It occurs to me that this has turned into a Zentangle® blog and has not showed any of my textile work recently.  That's because there hasn't been any textile work recently.  I've temporarily lost my textile mojo.  Maybe because it's summer, and who wants to work with wool in the summer...but I am starting to get concerned.  Ok, enough of that.  Let's just hope inspiration returns.

Last night I did a quick tangle based on the Project Pack 06 Day 5, which was great fun.  It was so late when I did this that my hands were shaky but that's alright:

That version of Mooka, discovered by Julie Willand, CZT, was hugely fun, although I need more practice with it.  I think my version/attempt should be called "Black-Capped Melting Mooka" for the little caps I added to it.  I am looking forward to playing with it more.

This evening I took an online class with Romi Borax Marks, CZT, also known as The Tangled Yogi.  She is all about color and is an excellent teacher, as I've been saying an my recent posts.  Here is the result.

That was the first time I worked on a hexagonal tile--they are all the rage right now in the Zentangle world.  I enjoyed it (especially for the smooth tooth of this particular paper) but am not sure what all the fuss is about yet.  I need to experiment with them more.  Happy to have had a chance to try one, though.

Yesterday I asked my neighbor if she knew what the flowering, beautifully scented bush was in our front yard (we didn't plant it) and she said yes:  Clethra.  I thought she said "plethora" and assumed she was referring to the high number of fabulous blossoms.  But no, she was naming Clethra alnifolia, also known as the sweet pepperbush or "summersweet."  I love that last name.

Summersweet is incredibly seductive to honeybees and butterflies, both of which I've seen--a "plethora" of them--since it began to bloom a few weeks ago.  And the scent...oh, the scent is so lovely.  I feel honored to be in the presence of this plant.  I remember it bloomed the first summer I moved here, but not last year.  What a treat to have it make such a big comeback this year.  Here's a blossom from our front yard.

There were so many honeybees and other cuties drinking from the flowers that I'm surprised I didn't have to beat any of them back to get this photo but this one stem was not being worked just as I snapped the shutter.  Lots of Monarch butterflies and other butterflies around it also this year.  It's a good year for the Monarchs around here--god knows they need a good year.  And the bees as well.

Advice from a Honeybee

Create a buzz.
Sip life's sweet moments.
Mind your own beeswax.
Work together.
Always find your way home.
Stick close to your honey.
Always bee yourself.

--Ilan Shamir

I hasten to say here that I am simply following along with the Project Pack videos as I draw, so these compositions are copies of what is on the videos, not my original compositions.  99% of what I post here is original to me, but sometimes, when I don't have the mojo--which has been happening lately for unknown reasons--it's just so relaxing to follow along and copy-to-learn-from someone else's work.  I always attribute the work to the originator, as I've done here and for my last several posts.

I am definitely--and very oddly--still off my game, but I did manage to produce this today:

I would love to take full credit for it, but the truth is that while I did indeed draw this, I was really just following along with a video on YouTube by Romi Borax Marks, CZT.  She has a lot of videos and they are all worth watching.  I needed to be totally brainless-but-focused and her video did the trick.  Don't get me wrong:  SHE'S not brainless!  I am the temporarily brainless one.  I needed to be "one of the herd" today, and not have to think about anything.

I had to vary my materials quite a bit from what she uses, and that did require some creativity.  For example, all the color on her video is applied with colored pencils.  On mine, I first applied art tissue paper in order to prep the tile before I bound it into a Bitty BookZ™ so the color was already there and thus I had to use  colors I'd chosen weeks ago; I did punch them up a bit with Prismacolor pencils.  In addition, Romi uses very smooth tiles that she produces and sells, whereas my tangle was done on traditional Fabiano Tiepolo printmaking paper (i.e., the regular 3.5" Zentangle® tile) which has a lot of tooth (not smooth).  So in the end there was a big difference between her process and mine.

Why I am feeling so creatively stymied is a big question, and I expect I'll understand it eventually but in the meantime I am just attempting to make a quiet and easy "comeback" with completely non-stressful work.  There's not much that is less stressful than working alongside an excellent video done by an excellent teacher.  I highly recommend Romi's videos.

Actually, make that utter shock.

I went to Elaine Huffman's studio today for a "Bitty BookZ™ maker event," thinking I would pick up a lot of tips from those more experienced.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered none of the other 5 participants had ever made a bitty book.  I was even more surprised to end up in the role of teacher for this group.  Without any planning or rehearsal. ("Planning" and "Rehearsal" are my two middle names.)

