Leaving on a Jet Plane

Organize, don't agonize.  - Nancy Pelosi

Organize, don't agonize.  - Nancy Pelosi

Organize, don't agonize.  - Nancy Pelosi

Organize, don't agonize.  - Nancy Pelosi

Organize, don't agonize.  - Nancy Pelosi

Organize, don't agonize.  - Nancy Pelosi

"Organize, don't agonize"   Nancy Pelosi

When I cannot bear outer pressures any more, I begin to put order in my belongings… As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects.  - Anais Nin

- See more at: http://simpleworksorganizing.com/blog/?category=Quotes#sthash.Zs3ANqe4.d

When I cannot bear outer pressures any more, I begin to put order in my belongings… As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects.  - Anais Nin

- See more at: http://simpleworksorganizing.com/blog/?category=Quotes#sthash.Zs3ANqe4.dpuf

When I cannot bear outer pressures any more, I begin to put order in my belongings… As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects.  - Anais Nin

- See more at: http://simpleworksorganizing.com/blog/?category=Quotes#sthash.Zs3ANqe4.dpuf

When I cannot bear outer pressures any more, I begin to put order in my belongings… As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects.  - Anais Nin

- See more at: http://simpleworksorganizing.com/blog/?category=Quotes#sthash.Zs3ANqe4.dpuf

I am about to take off on a ten day trip to MA to visit my sister and then to Dallas for some Zentangle fun. Of course my Zentangle supplies are a big part of what I pack to take on any trip. I decided that I'd really like to have a more compact method than my bulky binder to haul patterns with me for inspiration. I am about halfway through an online class with Joanne Sharpe for which I bought a set of cards on a ring for one of the projects. The cards are 2 in. x 4 in.

 

Once I received these cards I immediately knew that it would be a great way to keep track of my tangle patterns. So I ordered a few more sets. Now, with just a few days to go before my trip, I have begun to fill one up. On each card I'm drawing a picture of the pattern, not with the step-outs, but with a tiny note if there's something special I need to remember.

Just as a reminder to myself, I'm also including a list of the tangles that I know by heart and don't need any visual to help me. With 100 cards on a ring, using front and back, I have room for 200 patterns on each ring. Doing the math - three rings times 200 - means I have room for 600 tangles. Will that be enough? I wonder how many patterns have been published in one place or another.

I recently tried a tangle (Henna Drum) that I had not used before and didn't think I liked, but then I fell in love with it (see my post here). As a result, I decided that it was time to venture further into the world of the unknown. I so often fall back into using the same tangles over and over and over (well, you get the idea). I'm getting kind of tired of them. So I am forcing myself to try out the patterns never tried before, even if I don't expect to like them. Some I still don't like after playing with them, but some I love! So far I've added 75 patterns to my ring, more than half of them new to me, and that's just a drop in the bucket. 

I am starting with Tanglepatterns.com, going through letter by letter. I am only up to the letter G, (and no, I'm not including them ALL), so there will be  lots to finish upon returning from my travels, but I'll have well over 100 patterns to play with while away. And they will hardly take up any space or add any weight to my luggage. I'm making sure that the front and back sides of each card have similar type tangles, such as grid, organic, or border, so that later I can organize them by category. I even made front and back covers for the stack of cards, using only new tangles to me. 

I'm very excited about my little project. Who am I kidding... it's really a HUGE project. It doesn't take much to get me excited when it's Zentangle related.  If you need to add some organization to your tangled life, I hope that you will find some inspiration from this. Now, off to add some more patterns before I leave.