a little lime

well over string-type drawings. Some stapled Quib: Yesterday I thought I would have a play with Michelle Beauchamp's lovely new pattern: mak-rah-mee  - but, I was upstairs and forgot to put the wireless on so couldn't check on my ipad how it was actually supposed to look, so I just winged it and ended up with this hot mess. LOL. So, today I put the wireless ON and had a quick play - some rough curves in this one, but fun to do. hx

This weeks Diva Challenge : Quib. I always struggle with patterns like this - as I find continuous patterns (i.e. ones that can go on in any direction forever) far easier to deal with - Quib, feels (to me!) more rigid without as much room for creative spin, maybe it's just my frame of mind this week as I'm sure others have managed to come up with incredible ways of using it. So, what to do? I could either use the pattern as inspiration and head in my own direction, or keep it as is and try and create a point of difference to make it mine - in the end I did both. This one is the closest to original, but instead of tucking the ends back into another "hole" they're capped with my favourite flower. And, some colour with the lines weaving a bit. Quib (sort of) is in the middle - I used my string drawing method , with stops and starts to get the strings going over and under each other. I also strengthened up the lines along one side...

Yep, I think it's pretty clear to everyone by now that I have lost my mind..........the first four drawings from my moleskine string journal:  this ball of string was just about the end of me: hx

Have you had enough of the strings already?? Did you cringe in horror when you saw the title? More to the point, have I had enough???? Unfortunately not.... ah, me and my obsessive tendencies, we're a package deal...... and since I have always loved drawing loops, threads, ribbons and laces, it's probably not surprising that I'm still feeling the string love. I've tracked down a fresh moleskine folio from my stash upstairs and will be continuing the journey in that. delicious. So, the offering for today: String cosmos: Just string: Now, off to make my morning green juice.......have a good day all! hx

I am still drawing strings.........they are very mindless and therapeutic. Love them. As mentioned in my previous post, the concept is based on a pin of a Jaime Derringer string drawing that I have on my "doodles" pinterest board - you can see more of Jaime's string work here  - it's fabulous and well worth checking out. I have had a few people ask how to go about starting something like this - my process was basically just to start and keep drawing lines - I didn't think about it all that much, though there was lots of stopping and starting so that I could get plenty of connections and strings going over and under. Every time you do this it's going to be different, but here's a step out of the process that I used and a few tips which I hope make sense. Back to my string....... hx

Something else that I like to do when I short on inspiration is to try out someone else's cool idea - in this case I wanted to have a play around with this string idea that I'd pinned a while back. Love this. so cool and way, way better than my attempts. I did pages of this stuff. I started off just getting a feel for how I should approach it - my version is less intense and not as cohesive as the original piece. I think I'm just genetically programmed to minimalize - though I will keep playing! After this, I knew that I would want something more simplified that suited my drawing style, so my next progression was significantly pared down: After a break to have a coffee - inspiration struck (finally!!!) and I thought I would try combining the string with my favourite flowers: So, has it worked? Do I feel inspired and have more ideas to go ahead with?.....well, yeah, I do! I'm happy with what I came up with and feel excited to...

Reading a book when this one popped in my head. Of course, they always morph a bit as I begin drawing them, my initial idea had leaves stitched along the edges rather than the thread flowing through the whole design. Just a bit of patterning - not sure about the choice of flueri as I think the other more organic patterns look better and this is kind of the odd one out. Anyway, it's done now so I'm stuck with it. Going from one drawing to the next right now, which is nice after a few weeks of not drawing all that much. hx

preserving, cooking, milking, catering for 70 at a family event afternoon tea on Sunday. Ah, the holidays......so......um......relaxing. This weeks challenge was a little hard for me to get into so I just did a quick one using on one of my favourite techniques. Suspended frames laced together. Side elevation. Should have shaded the top image more to give the appearance of each frame dropping further back, but, ah well. Maybe later. hx

This weeks Diva Challenge was fun - I love wrapping things around parallel lines - particularly threads around needles and have done this a few times (check out my gallery if you want to see some examples). For my challenge piece I went along a similar route, keeping it simple, and less freeform using straight lines between the parallel bars. Hopefully I might get a bit of time to play around with patterns going over the bars, too. hx

Thanks so much for the fantastic comments/feedback on last weeks challenge - I really appreciate it :) This weeks Diva Challenge - a duo tangle using only Auraknot and Bunzo - both tangles that I had fun playing with in past challenges, but had no plans on revisiting again anytime soon. I loved the auraknot challenge, and drew pages and pages of them (you can see 3 of them in my gallery from about half way down - they're not positioned together) but, I had kind of done it by then, and drawing all those parallel skinny lines.....which are so, so not my forte...........just about did my head in! So, what to do first? Should I bang my head on the desk, chanting "no, no, no, it's too hard" over and over again? Seriously, come on, I only spent the first 20 minutes or so doing that then, after giving myself a couple of slaps and a stern talking to I got on with it. I finally got some ideas together - most of which ended ...

What a week! Whatever made me think that making gingerbread structures (houses & star trees) with 4 grades between the ages of 8-12 would be a good idea? I still have 3 class sessions to go until the end of term (putting together/decorating the gingerbread). Then, I am done for the year! Ohh, yeah! More Keenees for the challenge . Really loved these, because you can just pop them in anywhere you would use a circle. So easy. Keenee Daisies: you have probably realised by now that I love threads, and curls and just.....you know........ looping them around things. This is my favourite one for this challenge. Bit more intense keenee usage on the tassle beads. Keenee Tassel: I did this one before the daisies above, the whole tassel thing took hold and it is my current "thing" (well, for today, anyway!) I'm loving them. Not my normal colour range, here - I have all these gorgeous coloured markers and decided I really needed to break out and use some ...

I am so disappointed - yesterday I put together a video demonstrating Twirl and by the time I had edited it and got it on to the blog the details were not clear enough so I had to delete. So frustrating as it had looked o.k. on the computer when it was converted to a movie, but once it was uploaded - terrible!  I really need to figure out why my DV camera isn't talking to the computer so I can use that instead. Anyway, I have a few drawings that I've done over the past few weeks that haven't really fitted in with anything I was posting. They've just been waiting for their moment. Tulips - this drawing came about when I was trying to find a use for the pattern on the LHS leaf, I don't love the pattern, but DO love the tulips :) I want to draw more of them very soon! Knyt beads: drew this right after the knyt post a few weeks ago, it's along similar lines to the theme I had going...