GP Appointment

All this week I have been feeling really poorly with an upset stomach – very painful stomach cramps and very tender and painful around Kermit (my stoma). My hubby was getting more and more concerned as the days went on, and said I really should see someone – I phoned the stoma nurse the other day and she wants to see me next week, but today, I was so fed up with feeling poorly all week, so I decided to phone the doctor, and they fitted me in straight away. My hubby was home in time to take me. They've got a new young doctor at the surgery and we saw her – she was absolutely great – very on the ball, going the extra mile and volunteering lots of information, checking all the time that I understood what she was saying, and listening to me as well. I would definitely like to see her again in future.

She began the consultation by discussing the business of the clots on my lungs that had shown up on my recent CT scan. My surgeon had said that they weren't serious and I just needed to take some baby aspirin daily, but the GP took it a lot more seriously and said they needed dealing with as a matter of urgency, and that I needed an anticoagulant. We discussed warfarin, and then she mentioned a more recent drug that she is happier to prescribe - rivaroxaban (proprietory name Xarelto) – this has the advantage over warfarin of not requiring the frequent INR tests – we know all about this because while Mum was here with us, she was put on warfarin for her atrial fibrillation and they never seemed to get the dose stabilised – she was tested every week and every week the dose was phoned through, with different amounts needing to be taken each day. I couldn't cope with all that on a regular basis! She wants me to go in on Monday for bloods, and I asked if I could get my pre-oncology appointment ones done at the same time and she said that would be fine – I have a letter that the oncology dept. gave me at my last appointment six months ago, which I have to take in with me. When I originally asked if both lots could be done the week before my oncology appointment, she said no – the pulmonary embolism needed to be treated much more urgently than that. Fortunately the clots are small.

I was impressed that she took this seriously and discussed fully the options, so that I could make an informed choice regarding treatment.

We then went on to discuss the main reason I'd gone in – this wretched tummy bug. She did my obs and said everything was fine but my blood pressure is quite low (that's normal for me) and so was my blood oxygen level – but I told her I've been very inactive over the past week, which could account for that. She then examined me and could tell how tender my whole abdomen was and said I'd definitely been having a bout of gastro-enteritis, and she then examined the particularly tender area on the lower right hand side of Kermit. She told me I'd got a slight hernia. This is a major bore. I had hoped I'd escape getting one but they are very common with ostomates. She said it's not too bad and nothing needs to be done. I told her I was hoping to see the stoma nurse next week and I expect she will confirm this.

She confirmed my assumption that I did not have an obstruction – I told her I knew from being on the forum what the symptoms of that were, and I was confident that everything was flowing OK.

She said that it wasn't too important that I wasn't able to eat much at the moment, but how important it was to keep hydrated. This morning I made up a litre of St. Mark's solution and have been drinking that, and I've had Diarolyte too. St. Mark’s solution is a DIY rehydration remedy that consists of salt, glucose and bicarbonate of soda dissolved in water. It not only restores one’s hydration but also one’s electrolytes. Dehydration is a real hazard for people with ileostomies. She said in order to avoid feeling nauseous (which I have been) it was better to drink plenty of sips little and often rather than gulping down a whole lot at once. She's also prescribed some Cyclizine hydrochloride against nausea in the short term. There's a warning on the pack that it might cause drowsiness so I expect Shoshi will be in the land of nod for the next few days! I've got a lot to do tomorrow so I hope I am well enough, and manage to keep awake!

It was a very good appointment, and I came away feeling very positive that they are doing the best they can for me. I am definitely feeling a bit better now – not so many griping pains in my stomach, and feeling more focused and alert. I felt simply dreadful last night and had to go to bed early (most unusual for me) and my hubby was worried because all I ate for supper was half a little tub of yoghurt.

WOYWW 385 Digital Fun

Again, nothing on my desk to photograph, because I haven’t really been in the studio this week. I’ve been playing with my new iPad Pro that came last week.

For full details, please scroll back down through my blog, but here are my first efforts using the brilliant art apps (Procreate and ArtStorm)– using the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil which is a truly awesome combination!

The above mandala, coloured:

and finally some early experiments in digital painting:

Still got a long way to go to be fully proficient but it’s all very intuitive to use.

Last week our WOYWW hostess Julia warned me that this thing would take over my life big-time and I think she is turning out to be right!

Health Update

I saw my surgeon on Thurs. and my scan showed I continued to be clear of cancer, which is a relief. However, it showed some small clots on my lungs and I have to take a low dosage of aspirin to thin my blood a bit. Nothing to worry about apparently.

