressive!? But there are so many Zentangle secrets...

From Dani (Semarang, Indonesia) and here on her blog ~

The last IAST challenge for this year, 2017. Thank you Adele. Happy holiday.

From Lynn G (Florida) ~

Thank you Adele for another fun challenge. Stella is one of my favorite tangles.

From Hilary (Chicago) ~

When I first saw Stella, I thought what a wonderful pattern, so many possibilities! And that's true, but it took me several notebook practice pages and three videos to understand how to draw it. Quite the learning experience! Ahh is one of those great "never-fail" patterns that's easy with so many variations. After my rough start I really enjoyed this one.
So thanks again and all best wishes for this wonderful season!

From Jody Genovese, CZT (New York) ~

I want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Thank you so much for all of your amazing challenges this year. I look so forward to them.
Attached is my tile. Stella is one of my favorites so a great way to end the year.
Wishing all of my fellow tanglers a very warm and wonderful holiday season!
See you next year!!

From Pat (Washington State) ~

Wishing you and your family a joyous, healthy, happy and blessed Christmas.

From Mariam G (Port Hueneme, California) ~

Hard to believe we have reached the end of 2017 already - this year has flown by for sure! Here in Ventura county we are not having a wonderful end to it, unfortunately. We are all praying for the families impacted by the fire and for the brave souls risking their lives everyday on the front lines. Sadly, we lost one of them yesterday. Such a tragic loss; perhaps everyone could say a little prayer for his family this season.

 (Note:  Mariam lives near the raging wildfires in California.  Her note refers to a fireman killed while bravely fighting the fires.  Please do keep all in your prayers.)

I did not want to miss the final IAST, so I made certain to set aside some time to complete a tile. Simple seemed the way to go on this one, and I'm happy with the result (I have been playing with General's MultiPastels and am loving the colors and the blending capabilities).

From Thekla (Germany) ~

I wish us wonderful Christmas and a happy peaceful new year!!

From Priscilla DeConti, CZT (New York) ~

To Adele and all..May you have a wonderful and blessed Christmas and a happy joyous New Year...
Thanks Adele for these challenges that keep me on my toes and encourage me to try new harder tangles.
Love your houses and hope to get them soon...
God Bless

From Simone Menzel, CZT (Germany) ~

Thank you for the lots of beautiful IAST challenges over the year! Even if I do not take part every week I explore every single challenge and watch all the beautiful contributons.
I like the tangle of this week very much and wanted to draw it already for a long time. So I took this chance of the IAST challenge.
Here is my tile - I used a renaissance tile...
I wish you a very happy Christmas time and all the best for 2018. I hope to attend to many more IAST Challenges next year

From Ulrike (Germany) and here on Flickr ~

I´m so glad to found your blog and challenge. Thank you for your great work! It is so nice to have a place, where can meet other Zentangle friends and look at their works and learn.
I wish you, your family and all Zentangle friends a merry, peaceful Christmas and a healthy, happy new (Tangle) year!
Kind regards from Germany.

From Verena (Germany) ~

Wish you wonderful Christmas days.

From Ingrid Coventon (The Netherlands) ~

In the attachment my IAST # 223 tile for this week.
How could I let this challenge pass? I love Stella. So here is my tile .
Much much love, have a blessed last two weeks of this year 2017 and enjoy your holiday season.
Your gingerbread houses are so gorgeous. Love them.
Congratulations to you and your friend Dorian with your e-book with the little houses.

From Zhou Yanli (China) ~

This work looks like Christmas decorations, and wishes all the friends to have a happy Christmas!

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

your challenge brought a wonderful holiday feeling. I enjoyed tangling two Christmas cards. The second you can find on my blog
I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season, merry Christmas and a happy healthy new year!
Best wishes from Germany,

From VenaC (Whitby, Ontario, Canada) ~

I really enjoyed doing Stella. It is such and elegant tangle. It can be used as a star, a snowflake, a flower, or simply just a pattern as in my contribution. Our weather is snowy and overcast, so I needed some colour. I wish you and your family lots of fun together over the festive season. Once again, thank you so much for putting this challenge together. It is really much appreciated.

From Lori Byerly (Washington State) and here on her website ~

Thanks so much for all you do. Each week I'm challenged to stay creative, try new patterns, and more. You are a gift to the Zentangle community.
Here is my tile for this week's challenge.

