She has broken-up Milkbone treats, and right now all I hear is “Ivy sit. Ivy sit. Ivy sit. Would you SIT already!” So it’s going well. “Good dog.” Ivy keeps running to me like she needs protection. Maybe she does. Maybe she’s saying, “Hey, it’s a national freakin’ holiday. Why don’t I get a day off from doggie school?”

My gutta resist lesson number 2 was not very successful. I did the first one on thin habotai silk, and the next one on silk charmeuse, which is thicker. I thought the resist soaked all the way through, but mostly it didn’t. It’s OK. It’s all a learning experience. I will probably cut the fabric up and use it in something else, which is fine.

I’m working on crazy quilt seams in the evenings still. It’s somewhat relaxing to sit and stitch each night, although I didn’t manage to do much last night because I forgot to take this piece with me to my monthly stitching meeting.

I did more shishas on the elephant piece instead. I didn’t photograph it, because it hasn’t changed much.

I’m mostly done picking fabrics for the next smallish art quilt, starring my son (sort of) and another bird. The biggest obstacle to getting this done has not been the heat, my lassitude, or other projects, but this…

and this…

If there is a flat space where I am trying to lay out fabrics and teensy-weensy pieces of Wonder Under, there is a cat trying to jump on it, sit on it, paw through it. Limbo is the worst. Yesterday, I was digging through the flesh-colored fabric stash (down under the desk, of course), and he was trying to jump up, while I was yelling at him “NO! I don’t want you up there!” What’s scary is that he understands, doesn’t jump, but then mrows impatiently at me and attempts to jump again, only to start the yelling/mrowing process all over again. It’s too hot to close the door. He’s sitting there now, and I’d like to finish ironing the last 30 or so pieces before we go to the movies this afternoon.

The mess is also in my way, but I can’t be bothered to deal with it…

I’m tempted to just box it all up for now, but then I will never deal with it. A teacher I work with has the same problem each year. She says she will file it all away, and boxes it up and never does, and the next year, she spends hours sifting through what’s in the boxes trying to find what she needs. I have all this art and math support stuff that I don’t have a home for, so I’m waffling. Flailing. I told you I would flail. I can’t get to my fabric, though. This is a problem.

The boychild is fine. The hospital experience was not-so-bad if you ignore the massive numbers of children running around and screaming in the waiting room…non-surgical children…siblings of surgical children. The hospital actually requests that you leave siblings at home, so I guess it makes sense that one family had 6 kids (loud, annoying, irritating, running, screaming, obnoxious) and about 17 adults in the waiting room. I realize adult family members might be concerned and want to show their support, but this was a bit much. There were a couple times when it was hard to find seats because this group had commandeered the whole central section. Understand that this was the day surgery room…not the long-term, gotta-stay-in-the-hospital-overnight section, but the “hey, you get to go home as soon as your IV runs out” group. My mom asked about coming to the hospital, and I told her she would be doing us a bigger favor by taking the girlchild instead. Next time, I bring headphones.

There was a couple sitting near us who must have had a toddler in having surgery (stroller). The doctor came out and was talking to them about viral contagion and how he had to do something to the membranes in the kid’s eyes and he was still contagious, so they weren’t even going to use that room again until it had been sterilized, and then he said to the mom that it looked like she still had IT (whatever the heck IT was) and she was probably contagious, that it was about 10 days. Holy crap! Go sit somewhere else! Fast! I don’t know what they had…I was thinking pink eye, but that doesn’t have a 10-day quarantine…once you’re on the meds, you can come back to school. Anyway, we didn’t sit on THAT couch for sure.

The only hiccup in the boy’s procedure came when they tried to take his book away from him. The previous nurse had told him he could take it with him into surgery, so he would have it when he woke up, for the few minutes before they came and got me. She even put an ID label on it for him. Then the nurse who was supposed to take him back for the surgery told him he wouldn’t need it, because he would be asleep, and he started to get all flustered, because the other nurse had said it was OK, and all the other kids had teddy bears the hospital gave him, and I realize he’s my height and weight and looks like he can handle this stuff, and he was very calm until then, and that’s when he started crying. Whoops! Bad nurse. She reversed herself and he took the book, but damage done, lady. Anyway, he recovered quickly and came home and ate a ton of food and slept well and has had no problems. We won’t know until September whether it worked, and if it didn’t, we have to go in for a longer surgery that includes staying overnight. The worst part is that he’s not allowed in the pool for a week, so although it is 90 plus degrees here and the pool is a lovely clean shade of blue (can you say Pool Guy?), we are banned. Sucks. Oh well. So THAT’S why we’re going to the movies on a lovely 4th of July afternoon.