No sooner was I over that weird cold-like bug than I’ve gone down with a stomach bug now and have been feeling quite poorly for several days. I’ve had griping pains and quite severe pain in the area around my stoma which caused my hubby to get in a bit of a panic and insist that I phoned the stoma nurse, which I did. They want to see me next week once I am no longer infectious (if it is a bug) and ascertained from my symptoms that it’s unlikely that I’ve developed an obstruction or a hernia. I feel as if I’ve been kicked in the stomach and generally feel poorly. I thought I was getting better yesterday but today I’m feeling really rough again.

Mum

It turns out that after several falls and my hubby saying her speech was slurred, and him fearing she’d had another TIA, that Mum has had the doctor and she has a UTI. She’s on antibiotics now. She had another fall yesterday because she is quite unaware of how unsteady she is, and refuses to ring her bell for help, and tries to get to the loo on her own. I am sure she will bounce back from this as she has from everything else!! My hubby says there’s a new lady in the home, in the room next to Mum’s who’s really cantankerous and even worse than Mum – (hard to believe that’s possible!) perhaps they ought to make them share a room!!

Happy WOYWW everyone.

More Fun with my iPad Pro

Over the past couple of days I’ve been laid up with some sort of tummy bug which has caused a great deal of pain around my stoma and I’m not able to do much but rest, so I’ve been using that as an excuse to play on my new iPad Pro!

I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube videos and discovered another art app called Paintstorm (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p7iDXYZAYI for a quick demo of some of the things it will do). I installed the free version on the iPad and am experimenting with it – so far the only problems I’ve found with the “lite” version are that your export choices are limited to jpg, and exported images have a watermark (I was able to edit this out on the first piece I wanted to save). I shall probably get the pro version in due course.

One of the features in Paintstorm is the pretty amazing one that enables you to create instant symmetrical images and even kaleidoscope-like images – playing around with this, I thought that with a bit of practice, this could be an awesome way of drawing mandalas. After several abortive attempts to produce one that I liked, I ended up with this:

I exported it as a jpg and opened it in Serif PhotoPlus and used my colour selection tool to isolate the grey watermark and deleted it.

I then opened it in Procreate and coloured it, finally adding a Zengem in the centre:

I am very pleased with how this turned out. You might think that using the tool in Paintstorm to create repeating patterns is cheating, but it’s still all my own work as I had to decide what design to draw on each successive circle, working outwards from the centre – all the software does is repeat the design around the circle, and it saves one a lot of donkey work, getting the spacing correct. You can set it to have as many sections as you want – this mandala was 8 – for instance, if you chose 2, you could draw perfectly symmetrical hearts or butterflies – always a bit of a pain to do!

I then spent some more time in Procreate, doing some experiments with landscape painting. Many years ago I used to follow Bob Ross on TV and did a few paintings in his style, and decided to give this a go in Procreate. My first effort wasn’t brilliant:

so I had another go and was a bit better pleased with this one:

On the first day that I got the Apple Pencil, I was messing about in Procreate, trying different brushstrokes, etc., and quite liked what I’d done, so I decided to turn that into a painting too – a pink seascape:

I definitely want to hone my skills in this department.

Regarding my tummy bug – on the advice of my hubby, who was concerned about me, I phoned the stoma clinic and spoke to one of the nurses. She asked about my symptoms and whether Kermit was behaving properly and whether the area around him looked swollen or not, obviously trying to ascertain whether I’d got a blockage or a hernia – I said I didn’t think I had either, but the stomach bug did seem to be causing quite a lot of pain in that area. She said she didn’t want me to come in if I had a bug (a wise precaution) but if it didn’t clear up, or got worse, in the next couple of days, to contact my GP. She also said it might be a good idea if I came in for an appointment when I was over the bug – they are booked up this week but could see me next week – and I agreed to do this. I haven’t seen anyone about Kermit for a long time as I manage him very well and they were pleased with my progress, but it’s probably a good idea to get him looked at periodically.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling pretty rough and in quite a bit of discomfort. Playing with the iPad is definitely a distraction! The ironing remains undone for another day…

My New iPad Pro

My new iPad Pro arrived on Wednesday and since then I have been busy familiarising myself with this amazing tablet, and downloading various apps for it. It is designed very much with the artist and graphic designer in mind, and it certainly steps up to the challenge!