Elaine could have taught the class--but she gave us her studio for the day plus fabrics and all the other supplies...and while we worked, she was madly cutting things for us in the background.  Without Elaine, none of this would have happened.  So what did happen?  This:

And below is a view from the side, so that you can see them slightly open:

See below for a couple of pictures of the books as they move thru the stages of creation:

And yes, those are chocolates at the top of the photo.  Surprisingly, people were so absorbed that I never saw anyone eat one...
On to the next stage:

And here below we have the entire group after their books were dry and we got to un-clamp and un-elastic them.  From left to right are:  Janeen, Jane, Carolyn, Cheryl, Laura, and the scamp at the bottom in the violet shirt is Elaine herself.  Elaine deserves huge applause for enabling this to happen.

Interested?  If you'd like to try it yourself, you can get Chris Titus's very helpful pdf describing what supplies are needed and how to do these from start to finish.  Click HERE to get the pdf ($10 US funds...well worth it).

You really CAN do this without a class, just from the pdf.  Take it slow, expect some mistakes along the way, and don't expect perfection from your first one.  But by the time you make the 2nd one, not only will it go faster, but you'll have it totally figured out.

Meanwhile, Janeen (a Certified Zentangle Teacher from Seminar 3!!!) filled her Bitty Book with ten of her own paper pages which she had made using the ever-popular "Shaving Cream" method of coloring and marbleizing the paper.  It's all over YouTube--just type in shaving cream + paper.  Here are a few of her tiles (now inside her beautiful book):

Janeen had a funny story about wanting to show her grandson how to color papers with the Shaving Cream method.  Except, her grandson had been doing it for years in his school and HE ended up giving HER tips and hints.

Of course, you can use plain white or black or tan tiles for your own book, or you can take your already-completed tiles (ones you've already tangled) and use those for your pages.  The possibilities are endless.

There is a Facebook page for BittyBookZ (oriented towards people who do Zentangle®); it's a closed group but you can ask to join if you want to join the fun.

The top of the 6-sided box I've been working on is finally tangled, and I've sprayed the entire thing with fixative.  All that's left is to add a button for closure.  Here's the top.

I went outdoors after dark last night and was mesmerized by the bountiful fireflies everywhere in my front yard.  Although I hadn't meant to, I stayed for over half an hour watching them as they danced in the dark.  So very lovely.  In their honor I added some white dots in the background on the top of the box, and also some dark dots on the right side of the top which is lighter in color.

To view a quick, lovely video on fireflies dancing, go HERE.  Don't miss it.

The box, which really isn't that big (perhaps 8" x 1"?) took forever to tangle as I worked my way along all 6 sides.  The paper actively resisted the ink, and it was awkward to tangle because of the shape.  But I think it will be quite functional as soon as I add that button.  I won't be making another one soon, however.

                                                                               ***
Yesterday must have been a good day for me as I also finished a Bitty BookZ™ version for Zendalas (see the last few posts for the link to more information on Bitty BookZ).  Here is the final result on that.  I'm quite pleased.

Oh, I am having way too much fun making these. I've made seven in the last two days.  Fortunately I'll be busy with other obligations the rest of the week and am forced to stop.

Here are the books with covers opened and spines exposed.  When fully opened, they're completely flat and should be very easy to tangle on.  I can't wait to try.

Someone online pointed out that these Bitty BookZ™ fit well in the old (no longer available) wooden box with the Zentangle® motto on the front.  I've never known what to do with this box but this answers the question.  I love it as a storage container.

And finally, this was some of the pre-book binding preparation mess.  All cleaned up now, thank goodness.

I'm not the only one obsessed with this, but wow, it took over my life this week!



"It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions."  --Robert Bly

Just what I need.  Another hobby.  Oh sure.

The only way I can justify this one is to say that I'm surprised at how well these things actually show off Zentangle® tiles.  Or would if I ever got good at making them.

Today's version was so badly bungled that I won't even go into the story, but it turned out sort of ok.  I made the most of what started out as a "right-royal mess," as my friend Vivienne used to say.

Not only that, but a bunch of cotton quilt scraps arrived in the mail from my kind friend Elaine J. Huffman.  Free! And mostly gorgeous batiks.  She is clearly enabling this addiction.  Thank you Elaine...I have 4 more books in the works already, thanks to your gift.  Clearly it pays to know a talented quilter.  See below.

