Friday the 13th

So how was your day?

At 7:41 this morning we heard a horrific sound that even our 12 year old (who makes the most of every possible moment of sleep before it is time to go to school) couldn't sleep through.

As you look out our front door there is an elementary school right across the street and a hill to the left. Someone coming down that hill apparently had a seizure with her foot on the accelerator sideswiped our neighbor's car, probably totaling it, jumped the curb in front of our house, tore off our mailbox, flew through a planter with -- luckily for her, I think -- three large, heavy block and concrete posts, our trash can enclosure and a fence and into the neighbors' backyard stopping several yards short of the neighbors' pool.
It is how close she came to the pool that makes me think it was good she hit those block and concrete posts. If they had not slowed her down I hate to think of what might have happened.

That is not the most amazing thing though. At that time of day parents are dropping off their children and there are usually lots of children getting out of cars, on the sidewalk and running across the street. No cars were parked in front of our house. Usually there are 3-4. Wow. No one was hurt. Even the driver and her son were walking around after the accident thought I'm sure it will be awhile before they are actually all right. How terrifying it must have been, especially for the son who was not having a seizure and so was aware of what was happening.

Paradox Fun

You may have noticed that I do enjoy doing zentangles from time to time. When I first heard about them, I would try to find patterns that I could figure out how to do on my own. As I have learned more I have sometimes found that my idea of how to do a pattern was different and often harder than the correct way. There is a wonderful website, Tangle Patterns, that has links to how-to's for all sorts of patterns.
One of the things I learned from a link on that site is how to draw the pattern Paradox. It is one of my favorite patterns now that I know how to do it. It is almost ridiculously easy, but until I saw the directions I could not figure it out. Oh, I tried, but I made it much harder than it needed to be. And it didn't look anywhere as nice. It might have been possible for someone to figure out that I was trying to draw Paradox, but that is as close as I ever got on my own.
Armed with the knowledge of how to do the pattern, I came across a zentangled drawing that the artist alleged was from Paradox, but that was beyond me. I saw it or similar designs more than once and stared at it until I figured it out. They look something like this, which was my first attempt at it.I was very pleased with myself for figuring it out and thought I would show you how to do it, too.
The first step is to learn how to draw the basic Paradox. The same method can be used to fill in shapes other than triangles.
Next, divide the area you will be filling into smaller areas for the individual Paradox patterns. On the top of the first one I did (above) it happened to form an sort of star pattern that I wanted to try to duplicate so I drew this:
Then I started filling in the shapes with the Paradox pattern. Here it is with just the upper right area filled in:
Each space was then filled with the Paradox pattern working each time in a clockwise direction. That is what gives those S-column (for lack of a better word) shapes where two Paradoxes meet. If you look carefully you can see that I have kept the pictures of these three steps oriented the same way to make it easier to believe it is that simple.
Next, I tried dividing a space into six (an even-number) shapes radiating from a sort-of center point. Sorry there is no before picture. I wanted to see what would happen if I alternated the direction of the Paradoxes as I filled in the shaped. For instance, in this example the upper right shape is done clockwise while the upper left shape was done in a counter-clockwise direction.
It is the change of direction that gives the fans and points of this design.

Last, I wanted to show you this envelope I recycled using the same idea. This was done while I was watching TV with my daughter. After I had filled in a couple of shapes she looked over and asked me what had happened to the first two shapes I had drawn. The pattern overwhelms the initial shape it fills.
It is something you almost have to try to understand. Or at least that is how my brain works.

Courtney Milan

Smart Bitches Trashy Books just hosted an online chat about Courtney Milan's most recent book Unveiled. I finished reading the book about 15 minutes before the chat and it is, like all her books wonderful. She is an excellent writer.
But I am not telling you this so that you will go out and buy her book -- which you should do -- but because for the last half hour of the chat Courtney Milan herself joined us and I got to ask her a question and she answered it using my name. As I told my daughter, I am now considering myself part of her body of written work. Squee.
What do you mean, that isn't how it works? Are you saying that it will be possible for scholars of the future to get PhD's in the works of Courtney Milan, without any mention of my place in her writings in their dissertations? Sorry, that disappointment is not going to overcome my happiness.

Zentangled Valentine's Bookmarks

Here are two bookmarks I made for a swap on swapbot. The picture was taken before I covered the bookmarks with packing tape and strung some fibers through the hole in the top of each bookmark to fancy them up, because I didn't want to deal with glare on the bookmarks. If you click on the picture, a larger image of it should appear on your computer.

