A Blanket Statement

We love blankets! Don't you? A nice, warm fuzzy wrapped around on a cool night or curl up under a blanket on a cold, rainy day, tea and an equally steamy novel? Or is that an unfounded blanket statement, an over-generalization, perhaps even an exaggeration?
And does that even translate from English?

If you follow "Life in Pictures," you know that "woobies" are part of our culture here at home. Everyone deserves one:

No. 510

So a blanket can mean security:

Linus and his
Blanket

In more ways than one:

Blanket Insurance Policy
Covers more than one Property

A blanket can be purely decorative:

Pendleton Seminole

Or was valuable for trade:

Pendleton Glacier National Park
Five Stripe Blanket

These types of blankets had stripes to indicate their worth in trade for fur pelts, mostly beaver, in the nineteenth century.

Some are meant to be worn:

Army Poncho Liner
Affectionately Called a
Woobie

Or?

Mexican Serape Costume

And can be plugged in:

Chilly Willy
AHHHHH!

It inspired it's own stitch to keep it all together:

And is the source of inspiration for Dale Chihuly''s glass works:

Dale Chihuly's
Pendleton Blanket Collection
Chihuly Glass Museum and Gardens
Seattle, Washington

Which inspired him to make this?

Fiori di Como by
Dale Chihuly
Bellagio Hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada

Wherever you find YOUR inspiration, show us your Blanket twinchies! Send photos to:

1xeritas@gmail.com by 2PM Tuesday, May 31, 2016. We'll post them later the same day. Include any notes and links to blogs or what-have-yous. 

Week 31--Echo

Oh, this was a toughie: how do you creatively illustrate a sound? AND keep it to a diminutive size? We think the artists handled this challenge bravely and admirably. For the visual "Echoes:"

First, Freebird created this in beads. She explains: "It was a picture I saw online that was made to convey 2 echos hitting one another.  I just loved the colors on it." 

Echo by
Freebird

It's a very bold graphic in bright colors, isn't it? We appreciate that Freebird has completed each and every challenge thus far. And she's our best cheerleader. A big woohoo for Freebird!

And a big welcome back to Sarah! She promised to return once she took care of some health issues and true to her word, here she is:

Echo by
Sarah

In her own words, "I tangled Opus, which reminds me of a musical score to a symphonic piece or just in its form as a tangle how it undulates and repeats." 

Also a bold representation with color and a single tangle, this just sings!

Our official response is part of a larger composition, six twinchies in all, based on the tangle "Echoism." This looks like a pair of Emperor penguins to us:

Echo by
Cheryl

Thanks for visiting and don't forget to visit the artist blogs to see what all they've been up to and offer kind words of encouragement. Let them know you saw them here! And perhaps? Try your own hand at TwobyTwo art!?

Until next time....

Quack!

If you've been on the Internet any time in the last ten years or so, you must have received an email that noted that "A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why?"

Sound familiar?
We always suspected it was because of the way you'd have to breathe IN to create a "quack," and therefore no reverberation, but we're not scientists.
It's probably a good thing.

Well, come to find out that something passed along on the Internet is NOT TRUE. (How can that be?!!)
The trusty folks at The University of Salford, Manchester (UK) did a bunch of experiments and recorded a duck singing Christmas carols. Oh, and the echoes of duck quacks.

Here's a simpler explanation, because the other makes our head hurt.

And here's a great place to hear echoes:

If you're ever in the neighborhood for Easter Sunday, they hold an ecumenical service at sunrise. It's cold and it's crowded, but the sound! They play and sing hymns and spirituals from all over the planet and they have what must be the world's largest speaker system.
Put it on your bucket list, it's absolutely amazing! No matter your religious affiliation or inclination, it is worth getting up before you go to bed to be there.

(And if you check out that link to the 37 Amazing Photos of the Grand Canyon, I can tell you which ones are NOT at the canyon, or even in Arizona!)

Here are some guys that just plain make a lot of racket:

These are a LOT cuter:

Julian Wolkenstein has made an art project out of visual echoes--dividing a face into two even halves and then making portraits of each half. (There's even an app for that!) The premise of echoism is that a person with a more symmetrical face--where the two resulting portraits are most similar--are more appealing.

We remember having an art project in grammar school where we used magazine advertisements, cut the faces in half and drew the mirror image as our introduction to echoism.

For tangly people everywhere, there is, "Echoism," an official Zentangle tangle. Essentially, it's one continuous cursive "L."

Echoism by Holly
Copyright, ha! Designs

For further exploration of the pattern, see Margaret Bremner's post.  It echoes and then some! If THAT'S not enough inspiration, see the results of Adele Bruno's recent challenge.

Show us your echoes!

Send your twinchie images to: 1xeritas@gmail.com by 2 P.M. Arizona Time, Tuesday, May 17, 2016. Include any notes and blog links. We'll post them later the same day.

Week 30--Wood

Thank you for checking in on the results for this weeks' TwobyTwo, The word is wood, which can take on many meanings and therefore can be illustrated in so many ways.

In Arkansas, Freebird went with the definition that falls into "into the woods," as in "forest." She made this lovely depiction with her beads:

Wood by
Freebird

You can just hear the wind through the trees and the leaves gently falling!

This is our official response, a ZIA using the pattern, "Wud:"

Wood by
Cheryl

Be sure to check out the blogs and see how the artists were inspired this week--and let them know you saw them here! Perhaps, join in on the fun!
Until next time....