On the left here is my hilariously inept first attempt at making a "Bitty BookZ™," a tiny book of Zentangle® tiles, invented by Chris Titus, CZT.  Trust me, these can be truly gorgeous.  But not this one!

Chris doesn't have a website so I can't link you to her beautiful work with her own Bitty BookZ™.

My aim was to learn the process today, nothing more.  The point was to build one prototype in which to make all the errors I was sure I would make, and then from here on I can actually create some nicer books.  I hope.

These Bitty BookZs are created with ten 3.5" tiles, so I started by picking out ten of my very earliest tiles from years ago when I was first learning to tangle.  These are tiles that show where I was when I was learning, and some of them are...shall we say...uninspired.  But it's always great to have my own early tiles to show students when I teach.  So I used almost all old tiles for the prototype.  See below to see the tiles in their new roles as pages in my finished book.

For some reason I was really apprehensive about trying this.  And I did make some hilarious errors.  For example, when I glued the paper on the front cover I got glue on the "right side," and then I had to do some tangling over it to cover up the worst of the mess.  It's still a mess in some of the blank spaces on the cover, just look.

But the cover paper on the back side was the worst mistake--I didn't look at it before applying glue, and discovered to my horror that I had glued all over the right side and therefore exposed the wrong side, which had commercial printing on it.  But...in true "There are no mistakes" Zentangle fashion, I tangled across the top to cover up the printing.  That's why there's an odd dark horizontal strip across the top of the back cover.

And then there was the cover-paper in general--I used card-stock for the covers.  Whoa, never again!  Too stiff.  What was I thinking?  Fortunately I have thin decorative papers and lots of fabric scraps for the next Bitty BookZs I make, which should render the entire process so much easier.

Live and learn.  All in all, I'm glad I worked up the nerve to try this on my own. 

"My mistakes are my life." --Samuel Beckett

I managed to avoid all the other things I was supposed to be doing today when I heard that my friend Cheryl Cianci, CZT, was offering her coffee-filter class again.  I only discovered this at the very last minute and raced out the door hoping to make it on time.  I had taken the class about 4-5 years ago but my experience of Cheryl is that there's always something new and it was utterly relaxing as usual.  She is the soul of kindness, and hugely talented.

Much gratitude to all who teach.

A compilation of random thoughts this fine spring morning.

1.  Aren't these buttons fun?  I found them online and loved them, probably because they remind me of various patterns used in Zentangle® and also of patterns used in Oriental Rugs.  I'm hoping to use them in some tangling projects.  And maybe one or two will inspire a rug.

They are a collection of tiny mandalas.

2.  I spotted this beauty yesterday on a walk.  Yowza!  A "button"/mandala created by Mother Nature herself, and what a beauty.  There has to be a tangle design (or a rug) in there somewhere.

The plant goes by the unglamorous name of Osteospermum, also known as "Flower Power White."  It stopped me in my tracks on my walk.  Just an amazing flower; it positively glowed.

3. This is a partially-done panel on the bottom (yes, the bottom) of a tan paper box.  I've been working on this for two weeks and the going has been slow because I don't have all that much time to tangle right now.  Below you can see the completed design.  It will probably take me another month to finish.

Alas, I couldn't quite get that photo above to come out straight-on, but you get the idea.

The same box, vertical photo.  I still couldn't get a straight-on image.

I don't have the box in front of me but I'm guessing that the dimensions are about 9" long, about 2" wide, and perhaps and inch-and-a-half tall, with a cover that flips open.  I have a button to sew on when I'm done with the tangling and will use that for a closure (not one of the buttons shown at the top of this post).


4. Spring has fully sprung here and today we're having stunningly beautiful weather; up until today there have been very few sunny days and plenty of soggy ones.

May all the lovely colors, sounds, and scents of spring fill your senses today. 

(At least in the Northern Hemisphere)

Before I retired, I often wore pins as a decoration when I went to my office.  But now that I spend my time in jeans and t-shirts, the pins are languishing.  Here is a pin I never wore, a cameo.  I love it (and used to have a much larger one which was far more lovely, but it was stolen during a break-in at my former residence) but I never wore it.  Not once.  I simply had it because it reminded me of some positive things from my childhood.  Since it was just languishing away, I re-purposed it onto a card with some tangling.  I may put it into a shadow-box frame.

This may or may not be a genuine cameo (there are plenty of plastic fakes out there) but it doesn't matter to me.  It has sentimental value.

In these troubled and challenging times, it's my deepest hope that all of us are supported by a network of unconditionally loving people in our lives.  I'm defining these "beloveds" as very dear friends, mentors, and special family. 