Man, I talk a lot. Fabric calls. More later.

Project 1 is that crazy quilt block posted yesterday. I’m embroidering it at night, but it’s also ready to go to the hospital with me tomorrow during my son’s outpatient procedure. Ideally, we’ll only be there for 6 or 7 hours, so I’m thinking a big long book, a bunch of stitching, a sketchbook, and my iPod should be sufficient. My ex actually asked me when we would know if we would have to stay later than 7 PM. Why? Um. Because he “set something up” for that night. Dude. Date on your own time, not your son’s. Anyway, we should be home for bedtime, knock on wood. We only have to stay overnight if there’s a problem, and there shouldn’t be.

Project 2 is a gutta resist on silk class from Quilt University; Marjie McWilliams is the instructor. I’ve done batik and fabric painting in a number of classes, but the call of silk and a water-based resist (no turpentine or steaming!) made this class an interesting distraction. I’m not sure why I keep trying to put the line directly on fabric…it’s more time-consuming and harder to transport in my day-to-day life, but I keep trying to find a way to do it anyway.

Here was the sampler I did (I’m only 2 plus weeks behind)…

If I have a chance tomorrow, I’ll dye/paint this allover leaf pattern.

I get lots more done now that the kids are older and can be in the pool without my being in there with them, like when they were little. I have this view from my office/studio…

And I can hear them screaming even with iTunes LOUD. One unfortunate side effect of the boychild’s surgery is that he has to stay out of the pool, ocean, or any other body of water for a whole week. It’s not too hot yet (mid 90’s), so that’s not the problem…the problem is how bored they get if they don’t have their hour plus in the water. Oh well…maybe we’ll finally go see Wall-E…or have a croquet tournament…or learn how to make pie from scratch. Yeah.

Project 3 is the art quilt that still isn’t ironed onto fabric. I just can’t get my head there, and any time I get my head there, the cat is in the way…on the ironing board, not on my head. Maybe tomorrow morning. I can’t visualize it yet. I need a background fabric.

2. Send kids to camp, preferably stay-away-from-home, for at least a week, a month if you can afford it.

3. Change your phone number.

4. Turn off the computer.

Let’s start with the fact that I have done none of these, except sort of take time off from my job. I don’t actually get paid for this 8-week “vacation,” and since I didn’t manage to do steps 2-4 (especially step 2), it’s not really a vacation. I have managed to train the kids to do their own breakfasts and lunches, although I sometimes have issues with the messes they make. The girlchild has been singing the “I’m bored” song (a song she invented when she was bored) almost every day, but a glare from me usually makes it stop. I do feel like I need to use the time really well for art-making and other ventures, so I usually start the summer out with all these amazing plans for what I’m going to get done. I often flail for much of the summer, though, so little seems to actually get done. I’d tell you about my yardwork and vegetable garden plans, and my quilt plans, and my housecleaning and garage-organizing plans, but then I’d have to explain to you at the end of the summer why I was so lame, and I don’t want to do that.

That said, now that the cousins are gone and life is semi-normal, I rented a bunch of this

so I could get some handwork done in the evenings. I like shows where dead people talk to the living.

I then crazily picked silk dupioni for hand applique (it’s not so bad…OK, it frays like a mom with 4 kids under age 5). I picked some other stuff and went to town. Progression below. FYI: I started Friday afternoon, worked Friday night and Saturday afternoon and evening on the leaves and hand applique, and did all the crazy quilt piecing on Sunday and Sunday evening. I still have 4 little corner pieces to put on today before I start embellishing, although I save that for the evenings. I will probably start another quilt today, a smaller art quilt that has all the Wonder Under cut out, so I need to start ironing.

Here goes.

I think the leaves took longer than any other part of it…about 5 hours?

The picture below was about 2 1/2 hours later…

And this was about 2 1/2 hours after the last. I love Sundays with no school on Mondays. I can stitch until I’m done and not worry about my lesson plans for the week.

