Friday, June 30, 2017

"It's a String Thing" #200 Celebratory Tiles

Congratulations one and all on our 200th creative challenge.  Whether you are new to this community, a long time participant, or a happy bystander, thank you for joining in.

To celebrate, we used my string and new tangle, C-Perfs, based on the Roman numeral for 200 - CC.
C-Perfs conjured up smorgasbord of variations and images from our extremely creative group (including four members of the latest CZT seminar, #28) -  PacMan, ancient beasts, a "C-serpent", desserts, surfers, sailboats and even the Beach Boys.  To top it off, one tangler actually came up with a pattern using the numeral 200 and sent in her step out. Read on to find out who created it as well as where the previous references came from.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who sent in a note and tile for this week's challenge.  I appreciate your kind words and compliments - can you see me blushing from here?!
(I've replied to each email as a personal thank you and Tangled Tidbits will return next week.)

Enjoy the show!  


The first tile arrived from Ilse Lukken (The Netherlands) and also on her blog ~
Wow, we've reached challenge number 200. Thank you so much Adele, for your continuing enthusiasm to make us tangle :-))



From Vonnie Schneider (St. Paul, Minnesota) ~
Congratulations on #200! I love the new tangle...and learning what a "perf" was! I love how this tile is a monotangle without looking like one :)



From Hilary (Chicago, Illinois) ~
Well, if you think this one is busy-looking, you should have seen my first attempt ! My plan was to not only use this week's pattern and string, but also to incorporate as many of your wonderful patterns as possible. That proved to be beyond my limits! However I think I fit in quite a few.
I wanted to do this as a thank you. It's amazing how many tangles you've shared with this group and best of all, your own special creations. I know I'm not the only one who's learned so much from you. It's been a great experience. I enjoy every bit of it whether it's learning the new tangles, grumbling about how to fit them into the string, worrying how it's going to turn out and meeting the deadline. Then there's the joy of seeing everyone else's work and reading your lovely encouraging comments!
So congratulations on this terrific milestone. You provide a unique learning experience with so much warmth and acceptance.




From Chris Leach, CZT (Lodi, California) ~
Thought I should join in for this monumental week! I enjoy your blog and wanted to say thank you. That was a beautiful B&W photo of the newlyweds!
This is all the creativity I could muster up today...it is 108*...




From Shirley Wohlsen (Queensland, Australia) ~
Attached is my Tile for ‘It’s A String Thing # 200’ Challenge.
Thank you, Adele.
From Shirley a while later ~
Attached is my second Tile to Celebrate “It’s A String Thing #200” Challenge
Congratulations Adele, although I have only Tangled about 28 Tiles of the 200
I have enjoyed them and hope to do many more.
Congratulations on your Daughter’s wedding, she made a beautiful bride and I
Wish them a very happy life together.
Also enjoying the pictures and write up of your trip to Fabriano Italy.
I had to smile when seeing the large ancient mechanism they used to produce their paper
compared to my very small homemade Mould and Deckle I made for making homemade paper. J
Looking forward to the next episode ♥


From Sandra (Germany) and here on her blog ~
Congratulations to this very special challenge! In the last weeks I didn't find time to tangle very often but I just wanted to make a tile for your 200. challenge to say thank you for alle your creative ideas and the energy you spend in the challenge every week :-)
So today I used your special string and I tangled your new pattern C-Perfs. I combined it with Seawave, Verve, Undu, Lily-eyes und Raindotty.
I had a lot of fun with this tile and I am proud to be part of your wonderful challenge again!Many thanks again und greetings from germany




From Lynn Gotham (Florida) ~
Congratulations on 200. I put in some Fireworks by Heidi Cookto add to the celebration.





From Gabriela Garcia (Alberta, Canada) and here on her blog ~
CONGRATULATIONS Adele!! THANK YOU so much for this 200 weeks of great relaxing fun!! I really admire all your love, dedication and work and send you many many Blessings!!
I was so relaxed creating this tile, I felt like if I was in a retreat walking in one of those Zen gardens with stone paths!!! At the end as a decoration I added the little white flower-stars created with 4 mirrored letter C's then connecting them with horizontal letter c's and little dots for fun. There is so much fun and variety creating with C-Perfs! Thank You!
Greetings from Canada!




From Kristin Griffin (Massachusetts) ~
Attached is my tile submission for the IAST #200. The C-Perf was a blast to do, I especially love the open C-perf. Thank you for the challenge. I’ve had far too much work to do lately and this little break to tangle has been wonderful.




