I have a new mini-obsession. They are called Zentangles. My friend Nicole posted something about them in the past month or so on our private Facebook group and on her Pinterest board and I was intrigued. I have seen this kind of pen and ink art before but didn’t know that it had a name or was a “thing”. It always looked too complicated for me to wrap my head around so I admired it from afar.

But then I started doing some internet time-wasting the other day and came across them again and decided to see what it was all about. Oh hey, I have  ultra-fine black Sharpie around here someplace! Cardstock? Yep I have that too. Well, how about that! I have all the supplies needed for a new obsession.

There are a plethora of blogs, websites and Flickr groups to keep you inspired and to show you new patterns to try. I’m not very good yet but I’m just playing with patterns and ideas right now. I look at it a lot like yoga. It isn’t about being good or better than someone else. It is about stretching your creative muscles and just getting better for yourself.

Each Tangle is only about 3” square so it doesn’t take long, is inexpensive and portable.

I can see where this would also help me to improve my free motion quilting skills. It also just helps to calm my monkey mind and to relax. It is a cool combination between doodling and coloring. Adults should color in coloring books more often. It is very relaxing and mind freeing.

This is also a good thing to combine with sewing. I obviously love to sew. But I find that sewing is so often about following an order and a specific way of doing things. I enjoy the precision and continuing to try to get my finished project as professional looking as possible. But sometimes you need to break away from that and free your mind. I suppose I could decide on a whim to sew a sleeve coming out of the seat of my pants but I don’t think that would accomplish what my brain needs. It doesn’t need absurdity for the sake of absurdity. It needs to be free to roam the outer edges and to find beauty and patterns in the chaos. To sort itself out and make sense of nonsense. Not to make nonsense from sense. I clearly need some Zen in my life.

This is a work in progress. It is pretty much a copy of one I found in my internet travels. This one is all about filling in the voids, the negative space. I’ll probably be working on this one for a while. I may even need  new pen.

Another thing I find attractive about a lot of the Zentangle drawings I’m coming across is their resemblance to Tim Burton’s world. Weird shapes, repetitive patterns, black and white.

I’d better run and go gather my supplies and get ready for work. I have my first Jeans Class that I’m teaching at work today. I’m nervous and excited about it. It is one thing to do something yourself and a whole other thing to teach it to someone else. I may have to Tangle between classes!

Trending on Twitter today is “International Women’s Day”. To celebrate I want to tell you about two women who influenced me when I was young. I wouldn’t be the crafter I am today if it weren’t for them.

The first is my mother, Doris Wood. She is the one who taught me to sew and inspired me to challenge myself. The first things I remember making by myself were Barbie ™ clothes. Most of my first efforts weren’t really sewn, just scraps of fabric cut, wrapped and tied masterpieces. Maybe that is where my obsession with wrap dresses comes from. The first real sewing project I remember was a simple 4-gore skirt in dark blue. It had a side zip and waist band. It was 1976 and I paired this skirt with a snazzy red & white striped T-shirt with a Liberty Bell applique. It was a 4H project and I’m pretty sure I got a blue ribbon at the county fair that summer. This was the first of about 10 years of 4H projects, each one lovingly directed and taught by my Mother. Her patience and guidance were so valuable. I gained so much self confidence through participating in 4H; sewing, knitting, showing horses and my Mom was there for all of it. She is so very talented in her own right. She made us many clothes; dresses, bathing suits and more. She also created wonderful home dec. projects and beautiful quilts. I remember her making dolls and stuffed animals for church bazaars and flower girl dresses for cousins. Everything she made was unique and original and impeccably constructed.

The second woman I’d like to acknowledge today is Nella Taylor, also from Marlette, Michigan. She was also a 4H leader. I learned how to knit from her. Once a week after school the school bus would drop about a dozen girls, ages 8-16 or so, off at her house. We’d sit around her tiny living room learning to cast on, increase, decrease, cable, yarn-over and cast off while constructing a variety of garments. Everything from simple garter stitch scarves up to knit bikinis and lace dresses. Also in 1976 I made a pair of simple garter-stitch slippers out of red, white and blue variegated yarn. By the time I was in middle school my older sister, Pam was a very accomplished knitter in her own right and we didn’t go to Nella’s anymore and Pam was able to give me any guidance I needed. Pam and I just got together for lunch earlier this week and we got to reminiscing about our afternoons at Nella’s. We both are so thankful she was a part of our young lives. It’s interesting to wonder where we’d be if she hadn’t been there to teach us this skill that has been such a big part of our lives. Would we have learned to knit from someone else? Would we have done it as such a young age or would we have come to it as adults?