I dreamed about embellishing seams last night. Somewhat worrisome…

Meanwhile, I shocked the kids this morning by demanding they clean up some of their mess. We are searching for a library book that is due Wednesday, and in searching, I realized that an entire library’s worth of books was currently all over my living room. Before they could swim in the pool, they had to put all the books away. In a bookshelf. Right side up. Spine facing out. I’m SO demanding…ask them. Here’s what they started with…

Luckily, they made some weird shelving game out of it and they were done in 20 minutes flat. Not arguing about it, even. Shocking what they can do if they have to do it. OK, I’m having a snack and getting those silly corner pieces on…then cleaning up all the CQ stuff and starting in on the art quilt piece. This evening, I’m going up on the roof and attack the plants that are hanging over and causing issues. Might deal with whatever landed on my roof and scuttled around last night around 3 AM too (possum). Set some rat traps again…exciting life I lead, I know. I have not relaxed yet. Still feel it in my jaw and my shoulders.  

I always wonder about the animals being ridden at the fair, but the kids wanted to ride so badly, and Daisy seemed OK with it all. I hope she has a good life otherwise…a nice vacation at Elephant Beach when the fair is over or something.

I was forced to ride things I didn’t want to ride. One made me nauseous for the next 6 hours, but this one just made me nervous.

Sixty-two feet off the ground doesn’t seem like much unless it doesn’t seem like there’s anything holding you in and the girlchild is rocking the bench and the boychild is worrying about his shoes falling off onto some bystander’s head.

The kids all swam in the pool this morning, giving their mom time to pack up all their stuff. They’re on their way to the East Coast for more weeks of family. We, gladly, are staying here. Reading. Thinking about cleaning. Thinking about the major quilt project of the summer (or five). Thinking about vegetable gardens and upcoming surgeries and how to entertain and feed the kidlets.

This quilt had to be kept off blog until it got rejected, which it did.

I’m on a roll! But you can’t get into shows if you don’t enter them, and if you enter them, you might be rejected. So be it. See more details of it on my home page. It’s called Untied. With that, I’m going to go read for a while longer until it’s time to drag everyone off for errands and soccer drop-off and library returns.

Ages 3, 12, almost 6, 1, and almost 11. My only goal this week is to get a decent picture of all 5 of them.

But the other reality is that I will need a week to recover, plus finish the yardwork (which I’ve barely started), and get the house clean. I haven’t been working with fabric hardly at all this week…just a little CQ embroidery. I know the time is well spent. I’m glad I don’t have little ones any more, but they are fun to be around for a short period of time. My kids are entertained and seem to enjoy themselves also.

Art quilts next week.

The girlchild’s team won, in the end. Talk about a heart attack for the parents, though. They won all 4 games going into the championship, went into the championship number one, got a goal in the first half and held it and held it and held it, and let a goal in during the last 10 minutes. So the championship is tied 1-1. Goes to penalty shots. Well, one thing we have going for us is girls who can handle penalty shots, so we won off those. Won the medals and trophy.

It was all good. I have been doing little seam treatments on the CQ, here and there, but not much else. Later this week…when all the cousins are gone. Not much you can get done with a 5-, 3-, and 1-year-old around. Bed sounds nice. I’ve been reading this a little bit at a time.

Masters: Art Quilts…what an awesome book. I wish there was a new one each year with new artists. I don’t make quilts anything like the majority of these artists. I’m not sure what that means (and don’t really care, because I make what I make because it’s what’s in my head)…but I enjoy seeing this many pieces so well reproduced in such a nice book.

Beach tomorrow…more sunburn opportunities.

It was good. I liked it. Go see it. I am so glad I have a college degree and the ability to work somewhere besides in a grocery store. If you work in a grocery store and enjoy it, good for you…go see the movie and have a belly laugh. It was a funny movie…not hysterical, but quirky. Seann William Scott’s character was great…his frustration at being on lot duty reminds me of having to do lower hall duty at school. John C. Reilly is so messed up that you feel sorry for his not getting it on a regular basis, whatever “it” is.

My favorite thing to do during soccer games besides (1) yelling at my daughter in a loving manner and (2) ducking my head around trying to see through the FOUR coaches’ legs (they always stand in front of me, no matter where I sit), is (3) taking weird pictures of soccer-playing kids. I often get the ball in the picture too. I have to anticipate where the ball will be and what my daughter might be doing to it about a full 10 seconds before the ball gets there, because my digital camera has to think about taking pictures.

This is actually a standard running kick penalty shot, but she is completely in the air.

Here, the ball is behind her back…I think she is Do-Si-Do’ing. Swing round your soccer ball. Somethin’ like that.

 No wonder her co-player is looking at her so strangely.

And finally, the soccer ball stomp, performed by someone on the other team.