The iPad Pro is available in two sizes. The larger one is 12 inches, rivalling a laptop, and while the screen is lovely and big for graphics work, the whole thing is far too big and unwieldy and not portable enough. I opted instead for the 9.7 version with 256GB in rose gold, and as always with Apple stuff, the build quality is fantastic, and it’s really strokeable. I found it on Ebay – said to be a reconditioned one, but when it arrived it was absolutely pristine in the original retail packaging and it looked as if it had never been opened. When I switched it on, it was virgin territory with nothing left over from any previous user. I got it for a very good price.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been looking into the iPad Pro, knowing that this was the tablet I wanted, and originally I was intending to wait for the launch of the iPad Pro 2, but the launch date seems to have been put back yet again, to March or April of next year, and once I’d decided I “needed” a tablet, I wasn’t prepared to wait that long, and also, on the advice of several people, I decided to go for a tried and tested model rather than the latest, which might still be full of bugs.

In the course of my researches I came across two alternative cases with integrated keyboards for it which are specifically designed to work with its smart contacts – no Bluetooth required – the first was Apple’s own keyboard:

but I didn’t like the look of this one nearly as much as the Logitech Create, which is sturdier, has a back-lit keyboard, and decent keys for typing, as well as the usual Mac function keys. It’s a little heavier and bulkier than the Apple one but I don’t mind that. Unlike the Apple one (sad omission there!) there is also a place to stow the Apple Pencil when not in use – you don’t want to risk losing it.

When the keyboard is folded away underneath, it provides a nice sloping platform, holding the tablet at a suitable angle for drawing.

It’s made of strong canvas-like material which is non-slip and feels comfortingly protective and businesslike. Mine is black.

I have also been busy obtaining various other accessories to go with it, all also from Ebay – I got an Apple Pencil (the amazing stylus designed to work with the iPad Pro) for less than half price – also said to be used but perfect in every way – it came unboxed and without the adaptor, but you can charge it by plugging it into the iPad directly:

However, this makes the pencil rather vulnerable to knocks, and the risk of being broken. I decided to order a generic adaptor for it at a tiny fraction of the ridiculous sum Apple seems justified in charging!

The Apple Pencil has to be the best stylus around – I have a Wacom Bamboo tablet and stylus for my Windoze computers but this beats that one hands down. It has one or two small drawbacks, though – one being that the little cap on the end, which has to be removed to expose the Lightning connector for charging, could easily get lost. I have remedied this by ordering a cheap plastic device – a little collar that attaches to the pencil and the cap, so that when you remove the cap, it is still attached to the pencil.

The other slight drawback is that while the pencil is as slim as a normal pencil, it is rather slippery and hard, and when you put it down, it can easily roll off the desk. The cap-retaining collar will prevent this problem, of course, and the addition of another cheap plastic device, a gripping sleeve, will make the pencil more comfortable for prolonged use.

Both these items are on order from Ebay.

I have also got hold of a matte screen protector which doesn’t interfere with the performance of the pencil, but which gives the surface of the tablet a bit more “tooth” which will make it feel more natural when drawing. It is also anti-glare, and protects the glass surface from fingerprints. I have yet to attach it – first I need to clean off all my fingerprints!

As far as apps go, there is an amazing choice of excellent ones, many of which are free, and those which are paid-for versions are really not expensive. For a very few pounds I have bought Procreate, a painting/drawing programme which is extremely powerful and has most of the equivalent tools you’d find on Photoshop. I am also going to download Adobe Sketch and the more sophisticated Adobe Draw (a vector drawing programme) and I’ve already downloaded Inkpad, the tablet version of Inkscape. This is good because you can save the files in svg format, which my cutting machine recognises, so if I want, I will be able to design on the tablet away from the computer and share to iCloud for later download.

I have also downloaded the iOS version of GarageBand, the music/recording app available for Mac computers (it’s free for them, but I had to pay a small amount for the iPad version) – a very useful voice recorder apart from anything else. I recently downloaded an online course on how to use this, but haven’t really got to grips with it yet.

What would we do without Youtube? I have been exploring a load of quite excellent tutorials on the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and every aspect of Procreate, and in the process, seen some quite astonishing art being produced, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8hvTA47EJg

I had always thought that digital art was a bit of a cheat – using tools at the touch of a button instead of wielding a real pen or brush, but with the Apple Pencil and Procreate, it’s a real hands-on process, and the only difference is that the ink in that particular pen never runs out! You select colours from a palette, and different brushes, as you would in “real life” and it is your own creativity which produces the results, while using a different sort of tool. The Apple Pencil is pressure-sensitive and you can get amazing subtle effects from it with a feather-light touch. An added advantage of digital art is that you can work in layers – for instance, once you have laid down your background layer, you can work on the details in different layers, so that if you need to make corrections, this does not affect the work you have already done.