The pink bookmark is the one that actually fulfills the requirement of the swap which is for a zentangled bookmark. I adapted some patterns (unyun, finery, and paradox) to be valentine-y and then just filled in with puf, netting (bottom of the page, but check out that map of the USA just above the instructions for netting) and some tassels. On the netting I added some petals to the center to fill it in visually. The shading was done with a red colored pencil, instead of the standard no.2.

The white one is based on an ATC that I did a couple of years ago, that is based on a pattern I was trying to copy from something I saw on deviant art when I was looking for patterns to use in zentangles. I could not get the pattern right and hearts kept showing up in the pattern. Well, I gave up, outlined the hearts in red colored pencil and said I planned it that way. When I tried to do the same thing on the bookmark, I couldn't get a single heart to volunteer to show up, but had to go back and fit them in. Funny how things work out.

Nine Inchie Puzzle

Here is an abstract drawing to be cut into 9 inchies to make a puzzle for a swap on swap-bot.
And here it is cut.

Scraps ATC

I hate to throw something away when I think I can use it but sometimes there are just too many bits and pieces lying around. When I made the last ATC, the lazy daisy one two posts ago, I was bothered by the nest of leftover bits of thread from previous projects, so I took an ATC back that I had cut from the back of a Christmas card and started poking holes to make rectangle shapes, doing a few of the larger ones and then filling in with the smaller shapes. Then I just got to stitching and voila! the thread nest is gone.

By the way, I posted the ATC upside down. I'm sure that if you will just stand up, lean over and look at it in the correct orientation you will see what a difference it makes. Probably only because your brain will thank you for an extra little rush of blood and your body will enjoy a little stretch, but you never know.

Walking

Lazy Daisy ATC

This is an ATC for my partner in the Embroidery ATC Series #2 -- Lazy Daisy swap over on Swap-bot.
Oddly enough she was also my partner in the first swap of the series which was for the chain stitch.
The Lazy Daisy stitch is also known as the detached chain stitch and it is a great stitch to use for simple flowers. I also used it in this very small (2" including the tail) Dotee doll pin and in some bottle cap pincushions here and here.
If you would like to know how to do the stitch yourself you can take a look at Sharon B's stitch dictionary. While you are there you can take a look at her amazing I dropped the button box crazy quilt. Click on any of the thumbnails and see the beautiful work she does. Eye candy.

Hmmm

These are some of the things that have caught my eye.

Very clever idea for making faux wrought iron wall decor.

A few years ago my brother and his wife were talking about a contest they were having to see which of them could read the most books that year. That got me wondering how many books I read each year so I started keeping a list of the title and author and a quote from the book.
Then I thought it would be better to write down the main characters and a summary of the plot. This has turned out to be very helpful.
Combine that with a love of bookmarks and you can see why I really like this idea from the Making Books blog.
Another great place to keep track of the books you are reading, to write reviews and to read other people's reviews and to get ideas for new books to read is Goodreads.
By the way, I read 88 books last year, including the Bible. If I was doing the contest thing I would have counted the Bible as 66 books.

And then there's this. How do people think of these things?

Randomness

Every year I like to take all the letters and pictures that came with Christmas cards and put them in a special album just for that purpose. Well, if you can believe it, the people who send me pictures do not get together and coordinate their pictures so that they fit beautifully on the pages and I am left with blank spots to fill in with whatever. Luckily for them, that is one of my favorite parts.

The last few years I have tried to use what they actually sent (stickers on the envelopes, stamps,
parts of the cards) to fill in any blank spots. This is my favorite from this year -- well, last year, but I did it this year.
The image of the angels is from a return address label, and the background is from the back of a card. I thought it was a nice way to use something that might have been thrown away -- the address label -- and something that would have ended up in a pile of things I might use for something eventually -- the back of the card.





Then we have a picture of Rover guarding the vegetable patch or what is left of it after he ate most of the lettuces. He looks so serious, making sure the camera doesn't think it is going to get any of these vegetables.

Off to his right there are actually a lot of broccoli plants. My son loves broccoli, and we hope that it grows well. The leaves have gotten quite large and healthy looking, but we have not seen anything that looks like broccoli growing on them yet. This is our first year trying to grow it, so it is a learning experience for all of us. Except for our daughter who doesn't much care for vegetables and would probably prefer us to grow some nice meaty livestock.

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