Yes, she is fully a head taller than most of the other girls on the team. I was always the shortest in my class, and her dad’s not that tall, so it’s weird for both of us. I just figure she’s going to get tall early and then not grow any more after age 13 or so. Oh wait. I did that. OK, so she’s going to be taller than me…not hard to do. 

We had three games yesterday and one so far today. Won all 4, but in hair-raising, parent-stressing, goal-in-the-last-2-minutes-of-the-game style. The final game for the championship is in about 3 hours…hopefully we will up the ante and play better for that one. Even though we are currently in first place, we could be playing much better.

I was embroidering CQ blocks on the soccer field, until it got too windy. One of the parents, who is French, came up and asked me what art style I was doing and from where did it originate…was it American? I don’t think of CQ as American in origin…but I could be wrong. Seeing as how I’m working on a Victorian CQ, I am inclined to think of the Brits…but I wasn’t able to answer his question about whether French people did this too…I mean, I know they do NOW…but back in the Victorian era? No clue. He was disappointed in my lack of knowledge. I however just wanted to quietly stitch, so I was quite happy when he wandered off.

It is cooler today, by about 10 degrees. Tomorrow it will be cooler than today. My brother and all his family are arriving in San Diego tomorrow afternoon, so I’m sure the week will be filled with activity. Maybe stitching too.

Yes, it is summer vacation. I’m not quite relaxed yet. It usually takes me a week to wind down. Mostly I just look around at the house, declare it a disaster, and flail a lot. Then around the 1st of July, I start cleaning and stitching and functioning like a normal human being. Meanwhile, my kids have been on vacation for over a week, hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I had bought some fabric to make a quilt for my own bed, because I got tired of waiting for someone else (mom) to make me one. The comforter I have (bed in a bag) was somewhat um reformatted by the dog when she was younger. It works, but it’s not covered with aliens…I’m using the Alien Invasion line from Moda fabrics. Here are some of them…and here is one…

I’m pro goofy aliens in lime and purple. Anyway, my daughter has been infected by the “I’m Bored” disease since before vacation started (school really is good for entertaining her), so I thought “Hey. Maybe I can get someone else to make my quilt for me.” I was going to need 90 blocks, but they were easy to piece…pattern is Yellow Brick Road, which everyone and their mother has used. I think I’ve made at least 3 baby quilts from the pattern. I asked mom to help the girlchild along, handed her the pattern and a pile of fabric, and expected maybe 20 blocks done.

Today they dropped off 48 blocks.

BooYa! Cool. Half done. And I’m out of fabric. Luckily, it’s on sale in many locations, so I got more. It’s not here yet. Maybe I can get the girlchild to piece the rest of it while I work on art quilts. It’s not slave labor if it keeps her from succumbing to boredom.

I also started reading at dinner…this is a book I’ve been waiting for since I finished the last one…

I like Elizabeth George. I also have two books on hold at the library, and another one my mom handed me. This is all good vacation stuff. And if I’m sitting on a soccer field for 8 hours tomorrow, I will need books and stitching. I have both. I will also need sunscreen and water. And a heat wave reprieve (not likely).

For summer, I have 2 quilts ready to be quilted, one traced on Wonder Under ready to be ironed on fabric, one numbered ready to be traced (an insane number of small pieces)…here’s part of it…

and probably another 5 that could become quilts this summer. There is absolutely no resolution about my school situation next year. I will have a job, but who knows what I’ll be teaching and with whom and where. Fun stuff. Glad I chose to give back to the community. Actually, a girl who’s been failing all year finally passed with her final exam. Barely. But she passed. I’ll have a grin on my face about that one for a while.

Then a variation in blue and pink…

And on this one, I actually used the dirty brown vintage lace I complained about in a previous post, because it worked in this block.

They all need lots of embellishment.

I was handing back all the artwork completed this semester, and caught these two projects.

I printed out their pictures and they made masks directly on the pictures. They turned out really nicely. This was in my School Arts magazine, I think. Or maybe not…I’m not finding it on their website in the archives. If you’re really interested, I’ll try to find it in the actual magazine.

These are name squares…

I can’t find the exact place where I located this lesson, but this link has many name ideas for elementary and middle school students. Basically, they fold the paper into a triangle and write a name filling the triangle, then trace that name onto each triangle and color it in. They’re easy and the kids like them, although not all of them get how to do it.

Anyway, here I am rambling on when I have 2 hours of work to do. Slap me with a wet noodle. I’m dreaming of feather stitches…2 more days, people. Two more days.