What women have influenced you? Did you teach yourself to sew, knit, crochet, etc? If you did, then YOU are a woman to be celebrated today! Is there someone in your life that had they not been there do you think your life would have taken a different turn? Share in the comments.

I read this blog, of course I do, some of my friends think I should write it. But someone already beat me to the idea and the name so instead I will just write one post today about “who” I want to punch in the throat.

Today (and almost everyday) I want to punch Moms (okay, all parents, but for today’s lesson I will be referring mostly to Moms) who raise their daughters to think so low of themselves that the daughter will allow themselves to be treated like shit by boys just because any attention is better than no attention. These girls fall prey to boys who know how to play the sweet talking game and can spot an easy mark.

I have two teenage daughters and they tell me stories about girls at their school that curl my toes and make me want to go punch people in the throat. Girls with herpes because a scumbag guy convinced them that oral sex was “safe”. Girls getting grabbed and forcibly kissed in the hallway at school because they don’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him they aren’t “into him that way.” Not to mention the hidden victims that “disappear” for a term or year or more because they attempt suicide, get pregnant, have abortions, etc. These girls are the cutters, drinkers, druggies, but they are also the athletes, honor students, cheerleaders, church goers, Girl Scouts and they are all somebody’s daughter. They are trying to hide pain that they are feeling but don’t want anyone else to see.

But time and time again the one common denominator I see in these girls lives are parents that aren’t there for them. To tell them they are not just smart and beautiful but important and worthwhile. That having a boy like you isn’t the be all and end all of your life. That is what society has been telling these girls for generations, they need another message from home. From the people that, believe it or not, are the most important and influential people in their lives, their parents. As parents it is easy to fall into believing what we are told by the media, that by the time our daughters reach middle school, they don’t listen to us anymore and their friends, tv, movies and the internet are more influential. Bullshit. We only lose our influence and importance if we let it happen.

We stay relevant to them by staying involved. Talk to them everyday. Know who their friends are and ask about them and their lives. Keep current with what is going on in the  media and society. This doesn’t mean you have to be the “cool Mom” and dress like your daughter and hang out with her friends. Just know what they are talking about when they reference music, movies, memes and other social media things. Just don’t over do it and become that annoying “trying to be hip Mom”. Just take time to be genuinely interested and to listen. Also don’t push your daughter to be something or someone she isn’t or doesn’t want to be. If you were a dancer and gymnast but your daughter would rather be on the debate team, it’s okay. If you were a Rhodes Scholar but she is an artist and not much of an academic don’t make her feel stupid because she isn’t taking AP Calculus. If everyone else in your family is a dentist or a pediatrician but she is an outgoing, theater kid make sure she knows that it is okay and promise her that everyone will turn their pagers off when they come to see her perform.

But most importantly talk to them about things like sex, boys, drugs, drinking, etc. Sometimes I say I’m a good example to my daughters by being a bad example. When the topic has come up and my daughters were the appropriate age I was honest about these topics and how they affected my life both positively, but mostly negatively. I don’t think it will give them a free pass to do stupid things in their lives but it will give them the knowledge that if they do they can come to me and I will understand and not be judgmental. Let’s face it, as much as we’d like it, there is no way to keep our children from making mistakes. If there was they’d never learn to walk, drive, love, or grow up. Do I think my parents were bad parents or screwed up because I made a LOT of stupid choices in my young adult years? Not at all, quite the opposite, they gave me a great foundation to build on so when the rocky parts happened my life didn’t fall completely apart.

So to all those Moms out there who are blaming their daughters for ruining their lives because they never wanted to have children, and Dads who say rude and nasty things about their daughter’s bodies and make misogynistic remarks about women in front of their daughters, and parents that shelter their daughters from the realities of life so much that when faced with real life they can’t handle it, consider this your punch in the throat.  And to all the daughters of those parents, if you need a place to go to feel safe and loved, my door is open. I’ll only tease you for bad grammar.