From Susie (Thialand) ~
Congratulations to your 200th It is a String Thing challenge. Every week you do such a marvelous job and I wonder “what on earth drives her?”
I am not sure there are enough c-perfs on my tile, but I did try to get the 200 in at the top right-hand corner. Alas, even that failed. The 2 zeros are fine, but the ‘2’ is why too top heavy and almost falling on its nose. So, please, use all your imagination and you will see the effort in trying to get a 200 in.



From Ragged Ray (United Kingdom) ~
Wow - what a milestone! Thank you so much for bringing your challenges to us every week for so long - it's an achievement you should be proud of. IAST is a key part of my Zentangle life and I can't imagine where I'd be without it, and you at the helm!
I can see how versatile C-Perfs will turn out to be, variations were popping up all over the place in my sketchbook. But for this tile I went with elegance and simplicity - nothing more than an inner aura, some dark and some light, shading and that's it! Those two curves rising like waves, like fern fronds, like the spines of ancient beasts.
Here's to the next two hundred!





From Trudi (Woodview, Ontario, Canada) ~
Still enjoying "our" trip to Italy! In North America 100 year old buildings are called heritage and 200 year old buildings are amazing. When we were on sabbatical in England staying in a hotel across the street from Windsor Palace just blew my mind and the ancient Roman ruins at Bath just amazed and confounded me at how beautiful they were. Europeans are so lucky to have such beautiful history surrounding them!Fell in love with your C-PERF Tangle, it was all I used.


From Sra (India) ~
Here's my entry for IAST 200, I tried mirroring the string but am more pleased with the border than the main images.
Thanks for IAST and the passion you pour into it and the personalisation. Here's wishing you the best, and of course, a boundless supply of energy to keep IAST going!




From Susan (United Kingdom) ~
Congratulations on reaching 200 challenges. Thank you so much for all your hard work and all the encouragement you give each week. It is a pleasure to be part of a global community of tanglers.



From Ellie Miller, CZT (Sint Marteen) ~
Congratulations on the 200th string challenge!
Although It feel like this needs color to add to the celebration, the b&w allows each viewer to imagine their favorite flavors to what turned into dessert. Congratulations, too, to all the tanglers who partipate in all your wonderful challenges! Everyone's creations are always wonderful to view!





From Ria Mattheussen (Belgium) ~
As you know, I can't send every week an entry but I didn't like to miss this very special one on which I combined C-Perfs and aura's with C-View and the fragment Y1.
Thank you very much for all the work you do, every week again, to give a wonderful challenge for us tanglers, all over the world and to show a beautiful presentation of our work.Congratulations for C-Perfs, for 200 challenges, for those marvellous pictures from Italy and for the happy new married couple!!!


From Jody Genovese, CZT (New York) and Jutta Gladnigg (Germany) ~ a wonderful story of tangles and friendship ~
Congratulations on your 200th IAST!!! What an accomplishment.
I am celebrating your 200th tile with Jutta Gladnigg from Germany. Jutta came over to CZT #28 to get her certification so also a big congratulations to her.
I decided at the last minute to surprise her and signed up for the seminar as well so now I am a CZT in stereo…
After the seminar she came back to Albany with me, and though we have been so busy site seeing and having fun, we did an ‘across the table’ traveling tile and collaborated on your 200th.
What a great new pattern you have created.
Included along with our tile is a picture of us together with my tangle mascot, Sadie and a replica of Sadie Jutta is taking home to her 5 ½ year old son in Germany. He has seen Sadie and told Jutta he would like her to bring him a dog. Sadie was much more interested in eating the stuffed version of her than getting her picture taken!
So again, a big congratulations to you and here’s to 200+ more!!
Your friends and CZT’s from Germany and NY…Jutta Gladnigg and Jody Genovese
P.S. Still loving your adventures in Italy…




From Tonia Croce (Rhode Island) ~
IAST #200: C-perf, #chank by Aishwarya Darba, #Nobbles by Jane Nichols; used to "C"s to create a peach .Congratulations on #200 and the wedding!





From Marla Mendenhall (California) ~ complete with a new tangle and yes, I am blushing ~
What an honor it is for me to participate in this milestone for "It's A String Thing", and what fun I had exploring Adele's "C-Perk" in all its many incarnations. What a talent we are blessed with in our fearless leader!
And as I perused her crafty little designs, a pattern for using the numerals "200" began to percolate in my mind. The result is the border I used on my tile which I named "A-Toast", short for "Adele's Two-hundredth OMGAstounding String Thing." And while not my favorite shape (as I've often said), I was pleasantly surprised to find the reflective "2"s formed a heart shape BECAUSE WE LOVE HER!
This is truly a grand celebration (thus confetti demanded a presence to which I added a little "C-quin" - tee hee), and toast to her we do, for all her imagination, inspiration, generosity and tireless dedication (not to mention sweetness, charm, grace, humility and all-too-cuteness, which I do mention just to make her blush). We lift our glasses to you, dear Adele, as you weekly lift our spirits. Alla tua salute, cara amica, and thank you.