From Sra (India) ~

I drew several Stellas but was satisfied only after the eighth or ninth attempt. In the process, I ended up with tangelations (?) of both Stella and Ahh. The Ahh tangelation is a result of attempting perfection! :-P - And see what happened! ;-)
I'm actually very proud that MY tile looks as good as this!
The Stella motif is very common in a South Indian system of decorating front yards of homes with rice flour powder/paste. We call it the 'lotus' motif but the dots scheme is the same as the step-out. In that system, we join the dots to form the pattern or draw around them, using them as a guide and a decoration. You can see more of what I mean here.
Have a great week!

From Lin H, CZT (Florida) ~

Happy Holidays, Adele! I had not drawn Stella in a while and placed my initial dots so close to my border, I ended up having to kind of squeeze the rest of the pattern in. I really like shading white charcoal on black and the gold seemed to fit in with the stars of Ahh. So it turns out I’m okay with my tile. It looks Christmas-y to me!

From Karen Herstowski (Atlanta, Georgia) ~

This is the most wonderful time of the year and this was the best tangle yet! Such a delicate accent to and astoundingly dramatic pattern. Thanks go to Maria and Jana for these patterns. Thank you Adele for bringing us all together with design.
Have a wonderful holiday season.
See you next year…………

From Susan (United Kingdom) ~

Seasons Greetings to tanglers all over the world.

From Sue Leslie (New Mexico) ~

Hi and Happy Holidays.
This was a fun string and a festive one too. Ahh has always been one of my winter favorite tangles. Stella was a more recent tangle for me and I am enjoying it. Thanks for giving us some challenges during the year. Merry Christmas to all.

From Susie (St. Louis, Missouri) ~

I wish everyone happy holiday season.

From Susan Theron (Velddrif, South Africa) ~

A merry Christmas and a happy new year to all.

From Sharon Fite (California) ~

Great tangles, Adele! I kept it simple this time. The lance shape in Stella always reminds me of heraldry, thus the Knightsbridge treatment. I have to tell you that this finishes a year of contributing for me. I made a resolution last January to participate in every IAST challenge you posted, and I did! That may be a first for me --actually keeping a resolution! I love learning new tangles and using them in challenging strings. Thank you, Adele, for putting it out there and encouraging this incredible community. Happy Holidays!

From Robin (Reno, Nevada) ~

Here you go! I really loved the two tangles you put forward for this week, and wanted to participate, but I hurt my back. So, instead of sitting in a chair bending over my tile on a table in front of me, I stood at the kitchen counter and placed my tile on a shoebox so that the tile was just a few inches from my face. Voila! No bending necessary.
I hope you like it, I had fun with it! I especially needed a distraction this week. Thank you for the challenge!

From Renee (Tennessee) and on Instagram ~

From Felicity Strohfeldt (South Africa) and here on her blog ~

...First of all, thank you dear Adele for all the creative and lovely challenges this year, also for all the personal snippets and family highlights. Thank you for your love and positivity towards all who participate in your weekly challenges. Your informative comments teach me much about the lovely art of zentangle and I look forward to every week.
Some news from my side: I celebrated my birthday on the 13th and guess what I received from Susan Theron, my friend who also lives in my town and is also the one who introduced me to zentangle four years ago? An electronic copy of Tiny Tangled Houses! Isn’t that great? What a wonderful surprise. I can’t wait for peace and quiet after the festive season to settle down to building and drawing...
Tile 223 was a lovely festive challenge. Stella by Jana Rogers is a magnificent tangle pattern. I love it and Ahh by Maria Thomas,,pure Simplicity, was just the right companion for sophisticated Stella. Turned out as I intended. If you look carefully you’ll see a hint of gold dust applied. Great last tangle for this year!
Merry Christmas dear Adele and extended family. Enjoy them all. May 2018 be good to one and all.

And now...

the winner of the random drawing...

for my new eBook, Tiny Tangled Houses, is...

Mariam G from Port Hueneme, California!

Congratulations, Mariam.


Thank you to Maria Thomas for Ahh and to Jana Rogers, CZT for Stella - the two tangles we thoroughly enjoyed this week.

Thank you all for your lovely tiles, sweet greetings, and for sharing this passion for all things tangled.

IAST will return with #224 on January 2, 2018!

In the meantime, check back often as I will post some stories and artwork to celebrate this most wonderful time of the year.