This week’s Diva challenge #244 is to create a tile using the official Zentangle pattern Tripoli. A step out for Tripoli is available here. The Diva explains that Tripoli has been somewhat of a challenging tangle for her, and she provides some hints for drawing the pattern. Her primary tip is to keep the spaces between the triangles the same. Consistency is important.

I have to admit that since beginning to tangle a year ago, Tripoli has been a rather elusive tangle for me. I have worked at it over time, and have seen some improvements with Tripoli, but still it never quite seemed to gel. At last the Diva’s tip really seemed to click for me.

With my tile I wanted to experiment with small Tripoli, medium Tripoli, equilateral Tripoli, and oblong Tripoli. While I am not entirely pleased with everything about this tangle, I am happy about how my groupings of Tripoli came out — especially the ones with oblong triangles. They are better than my previous attempts.

Thanks to the Diva for another fun and educational challenge!

In this week’s Diva challenge #242 we are given the opportunity to create a tile using the latest official tangle, Gourdgeous. A step out can be found here in the official Zentangle newsletter. Gourdgeous, as the name suggests, is a pattern which resembles a gourd. Very suitable for the autumn holidays!

So, I am later than I had hoped in posting my entry for this challenge. Part of the delay concerned my difficulty in “mastering” (and I’m really using the term loosely here) Gourdgeous. It took a fair amount of trial and error, but I think I more or less have it down now.  My other problem was that I was bothered by pain in my left thumb joint, wrist, and lower arm for a couple of days. I’m left handed and the only thing to do was to rest my hand until the pain subsided. Happily I can report that it is better now.

My tile includes a large, centrally placed Gourdgeous tangle, surrounded by a grid of sparkling Bales. Thanks Laura for another fun and challenging round!

Diva challenge #241 features a guest post by Paula Bramante, CZT 15. The theme for this week is “Stones and Ceremony,” and we have the option to use a cairn template (provided) as a string for the challenge.  Paula’s post includes more details and examples (diva link above), which I encourage readers to check out.

When I went to see what this week’s Diva challenge is I was very happy to see the stack of stones theme. It’s a little funny but my current desktop background happens to be a photo of a pile of stones. I find it very serene and beautiful to look at, and it reminds me to relax. I also picked up an inexpensive Japanese rock garden at our local dollar store. It is in our living room and I’ve noticed how guests always seem to gravitate to it. Most of the time they will use the little rake to make patterns in the sand, and perhaps rearrange the stones. Very Zen!

For this challenge I used the recommended cairn template as the string. I decided to keep it simple and to use tangles that felt natural. Tangles included are Tipple, Sag, Diva Dance, Mod Box, Sand Swirl, Crescent Moon, Hollibaugh, Printemps, Msst, and Nipa. Thank you for the interesting and meditative challenge, Paula!

The diva’s challenge for this week is Munchin Play.  Munchin is an original pattern by Molly Hollibaugh. In Laura’s post she shared a video of Molly Hollibaugh demonstrating how to draw Munchin. As Laura points out, it can be tremendously helpful to see someone demonstrate how to draw a tangle, as well as to provide additional tips. I certainly found this to be the case too. As an additional reference there is a step out available here.

At first I was going to leave some triangles unfilled – white space is nice – but then I decided to try something different. After thinking of some different tangles to try, I decided on Paradox. It seemed to me like it would work very well with Munchin. I am pleased with the result.