I have been following along on one or two tutorials and proving to myself that I am up to the task. It takes a bit longer at the moment because I need to familiarise myself with the interface which is different from what I am used to, but I am quickly learning the ropes.

This is not to say that I am planning on abandoning my “real” art materials – far from it – there is something about handling paper and card, pens, ink and paint which is unmatched by the digital alternative. This is simply an addition to my arsenal, allowing more flexibility especially when I am needing to rest, and when I am out and about.

As for completed digital art pieces, I have done one so far! I decided that this would be an ideal medium for Zentangle. You can rotate the work without turning the tablet, which has auto-rotation between landscape and portrait, although you can lock this if you want – rotating the tablet when it is in its nice case that holds it at the correct angle for drawing would be a problem anyway. You can alter the thickness of the “pen” and do very subtle shading with the airbrush tool, and you can zoom in for close detail (saves finding a magnifying glass!) and the whole procedure is as relaxing and intuitive as “real” Zentangle drawing. Also, when out and about, you don’t need to take anything with you, and if you can’t remember how to draw any of the patterns, they are all online, or you can look at your own library either on board, or from iCloud. So, here’s my first effort! Notice that I have done some more of my favourite Zengems!

There is nothing in this drawing that could not have been done in the normal way. Another advantage of the digital version is that it saves having to scan the finished drawing! I am very thrilled to have this tool at my fingertips.

In addition to the art potential, another reason I wanted to get a tablet is that a few weeks ago we had Sky Q installed – this is the latest offering from Sky TV and it enables one to watch anything available on the Sky box on the tablet, anywhere within the range of the home network. I now have a little stand on the kitchen windowsill and can watch my favourite Star Trek whilst washing up! What’s more, if you stop in the middle, when you return to the main TV, you can pick it up where you left off. You can also download recordings onto the tablet to watch away from home but I believe they will self-destruct after a relatively short time.

I have also set up my normal things on the iPad – online banking, my audiobooks account, Ebay, Paypal, Youtube, etc. etc. Have iPad, Will Travel.

Julia, who hosts our “What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday” (WOYWW) weekly blog hop, warned me that this little device would take over my life. I fear she may be right – and sooner than anticipated, too!!

WOYWW 384–Zengems, Beetroots and Tablets

I have had a busy week, and haven’t got anything show on my desk today to show on our “What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday” blog hop, because I’ve tidied up from a few days ago, to so I’ll give you a run-down of what I’ve done.

Zengems

My most exciting project this week was experimenting with the new Zentangle craze that’s doing the rounds – Zengems! You can see my full post about it here, but for now I’ll show you the pictures.

My very first attempts:

Messing About with Beetroot

Earlier in the week I experimented with dyeing with beetroot, and here are some of the results: 

I dyed watercolour paper, pieces of kitchen paper, and some bits of lace and handspun wool, with varying degrees of success. It’s all useable though, I think.

Health Update

I’ve been fighting off a bug all week that threatened to be a cold but it hasn’t really developed. I’m feeling a lot better now but I felt very spaced out and weird for a few days.

I’ve got an appointment with my surgeon on Thursday. I still haven’t had the result of my CT scan and hopefully he will tell me that all was well. I had a bit of a blip about it at the beginning because when I phoned to request the result, all I got was an appointment to see him, and I feared the worst until I was reassured by others in my cancer group that this was normal, and he’d have called me in much sooner if there was anything to worry about. I was fine until Friday when I got a letter from the GPs’ surgery asking me to phone re a letter they’d had from the surgeon, at which point I really freaked out again! I didn’t get the letter till it was too late to phone, so I had to sit on this all weekend. I then phoned on Monday morning and was told a GP would phone me later during the day, but she never did. The receptionist did tell me though, that there was nothing to worry about, and it was just something about medication – although I have no idea what that could all be about because I’m not really taking anything! There was no phone call today either and I certainly wasn’t going to chase it up because it takes 10 or 15 minutes sitting in a queue waiting for them to answer the phone when you call the surgery. All very tedious! I am sure everything will be revealed on Thursday and I’m no longer worried about it.

New glasses ready for collection but no time to do it this week!

