a little lime

This weeks diva challenge ........Tangle Patterns String 003. So, a string..........yeeeeeah...........I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with strings. They push me way outside my comfort zone and make me really work to come up with something that is still "me" - sometimes this helps me to create something that I absolutely love. But on the flipside they're hard work for me. I hate hard work. LOL. I thought about this weeks string for a while. Well, actually - I just sketched it out on a bit of scrap paper and pushed it to the far side of my desk and tried to ignore it. Last night avoidance was no longer working for me and the string demanded its share of attention. So, I sketched it out a few times in my art journal. After I played with a few ideas I had a bit of an epiphany. These lines were basically cone shapes. And, you know, I love, love, LOVE cone shapes. After that, it was full steam ahead. Here's the result - unfortunately the pattern sections did...

I really love the look of y-ful power by Shoshi, and when I was playing with it the other day, I started to think about what would happen if I flipped the alternate Y's. Would it work? Well, it does, and I love the resulting pattern. My approach to drawing y-ful power is a little different from the instructions, I use a more freehand technique as I don't have a lot of patience for seeds or dots if I don't need them. I create it a column at a time starting with the curves - this (hopefully) makes sense if you look at step 1 in Y-flip - alternative method. I've included 2 versions of how to draw this pattern: First method: This one is my favourite, and I think the easiest, allowing for more randomised effects, too. 2nd method: This is the version that I started with, but found the one above easier. This technique might be easier for some who don't like drawing the curving lines that I start the first version with, but, as there are con...

I've been so excited to have people joining me on my  facebook page  - I love that it's a little more informal, and instant! Before it was just a way for me to message my kids. lol. Bush fire season in Victoria. I love summer, but the fires that always seem to accompany it, especially when we live in a rural area with a lot of native forest........ah.......not so much. There's been a huge fire going for the last 10 days at Alpine National Park - it has so far burnt out around 70,000 hectares - fortunately the weather has cooled down the past 2 days which has helped out a lot. There's some pretty amazing images on google if you're interested. John volunteers with our local CFA (country fire authority) and last Thursday I had to drop him off  at the depot to be bused out to the site for a nightshift with his crew. So, there I was, on my way home, when a couple of ideas to draw popped into my head, I wasn't even thinking about drawing, or, reall...

This weeks Diva Challenge is to use the Moebius Syndrome Foundation's logo as a string. I had a bit of difficultly knowing which way to go with this one - I think I drew out the logo about 10 times, and for whatever reason found myself drawing out irises with hearts as the alternate petals. As you're probably aware, flowers have meanings attached to them, and when I looked up what  the iris represents it is Faith, Hope, Wisdom, Courage and Admiration. Wow. Perfect. It was meant to be. Here's the end result - I've taken a bit of liberty with the logo. Looking forward to seeing what others come up with. hx

It feels like ages since I've posted a random drawing. Here's a couple I did this weekend. Bunzo weaver : in the most recent diva challenge, which was to use bunzo and auraknot together, I really loved the way  Margaret Bremner  extended the tips of some of the bunzo into a "thread" on her zendala. I wanted to have a play with this idea - here's the result - my bunzo "weaver".  Collage: On Saturday I decided to play around with another layered design. This one uses a couple of the patterns that I posted last week - Olb & Drack  . I love using "windows" in these type of designs and must have had the lovely Dawn's wonderful postcards in my mind as I echoed hers here. hx

You know I love curly brackets, right? Check out my post here if you missed the first one. Here's a couple more simple curly bracket patterns. First, Drack: And, Batch: It's like a double version of  Fleese . I love patterns where the grid becomes part of the design - gives me lines to work with and a sense of control (sort of). I've shown an example without the crosshatch lines which looks very much like the pattern above :) Hope you find them useful! hx

We went to the dentist today - I have been seeing the same guy for almost 40 years - even when we lived in Singapore, I would book my appointments during our visits back home - no idea what I'll do when he retires! Well, today I went in sure that I was going to be up for a 2nd root canal and it turned out to be just a cracked tooth. Not real happy about that either, but so, so much better than what I was expecting. Day 2 pattern - Heartstrings. It's pretty much Olb (which I sooooo wish I had thought of a better name for but, whatev., it's done and time to move on). This one has heart shaped outlines and I really like how the negative space fills out. My example is drawn using full hearts as shown in the pattern step out, but I have also worked the pattern by drawing a column at a time of  "half hearts"in a continuous line, then repeating on the next column to complete the heart shapes. Whatever works best for you. Update: You can find...

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 ...

I have tried to clean up/colour co-ordinate some of my blog buttons - follow pinterest has changed to the green/white "P" button, and I have added a new one for Facebook!! I've started a page for alittlelime  and would love it if you wanted to check it out! As I was tidying my desk I found a few scratched out patterns that I am making an effort to turn into step-by-steps this week - I will try to upload one each day (I think there's about 4), please don't hurt me if I don't manage to make it happen :) This one reminds me of onion bulbs, and in my usual knack for originality, I have called it olb ( o nion bu lb ) LOL. Naming patterns..........not my special skill. I tend to lean toward the obvious. This one uses the same framework as leaflet (and a few other patterns out there) love it as a base for flowing designs. Then, simple lines drawn in to fill it out. Works best if all the lines are continued to the centre/join at the top/bottom of each ...

Here I am, up all bright and early to post my MM for the week - well, o.k., it's almost midday, but I have been up since 6.30am - that counts, right? It's the half way point of my holidays - and though I've gotten a few things done, I just haven't been as productive as I would have like (the heat hasn't helped) so - the next three weeks - watch out! Last week I spent a lot of time re-organising my craft room- a few things lead to this: - I inherited all of my mum's embroidery, materials, beads, etc, etc that she can no longer use, this needed to be incorporated into my own supplies of similar stuff (I now realise, between us we have a LOT). - I had all my 2011, 2012 and start of 2013 photos printed, which I'll be organising Project Life style using my own stash as I still have a lot left over from my scrapbooking years. - I want to document 2013 more thoroughly in photos/journals, keeping up to date with printing out my pics so I can document t...

The heat is still intense here in Melbourne, 39C here today - we should be getting a break tonight/tomorrow morning. We really need it, as everything is drying off so fast! I'm just exhausted and have very little motivation to do anything after about 10am. Anyway, onto the first diva challenge for the year and a new tangle pattern to play with - fun :) I was up early this morning when it was still cool enough to get some drawing done. As soon as I saw Phicops I thought of leaves - so went with that idea for my first design: Next, I played with using s-shapes at random lengths out from a centre point to create, sort of , a flower: Here's my first experiment with the random line length idea: Of course, I went off on a tangent, too - I love this flick back shading technique and I started experimenting using tube and cone shapes, changing the direction of joining lines, etc - and though it was random experimen...

It has been so consistently hot over the past week - we've had temperatures up to 39C (102F) - looking forward to a bit of respite in a few days and hopefully (please, please) a bit of rain before it gets super-hot again! I might even get some drawing done - right now all I can do is lie on the couch on the verandah and maybe read. Oh, and water the garden......over and over and over again! It is taking a lot of work to help it survive against the onslaught of heat - I'm on an almost constant rotation with the sprinklers (we have a huge veggie garden as well as my flower garden - my poor hydrangeas are really not taking the temperature well). Here's my first Monday Moleskine for the year: I think the challenges start up again tomorrow...........exciting! hx

Happy New Year! I'm still drawing in my pattern focus journal - it's all I've been in the mood to do this week. Antidots: had fun with this one - if you look closely you might be able to see that I've done a layer of antidots with grey marker in an attempt at an embossed look. hx