More Zentangle pics, paper pieced Friendship block testing

Hello to you dear  readers,

With all that  heat here I didn't get much sewing done in the last few days since there's no cooling in  my sewing room. I was thinking about getting a portable one, but realized our electric system would not be able to handle it. We live in an older house with only 3  fuses for our apartment (we're renting) and don't have the option to update.

Instead I was drawing in the office with the A/C on :) I really enjoy making the Zentangle designs and thinking about getting more books to learn to draw even more. I was never a strong drawer in school, but I know my Mom can sketch really well. Once She sketched a picture of my baby sister sleeping and it totally looked like her.  It's interesting because I always liked to color as I can remember. Painting was not my cup of tea since I don't like to get my hands dirty.... All right, except  when baking. 

The other day we were at the playground with my friend who's daughter is 1 and went to the sand box. I realized that I have no memories with sandboxes. Guess I didn't like playing in the sand when I was a kid. Maybe something to do with no dirt on my hands? Who knows... And for the record, I use gloves for gardening. :)

Below presented  the masterpieces I created :)

Another topic...I've been chatting with a few people back and forth  through blogland. I really enjoy meeting other quilters. I happened to  meet Kristy from Australia who blogs at Quiet Play. She's really into paper piecing and have been designing some awesome new patterns. She also has a blog hop with paper pieced block projects for your  orphan blocks. 

The block I tested for her is the Friendship block, it measures 4"x6". She's planning to publish the free pattern in her September blog post. If you like my version keep an eye  out for her! She designed the block in solid colors, but I didn't have any  blue solids on hand so I used my scraps. It needs little pieces, this  way I could use up my smaller scraps.

This is what it looks like:

I should've used blue thread since the stitches show  with white. Now that I looked at it just realized the I messed up in the middle. I used light blue fabric instead of dark blue. Arrrrgh! I am definitely not going to take it apart :))) Guess I payed  more attention to matching the seams than the fabric placement. Never mind :)
I'll be back a little later with my Craftsy  BOM for August, they're still in the works.

'Til we blog again! :)

Do you Zentangle?

Hello my wonderful readers!

I'm away from the headquarters on house sitting duty for my friends until a week from Monday so I'll probably not get much done in the sewing department. I thought of doing something else that doesn't require the sewing machine. I brought my Grandmother's flower garden quilt with me which I haven't had a chance to spread out. Yet. Also brought a book which is called Zentangle Basics by Suzanne McNeill. 

This is what the cover looks like:

It's not a thick book, only 19 pages, but I like the ideas in it to create your own zentangle. I was thinking that I  could use this method in machine quilting to divide up the quilt into different sections and then quilt each section with different motives (is that the right spelling?). 

Anyway... It was a beautiful sunny  morning and I took the woofies out to the backyard to run around and while they were out there I sat down on the patio and started the drawing. I started to read the book last night, but realized that I'll have to do the drawing at the same time because I will not remember all I've read if I didn't put it on paper. 

Here's what I came up with:

Okay... so the square is a little crooked and I didn't have a ruler to correct it. It was just a freehand thing, didn't even have an eraser to erase the pencil marks outside of the square. You get the picture :) The instructions are calling for a 3.5" x 3.5" square, I think mine is more like 4-ish. 

I spent the majority of my afternoon with ironing some fabrics while watching Shawshank Redemption on A&E. Boy, I love Morgan Freeman! :) The way he narrates, has a calming  effect on me. 

When the movie was over Criminal Minds came on. I am a HUGE CSI fan and I heard about Criminal Minds, but have never seen any episodes. I really liked it, I watched about 4-5 of them. I was lucky to watch it on Tivo so I could skip the commercials.

That's all for now, I just wanted to post this little "artwork" I did so maybe someone else will try it. I found two videos up on  Youtube if you want  to watch how to use this method. This video is by the author demonstrating her technique. She suggest a 0.1 micron pen, I did mine with the thin sharpie and worked just fine.

'Til we blog again! :)