We are off to Barnstaple tomorrow to meet up with some old friends.

I baked again today – I made a lot of shortcrust pastry and made two sweet potato and bacon quiches (had some for supper – deeelicious!! – the rest now in the freezer) and with what was left, nearly two dozen mince pies.

Tablets…

No, nothing medical – I have decided to get myself a tablet, and after visiting PCWorld a few weeks ago and falling in love with the iPad Pro, decided I couldn’t wait till the launch of the new iPad Pro 2 in March or April of next year, but would go for the current one. This is a powerful piece of kit and designed for creative work, and having watched a lot of Youtube videos over the past few days, learning what it can do and which apps are best, I have found a reconditioned one on Ebay for a very good price (fully up to date with latest iOS etc.) and a brand new Apple Pencil at half RRP because it is without an adaptor, and I’ve also ordered a few accessories on Ebay too. The iPad is due to arrive today or tomorrow, and the rest will follow on shortly. I am very, very excited about this and can see it playing a big part in my creative journey, and integrating nicely into my electronic world and bridging the gap between computers (Mac and Windoze) and TV. I am going to be having FUN!

Hopefully before long I shall have some interesting stuff to show you.

Have a great week, bursting with good health and creativity!

Zengems–My First Attempts

The second of two posts today.

I have recently discovered Zengems – the latest craze in the Zentangle world. These are realistic-looking cabachon stones done with coloured pencils, blending the colours and adding highlights, which can be incorporated into Zentangle projects. As soon as I saw them, I thought, “I’ve simply got to learn how to do these!” There are lots of tutorials on Youtube etc., and they really aren’t hard to do, and the results are pretty impressive for not a lot of effort, and they give a lovely focal point to a Zentangle drawing.

Here are the first ones I did. They were done on a small scrap of white card.

I then did a couple of 4-inch square tiles, using a scrap of buff-coloured card I had. This time I used my sepia and sanguine pens, adding some brown shading using a coloured pencil, and highlights with my Sigma Uniball white marker pen, which I also used to highlight the Zengems.

The first one is a set of three gems surrounded by doodled “settings” and some Zentangle patterns to finish it off. The Zengems were done with yellow, orange and red to co-ordinate with the sepia colour scheme.

The second is a mandala with a single Zengem at the centre, this time using pink and green coloured pencils to add a bit of contrast.

Added shading makes the “layers” of the mandala stand out from the surface like ruched lace. I am pleased with this effect.

This is the first time I have worked on non-white card for my Zentangles (apart from my teabag Zentangles) and I like the soft effect with the brown pens. The sanguine pen has a lovely rich colour.

This is definitely a technique I am going to continue to use.

Beetroot Dyeing

The first of two posts today.

The other day I bought some fresh beetroot and decided to chuck some other stuff into the pan with it when I was steaming it, because I know how much colour comes out of them when you cook them, and I hated to pour all that glorious colour down the drain! I cook beetroot with the root and stalks still on, so I didn’t have any worries about putting non-food things in with them! They peel beautifully once they are cooked and you can trim off the ends then, too.

I selected a few bits and pieces at random – some sheets of kitchen paper, some recycled crochet lace, a small skein of natural hand-spun wool, and a sheet of watercolour paper that I tore into four smaller pieces.

This is what they looked like straight out of the pot.

It’s strange how some materials take up dye differently from others – the papers came out lovely and pink, but the lace and wool were distinctly grey-ish brown and dirty looking!

I left them all on the kitchen drainer to dry.

The plate that I dumped them all onto out of the pan had some juice on it, so I mono-printed this off onto another sheet of kitchen paper, and the result is quite nice.

Just so that you can see that my time wasn’t entirely wasted on frivolous pursuits, here are the beetroots after cooking! (They are delicious, by the way – one of my favourite combinations is fresh cooked beetroot with Cheshire cheese. Yum yum.)

Here’s all the stuff after it was dried.

The lace hasn’t taken up much colour but there are a few pink spots here and there, and the wool is quite an interesting colour – also with a few pink spots. I am sure I can use these or something.

The watercolour papers are lovely, and once they are flattened out, very useable, I think.

I particularly like how the dye has been taken up along the torn edge – it looks almost singed.

Here are a couple of the pieces of kitchen paper.

 

Also very useable. With my coloured kitchen papers, I always split the two plies apart and get double for my money. I always save all my kitchen roll that I use for mopping up ink – it can be applied with gel medium for lovely colour and texture, or torn into little pieces and collaged, etc. etc. It almost looks like fabric.