From Simone (Germany) ~
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!
I thank you so much for your weekly inspiration, for your beautiful artwork and the joyful time which I have withe every new blogpost on "Tickled To Tangle".
I admire your work and appreciate how much work and love you invest in your tangling life and in sharing with us.
I appreiate as well how you give motivation to other tanglers, for instance when you are including new tangles into your challenge and give tips to draw them, if you think it could be necesary...
Your new tangle C-Perfs is very simple indeed, I admit, that my first thought was also "what a simple tangle..." and my experience og the beauty came when I tried it and realized the diversity of the tangle.
Even if I am very busy this summer and I can not take part at every challenge I could not miss this special one... the 200th!
I remember the 100th (my very beginning time) and the 150th.
I can not believe, that the time is running so fast!!i wish you (and me and all tanglers) many IAST challenges in the future,




From Sharyn Penna, CZT (Massachusetts) ~
Let the celebrations continue ... thank you for sharing the newlyweds' photo ... what a stunning and happy couple!
And thank you for your newest tangle ... C-Perfs is a gem! I love a tangle that has so many variations. The minute I saw your CC-string I saw curling waves. Then I heard The Beach Boys singing, "catch a wave and your sitting on top of the world" as I tangles away.
I used the open C version, gave it an inner aura and closed off each bottom then filled the S-shape with the first C-Perfs version from your step-outs. I couldn't do a C-scape (hee hee) without some Sanibelle!Cheers to a new century filled with tangles, travels, and family joy!




From Jane Rhea (Indiana) ~
Congratulations on IAST # 200!! Thank you so much for your wonderful encouragement and inspiration for the Zentangle community! I'm looking forward to the next 200! Your C-Perf tangle was so much fun. Who knew that learning cursive so many years ago would translate into a great challenge!




From Brenda Urbanik, CZT (South Africa) ~
Wow, challenge No. 200 already! Well done. You remain such an inspiration. C-Perfs was the perfect example of that, how you managed to break it down and show us how you played with it and then it developed into somethings wonderful.
I didn't think I would be able to make anything of it but here it is, on a little Bijou tile.
After the terrible fire disaster we just experienced in Knysna, sitting and tangling was a welcomed relief.
Sending you love and hugs from South Africa.



A very warm welcome to Debbie Raaen (Trondheim, Norway) ~
Thanks for this challenge and the time you've taken to create it.It may look like I've cheated and used Marasu but in actual fact all it is is a cursive lower case c with the c thickened. Hope I haven't broken any rules!!

Welcome to our tangled map, Debbie!




From Anita A Westin (Dalarna, Sweden) and here on her blog ~
Congratulations to the 200th challenge! And thanks for doing this! It is such an inspiration to follow IAST! Here comes my entry. C-Perf will be a go-to-tangle I am sure!




From Susie (St. Louis, Missouri) ~
I know this is not a tangle or tangulation, but when I saw the stepout, PacMan immediately got stuck in my head. Back in high school the only place in our small town that had arcade and pinball games where we could go was the local bowling alley. Everyone used to line up to play. Wish I had all the quarters I spent back then! I kept trying to think of something else, but this was it.Congratulations on #200.



From Lisette (Switzerland) ~
First I was kind of dissapointed by the "simple" C-Perfs Tangle, but after playing with it in my sketchbook I fell in love with it. It always amazes me how versatile "simple" patterns can be. I really enjoyed this challenge - thank you, Adele. As we are having a very hot spell in Switzerland I was longing for cooling blue and created this surf. I colored with watersoluble fine markers and a waterbrush (I outlined the patterns with markers, then washed over with the waterbrush). Finally I added Agua in the corners which is a bit C-Perfish too :-)



From Mariam G (Port Hueneme, California) ~
First off, I love the C-perfs! What a great addition to our 'tangleations' And Congrats on IAST200! Am so happy to be a follower and an appreciative participant.
The variations I tried quickly began to resemble what appeared to me to be a dragon. But then I realized - 'No!' It's a 'C-serpent'! (Anybody out there, besides me, old enough to remember Cecil?) I added a little sea-colored background after the fact, so am not sure how well it represents, but I like it!
Thank you, thank you, thank you - you keep us all on our toes and encourage us to find Zen in every day.




From Sharon Fite (California) ~
Wahoo, Adele! 200 IASTs! That's amazing! Thank you for giving us all the opportunity to be challenged, creative, and share with this wonderful worldwide community of tanglers.




