Tangled Tuesday No. 6

Well, another Tangled Tuesday has arrived… and it appears as though I have to start off with a bit of a confession! After last week’s tangling marathon, I’m afraid that today’s post is going to be rather tame by comparison – because between losing a day to a roadwork-related headache, having a busier than usual social calendar, receiving a couple of deliveries of outdoor furniture that required assembly, and continuing to get our place ready for some soon-to-arrive houseguests (yay!), there has been little time left for tangling over the past few days. Still, I do have some good Zentangle®¹-related stuff to share with you, so I hope you enjoy today’s Tangled Tuesday post anyway!

Tangling Goodies

Since I finished Totally Tangled (by Sandy Steen Bartholomew) last week, I was finally able to start working through Joy of Zentangle, a book that’s been sitting in my box of tangling supplies and quietly tempting me for several months now. I’m noticing that there are a few repeat designs, both from Totally Tangled and also One Zentangle A Day (by Beckah Krahula), but there are also plenty of new patterns to learn and I’m enjoying making those discoveries. Hopefully it won’t take me quite as long to make my way through this new book!

I’m asked occasionally which book I’d recommend as a good resource for a newbie tangler. Maybe it’s because it’s the way I learned to tangle and therefore I’m the most comfortable with it, but based on the books I’ve seen and used so far I always come back to One Zentangle A Day as my go-to pick for its approach, pacing, and style. A couple of people have mentioned that they were able to check out a copy of this (and other Zentangle books) from their local library, which is a great way to see if tangling is something that interests you before making the commitment to purchase a specific book.

New Tangles

This week I learned Vine, Uptown, Twist, Becki, Twiggy, Apeel, Ammon, Asian Fans, Bricks, and Bubbles, all from Joy of Zentangle.

I must admit that I was a little put off by Joy of Zentangle at first, because included within the introductory pages were a handful of designs that didn’t have the full step-out guidelines normally provided with new tangles, and one in particular (you’ll be able to tell right away which one I’m talking about if you click on my links above!) was impossible for me to master. I practiced it over and over and still wasn’t happy with the final outcome, but rather than dwell on it and allow myself to get bogged down I decided to move on and write that particular design off for the time being. Maybe some day I’ll be able to return to it and find it a little easier to conquer – here’s hoping, anyway!

Tangling-in-Progress

Carrying on with my alphabet series, I started (but wasn’t able to finish) the letter F this week – I’ll give you a taste of it by revealing a small detail of one of the designs. (All of the slips and flaws you see are photographic proof that finished pieces – at least MY finished pieces! – are NOT meant to be examined quite this closely!)

Detail of “F” in progress

Finished Projects

I’m disappointed to say that I have no finished projects to share this week… but I’m hoping I’ll have time to be a little more productive in the tangling department throughout the coming days!

One little announcement of note – though not strictly a finished project, I suppose – is that this week I set up a custom domain name for Ten Thousand Tangles. As it turns out, unbeknownst to me Ten Thousand Tangles also celebrated its first birthday this week, so I thought the timing of the two ended up being a rather nice coincidence!

Coming Soon

This week’s tangling goals include:

• Set up and order some Ten Thousand Tangles business cards (because I know that I’ll kick myself if the topic of tangling comes up when I’m networking at BlogHer ’14 and I don’t have any cards to hand out!).
• Photograph my previously-completed set of four Zendalas and set up listings to sell the originals in my as-yet-to-be-opened Etsy store (yes, I know this was on my list last week, but I’m afraid I haven’t yet managed to get to it).
• Carry on with my Zenletter collection.
• Continue adding products to Ten Thousand Tangles.
• Create pieces for new sponsors.

P.S.

Previous posts in this series are all tagged Tangled Tuesday.

For background on how I discovered and got involved in Zentangle, and links to further information and resources, check out my blog post For the love of tangling.

You can browse my entire tangle gallery at Ten Thousand Tangles.

And, if you’re interested in having a little piece of my art for yourself, please click on the GoFundMe button below for more information and also visit my Zazzle shop Ten Thousand Tangles. (Pssst… links to my international Ten Thousand Tangles shops are in the Alphabet Salad sidebar – just click on the appropriate flag and you’ll get to the place you need to be!)

¹ The Zentangle® Method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is copyrighted. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.