Finally, here’s the mono-print piece. I really like this.

I have an idea that these would be nice with Zentangles on them.

One thing to be aware of is that it is most unlikely that these pieces will be light-fast – no mordant was used, and they’re just coloured vegetable water! For use in albums and other such pieces that don’t get a lot of light exposure, they should be fine.

WOYWW 383–Zentangle

I seem to get later and later posting for our regular “What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday” hop! I’ve got less than half an hour to go until it’s Thursday so I need to get my skates on.

Some art done this week but absolutely none in the studio – another very busy week and getting too tired in between to cope with anything except recliner time, but at least I’ve done some Zentangles this week.

Here’s my desk, this evening.

Again, over in the drawing zone. You can see my large Zentangle album open on top of my light panel, with my box of pens at top right. On the left hand side of the album I’ve got my recent tracings stacked up, with the sheets of card cut ready to make the pages for my Mamhead Woods album – I haven’t made any further progress on this.

Here’s a closer shot of the open page of the album, showing the tangles I did over the past few days. I’ve got the Zentangle bug again!

This album has clear pages with pockets to take ATCs, and I cut ATC-sized pieces of card which fit in the pockets. Each one has a separate tangle on it, with the step-outs (instructions) on the back, and I can take them in and out easily when I’m doing an art piece. This is a very useful resource and it is easy to use, with all the patterns visible at a glance. I have tried to make each one into an art piece, often drawing a shape inspired by the pattern itself, so that it is not only a useful tool, but something that is nice to look at, too. I am gradually working through the Tangle Patterns site, choosing ones that I like and adding them to my album.

I’ve been busy for most of today and in between, have scanned these recent tangles, and also a lot that I have done over recent months and years – I realised it was a long time since I’d updated my blog with these album tangles – you can see them on my previous post here.

For now, here are the ones I’ve done over the past few days.

On each one, I have added the name of the tangle and the artist who designed the particular pattern. I like to give them credit, and it’s also useful information for me to know who has designed them. Each little card is my own interpretation of their pattern.

Other news – my Ileostomy Association meeting on Saturday was brilliant, and I’m really glad I went. It was a lot of fun, including the cake competition, for which I made these little stoma cakes:

Unfortunately I didn’t win the competition (I wasn’t really expecting to) but the stoma cakes got an honourable mention and they raised some laughs. For me, to make people laugh and to help them see the funny side of life with a stoma is better than a prize anyway!

Here are the cakes on display.

Our visiting speaker was an absolutely amazing lady who had a stoma after suffering with ulcerative colitis. She decided to get fit after surgery and has ended up as an ironman triathlete – the most gruelling sport you can imagine. You can read about her, and about the rest of our day here, on my Gutless Bag Lady blog. It was a great day out and well worth the effort of driving all the way to Taunton.

I’ve been pretty tired since then, and today I have developed a cold, which is a humungous bore. I probably picked it up on Saturday.

Have a great week, everyone, and happy WOYWW.

Zentangles New, and Not So New

This week, while resting, I have been working on my Zentangle album. This is a large loose-leaf ring binder with pages of ATC pockets, each one containing a separate tangle, with its step-outs on the back, for easy reference. I started this book quite a while ago, and add to it in fits and starts, as the mood takes me, and I am gradually working through the Tangle Patterns site, choosing the patterns I like, and making a small art piece of each one, so that my album is not only a useful resource, but an attractive one as well. When I made up this album, I designed a 12 x 12 inch sheet for the front, and a piece for the spine, and slotted them in behind the transparent sheet on the cover of the loose-leaf book.

I realise that it has been a long time since I updated my blog with new tangles that I’d done for this album, so today I went through them all and scanned the ones drawn since I last did an update, and I’m including them here. For earlier ones, you can search back through my blog if you are interested.

The most recent ones, which I have done over the week or so:

On each one, I have added the name of the artist who designed the particular tangle, as well as its title. This helps me, because I can revisit the Tangle Patterns site and keep up to date with other tangles that the particular artists may have done, and I can visit their blogs, and it’s also a nice way to honour them, by incorporating their name into each one – to make my album more attractive I have made each individual tangle into an art piece whenever possible, often interpreting the name or shape of the pattern by my own individual design, as in “amphora” in the last photo. This also makes them a lot more fun to draw. I enjoy browsing through the album now I’m getting a nice collection of patterns, and other people enjoy looking at the book too, even if they know nothing about art!