From Ingrid (The Netherlands) ~
Congratulations on your 200th challenge. What a milestone!! Could you imagine this when you started the challenges?
Well, here is my IAST # 200 tile in the attachment with all my love to you.Thank you for all the work you do to let your IAST followers enjoy reading about your adventures in Italy.



From Eni Oken, CZT (California) and here on her website ~
Congratulations on IAST 200! What an amazing achievement, such a wonderful job you do for the Zentangle® community.
Here is my picture with C-perfs, combined with my Twisted Ropes technique. I used a water-soluble marker to shade and added colored pencils and inked background over a 3.5 inch ZT tile. You can see more pictures here: (Link)Thank you for hosting this amazing challenge -- I love looking at the final pictures, with your very perceptive and insightful comments.




From Beth Gaughan (North Carolina) ~
Congratulations on reaching this milestone!




From Jane Norris (California) ~
Congratulations on 200 weeks of IAST! Please keep them coming as I have just joined :-)
Like everyone else I am so enjoying your tale of your trip to Fabriano. What a very special trip indeed!
Thank goodness you extended the deadline until. tonight! I am most grateful
I used your lower case”c” and came up with a fun tangleation of your “C-Perf”.
I have no idea if this is already a pattern but it was fun to do either way. It is very
simple as I had so little time after playing around with the pattern for a day to thendraw something for submission. You are quite the inspiration.



And a belated welcome to our tangled map, Jane :)



From Michele Wynne (California) ~
I hope I'm not too late.
Happy BiZentennial! Congratulations on 200 inspiring challenges.Thank you for all you do.


From Lisa Preston (Marietta, Georgia) ~
I'm more of a lurker than participant these days, but regardless of whether I participate or not, I always love to see the creativity of this group.
Congrats on reaching 200 challenges! I tossed a little Aah in with C-perf for the celebration. Thanks for all you do each week!



From Sue Agnew (Tucson, Arizona) ~
Congratulations on 200 challenges! Thank you for all you do for the tangling community. You're a treasure.
...I really really wanted to participate in #200! Thank you so much for extending the deadline.
So when I started playing with the tangle I ended up melding with something else ... I know for sure it's kind of Rixty, but there is also an earlier tangle I knew, that may be called something like Eyelet. Anyway, that's my "real" submission.
Then I was just fooling around, and maybe it's because I have wind and surf on my mind, but I ended up with pictures. I didn't work them into a cohesive whole using the string ... but here they are.Thank you for being you!




From Jenny Hopkins (Australia) ~
How amazing - reaching your two hundredth anniversary of It's a String Thing. Using the Roman CC was so appropriate for the string and your c-perfs tangle, since C also starts Congratulations. I don't think I did it justice, but I was rather pleased that my cursive Cs came out like hearts, clearly emphasising the amazing love that you put into every week of challenges, love that is shared across the globe. I hope you bask in many good wishes. You are greatly appreciated.


From Lin H, CZT #28 (Florida) ~
A huge congratulations to you and the IAST community on 200 challenges. I'm so happy to share in the celebration. I love the flexibility of your new tangle pattern, C-perf, too.



From Charlene Petersen, CZT #28 (Florida) ~
...Congrats! Thank you so much for your wonderful challenges and support to all of us tanglers. And--thank you so much for your wonderful story about your trip to Fabriano. Your reiteration makes me feel like I am there with you.



From Lily (Hungary) ~
Congratulations on reaching your 200 milestone and on your new tangle pattern! Thank you for all that you do!
You're doing a fantastic job!
Here is my tile:
ZenHug:




From Felicity Strohfeldt (Veldriff, South Africa) ~
Congratulations with challenge 200. You are the glue and inspiration that keeps us all to participate every week. Well done! I must admit the 200th celebration took quite a while before it jelled in my head. So, simple yet so challenging. I chose to go with the closed C longhand and lower case. Because it’s been such fun for me to participate in your weekly challenges over the last few years, I decided to include some comic, little chappies in bottom towards the righthand corner, the one completely right seems to point to all the fun times, we will have in future, entering week after week right up to the 300th IAST challenge. My verdict, on the “clay-pot” left, is still out in chambers. I’m sure all the regulars are going to amaze this week. Congratulations to all of them as well.



And finally, my tile...I tangled this on a very bumpy plane ride.  Initially, I wanted the perfs to remain white, but most of the turbulence occurred just as I was drawing them.  Needless to say, they were quite odd shaped, so darkening them in helped to make them more circular and uniform.  C-Perfs is finished with lots of aura, and a "thank you" from me to you!






"It's a String Thing" #201 is in full swing - come join in the fun!  Click here for all of the delightful details.

Enjoy!