Unfortunately, we are not all lucky enough to be born into families with members who end up becoming beloved.  But in my family there were three people who fit this category. 

Today I took some time to re-frame the first of them, my beloved maternal grandmother, or Nana as I called her.  She died over 50 years ago, but I think of her and send her my love and thanks to her every single day.  She is never far from my mind.  Oh, how I loved that woman.  She taught me every good thing I have become, or hope to become.  Here she is.

The photo was taken in 1937 when she was about 60.  I have only two photographs of her because she absolutely hated having her picture taken.  As a young adult I was shocked to discover that she'd gone through our family photographs and cut her own face out of every one of them.  I never had the chance to ask her why she did this, and it puzzles me to this day. 

My understanding is that she was forced to quit school around age 12 in order to go to work, and later on she raised a large family single-handedly after her husband became extremely ill and was hospitalized for decades.  She had a lot of shame about her lack of formal schooling. 

And yet, she was the kindest, funniest, most loving and smartest person in my childhood, and created a strong family foundation for me.  She lived with us until her death when I was about 16.  Lucky me!  I got to spend every day with her for sixteen years. 

I never stop asking myself how I was fortunate enough to have her in my life. 

Rest well, Nana.  And thank you.

I have managed to grab a few minutes here and there for some creative work, which feels wonderful.  Not enough, however! 

Here are some of the things that have been accumulating.

On a totally other track, I am doing some punch needle embroidery and here is the progress on the piece so far.  The entire piece is about 9"x9" and you can see the start of it in my previous post.  It is very different than the one I did exactly a year ago (same piece, different colors and I did it in cotton last time; this is wool).

It feels so good to sneak in some creative work.  Makes all the difference to me...

My kind friend (and fellow Zentangle® enthusiast), Susie Ng from Thailand (check out her fabulous, imaginative artwork HERE), just sent me this photo below.  She took my single 3-Z tile from my February 22nd post, multiplied it, and manipulated it into this hexagonal mandala.  Thank you, Susie!  I'm assuming you used Photoshop, which I don't have.  Though I keep meaning to look into it.  What fun!

What a nice thing to do for a fellow tangler, Susie.  You gave me a big chuckle on an otherwise crazy day.  Now...I have to look into software that will allow me to do this.

In the style of one of my idols, Mori Yuzan, a Japanese artist who lived in the late 19th and early 20th century:

Yuzan's work has always been irresistible to me because of the linework.  Wave after wave.  and so many tangles (not that he would have thought of them that way).  Both of the above tiles are nearly copies - if not outright copies - of his spectacular work, which fortunately is now int he public domain.  So relaxing to draw these and hopefully learn a bit from him.

Both were done for Zenuari2019 day 14, "idol tangle."  I think I'll be doing a lot more idol tangles!

 Sure enough, I had the thing laminated this afternoon (see yesterday's post for an explanation of "the thing") and then with the help of an x-acto knife and 3 minutes of work, cut a center hole and installed the works. 

Voila, a completed Zentangle® Spinner.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm thinking about wheels/mandalas, etc., of which this is only one.

The big one--the Full Moon--was shining in my bedroom window so brightly last night that I thought she was going to come right through the glass and join me.  So I'll be calling this my Full Moon Spinner.

Now if we could all just learn from the quote below...

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
― Edgar Mitchell

This week's Solstice (yesterday) caused me to start thinking about wheels, as in the Wheel of the Year and how that wheel is turning once again.  I've had wheels on the brain.  For example, the Wheel in the tarot (see my previous post on the Wheel of Fortune card HERE), plus I just finished a Zentangle® project that had me creating a wheel, below.

The above wheel is going to grow up to be a "Spinner Board," once its spinner arm is inserted thru the hole in its center.  Before I do that, I'm thinking I will need to laminate and back the piece.  There are 55 different tangles on the piece, and I'm guessing it's about 9x9".  It was fun to do and took twelve days, tangling for about a half hour each day.  It's part of Zentangle's Project Pack 04 and all the relevant how-to videos are on YouTube.

In the process of doing this, my already messy desk grew completely out of control, so today I went on a massive cleaning binge.  It should be noted that, for me, a "massive cleaning binge" is equivalent to picking up one piece of paper from the floor.  I did not get the cleaning gene.  I was happily raised in Lower Slobbovia.

But today I swept my large desk clean and forced myself to sort through things and create a semblance of order.  It's quite shocking.  More work has to be done tomorrow but here is the progress so far.  (Wish me luck with maintenance...not a strength either)

Apparently the wheel turned into a Wheel of Progress for me.  At least for the next 24 hours.

Happy Solstice to all...

A few days ago, I shared a post called "Inspired By Others," in which I showed some work done a la Ernst Haeckel at our recent zenAgain2018 conference.  We didn't stop there, however, and today's post shows two very different artists whom we also explored.  Talk about crazy fun--this was a highlight of the conference for me.

Indeed, Keith Haring, one of Molly Hollibaugh's favorite artists when she was a child.  After wondering what, if anything, we could do with tangles and his work, Molly experimented and came up with this instruction at zenAgain2018, and below you see the tile I did as a result.  I was SO surprised - and delighted - by this choice of artists!

My own version of a Keith Haring-style tile.  Was this ever fun to do!  Done on a black Zendala tile with White Gellyroll pen #10.  Permission to break all the rules here, and just have a good time.

And if that alone wasn't enough, have a gander at the mosaic below.  Bear in mind that this is only  a partial photo of the whole mosaic.
Prepare to drool.

But wait--that's not all we did.

The next tile couldn't be more different.  (As is true for the "Ernst Haeckel-style" tile we did which I presented a few days ago)

Yes indeed, Master Klimt himself.  I couldn't do him justice--none of us could, really, but we all gave it our best shot and my tile's below, along with a partial picture of the group mosaic.

This is truly only a very small portion of the class mosaic, enlarged so that you can see the detail and the contrasts.

"What inspires me to paint? ...revisiting some old greats like Sargent, Homer, Whistler or local masters... thinking hard about a new approach or idea; or seeing a new painting on a friend's lounge room wall."
(Amanda Hyatt)

ERNST HAECKEL
was the inspiration for this:

At ZenAgain this week we experimented with tangling that was inspired by other people's work.  This sea creature above is inspired by the work of Ernst Haeckel, and was it ever fun to draw. 

Below is a mosaic of the class's work with this assignment.  We were each given some General's Chalk Pencils to use--we each received different colors and were required to work with whatever colors we got.  Once again, you can see that all of them were similar, and yet, each is distinctly different. 

This was only one small portion of a much larger table with these tiles displayed.

Maria Thomas, one of the founders of Zentangle®, has a remarkable poster with her own version of Haeckel's sea creature on a portion of it.  See her poster below.  I believe this is for sale but am not certain.  (UPDATE:  Yup, it's for sale at the Zentangle® website.)

And finally, below, is a photo of a book about Haeckel's beautiful work (the master himself).  There are many books available about him.

"All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Yes, this makes three blog posts in one day.  It's true.  Deal with it!  <g>

Ratoon is a new tangle from Molly Hollibaugh CZT (one of Maria Thomas's talented daughters) released earlier this week.  The title of the tangle actually comes from some research that Maria was doing to prepare for ZenAgain this week.  A "ratoon" is described thus:  "a new shoot or sprout springing from the base of a crop plant."  The theme of workshop was SEEDS--all the seeds from our art-ancestors that we use in creating art today, and all the seeds we are sowing as we do our own art and as we teach others.  You can see the seeds represented in the tangle above.

Just as those seeds have and will continue to sprout, so all art stands on the shoulders of all previous artists.  In making our art--even if it's bad art!--we honor them.  One of the many things I love about tangling is that I never know where something is going to go, how it will develop, and the highly calming effect of the process.  We all get the same instructions, and yet all our pieces, while obviously related, are so delightfully different.  I will put a partial mosaic of this tangle as an example of that below (partial because there were so many of us that I couldn't get the entire view).

Another Inktober2018 inspiration.  I had totally forgotten this one, and now I remember how much I loved it!  That's been a big benefit of this challenge--recalling and enjoying tangles I'd only ever done once.  This picture will serve to represent Inktober Day 28, but it's actually a picture I drew in 2015 and blogged about previously HERE.

The creator of this tangle says she named it Oybay because the orbs looked like pearls in an oy-ster and oysters live in the bay.  Just looking at this 2015 first try makes me itch to try it again today, and perhaps I will.

Inktober was very productive for me and even though I was so ill for so long in the middle of the month, it was easy and fun to keep up or do a few tangles in one day to catch up.  By now, coming off this intense illness, I had a fair amount of catching up to do.  I decided to work in my pre-strung journal, as I noted yesterday.  So far I'm not thrilled with working directly on the journal pages because it's hard to turn the entire journal (versus the ease of turning a tile and then pasting the tile into the journal).

So although I had a GREAT time doing these tangles, the page itself looks busier than I would like and some of these would have been nicer if I had been able to turn the journal more as I worked.  Nevertheless, I am done with Inktober2018 and just loved the experience.

Below is my version of a tangle called Pais, which is the Day 6 tangle in the Inktober2018 challenge.  I'm curious as to why I seem to be keeping up with this challenge when I rarely can with others.  Maybe because I'll be teaching a class soon and want to practice as much as I can, or maybe just because these tangles are "monotangles" (only one tangle requested per day, although there's no rule saying you cannot use as many as you wish).  At any rate, I'm having fun.

Yesterday was an odd day.  It's been a tough week politically (to say the least) and then I had a few additional major concerns about friends.  I just couldn't settle myself, no matter what I tried. 

Finally I dragged myself out of the house and went to see this wonderful art exhibit by Jen Luck Hale, below.  I had seen the publicity and knew that colors would help me cheer up.  And they did.  If you are anywhere near Western MA in the next month or so, don't miss this one.  It's not just "snowflake-y" cut paper, it's cut paper in great colors with nature as the theme.  Plants, birds, fish, insects...it's all there.  And oh, the colors!  What a talented artist she is.  From what I have read, she does NOT draw on the paper, but just "cuts by eyeing it."  Wow.  Read about her process HERE.  Details and a couple of photos below. 

Don't you feel better just looking at those colors?

This (below) is only a small portion of what is on display. 

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I bought three t-shirts, each with a different design I absolutely adored.   Each one was like a mandala to me.

[Ok, so it was actually only 2 1/2 hours' drive from here and only about 20 years ago.  But I do love these t-shirts.]

Slowly but surely they are all starting to wear out. I got the idea to use the designs for a series of 3 punchneedle embroidery pieces (see the other two designs below), and have just completed the last of the trio.  The designer, Rob McLellan, gave his t-shirt designs titles, and the title of this one is "Elksong."  Many thanks to the folks at University Silkscreen for giving me permission to interpret these designs in my needlework.  I'm really happy to finally be able to share what I've been working on all summer.

Below are the two previous works in my series, Midnight Pony and Redwing Blackbird.  Rob McClellan was an artist who lived in Ohio in the late 20th century. He died in a car accident around 2005.  A fascinating man, he was adopted by the Cheyenne Tribe and much of his art reflects that.

I spent the day today in Elaine Huffman's studio, learning to make these button-like zendalas from the wonderful Chris Titus.  (Yes, Chris is the originator of the Zondom, the clear plastic sleeve to protect Zentangle® tiles.  I use these all the time.)

We spent most of the day making the backgrounds; I had to leave a tad early so I only got to tangle this one, but others were able to get a second one done.

Full disclosure:  Chris herself had made the backgrounds for all of these to make it easier for us, and we each did the same tangles on them.  Here is the group mosaic, with one wonderful exception:

They matched so well with Elaine's pink flamingo tablecloth, don't you think?

Definitely a hugely fun day.  Thanks to Chris and Elaine.

Wow, stunningly beautiful weather this last little while--sunny, warm (but not hot), and no humidity!  Today was lovely.  I drove to a friend's house for a rug hooking event, and we were able to work outside in her gorgeous backyard.  Perfect weather and no bugs!  We hooked on her patio while viewing her colorful garden and listening to the din from hungry baby birds and their parents in a birdhouse not more than 4 feet over our heads.  The birdy-parents came and went ceaselessly, trying to stuff food into the mouths of the kids.  And were those kids noisy and demanding!  Parenthood is never easy no matter who the parents are...

Here are some of the rugs I saw (of course I got permission for these pictures--thank you all!):

And now for something completely different...

Diana had just gotten back from babysitting for four days while family members took a short vacation to Aruba (something they had won!  What luck!).  They brought back this amazing object for her.  Even more amazing is the description of the artistic process that was used to create it--it may look painted, but it isn't.  See the photograph right underneath it describing how it was done.  I have never heard of this art before, but I love this little critter.  Isn't he (or she) a beauty?

Truly impressive.  I will have to google "mopa mopa," which I've never heard of before now.

I capped off the day by 1) treating myself to a wonderful documentary on David Hockney's 2012 and 2016 exhibitions of landscapes and portraits.  More visual delight! 

And then came home and finished a tense and good WWII-themed novel. 

All in all, a delightful summer day.  I am feeling fortunate indeed.