Yes, this is what the girlchild and I do after taking the newly purchased background fabric out of the dryer.
No animals were harmed in the making of this video.
But I did get a background fabric. I’m estimating 20 hours to choose all the fabrics…
It’s not really that dark…it’s more of a midnight blue batik. And you can see the freaky string in the photograph too. Eight yards, just in case. Tonight, I’m going to start picking fabrics out. Whee!
Interesting day. Slept for 4 hours instead of going to pick out fabric for the background. Felt like crap. Finally called the nurse phone line for my medical group and they sent me to urgent care. Tested for flu, came back negative, but apparently there’s still a 30% chance I have H1N1. Or it could just be my flu shot from last week and a cold on top of it. They don’t know. If I run a fever, I need to go back in. Better safe than sorry. The diabetes makes me paranoid about this flu. Plus I’m coughing and sneezing so violently that I pulled muscles in my ribcage somewhere. Hurts like hell. Yes, that’s how out of shape I am at the moment.
Meanwhile, I did finish cutting out all that Wonder Under last night.
Lots of cups of tea and lying on the couch was helpful. I seemed to be feeling much better for about 5 hours until I got up this morning. Right now I’m OK too…so we’ll see what tomorrow brings. Tonight I’m hoping to sort all those pieces into boxes. I put them in boxes by the 100s, so 1-99 is in the first box, etc. It makes it easier when I’m cutting pieces out…make sure I don’t miss any. And yes, I tend to cut them out in order. But I’m trying to find 11 boxes…and having issues with that right now.
On the brain dominance tests, I tend to test right down the middle. Creativity is a huge part of my life, in both work and art, but so is the anal-obsessiveness that makes a good editor. I’m super-organized in a totally chaotic fashion.
I’m really chomping at the bit to start picking fabrics, so I’m super-frustrated by not getting that started today…on the other hand, 4 hours of exhausted sleep seems to imply that my body wants me to take a rest.
So I listened. For a little bit.
Here are the monsters…
They get bigger every year. Then the boy-vampire started to lean in to the girl’s neck…
That’s more like it. They did trick-or-treat in two neighborhoods. Then the girlchild was headed off to a party. I guess that’s probably the future. Parties. Yikes. I’m so not ready.
This was on the fridge this morning. I guess I need to start sewing that costume now? What the heck is a black angel anyway? Like Charlie’s Angels? Sheesh. Gimme a picture, girlchild. I’ll get Grandma in on it.
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Posted by Kathy
Not computer. The cold virus kind. I probably should have stayed home today, but I protect my sick days. I don’t want to come back to a national disaster area and no work done in the classroom. It’s honestly easier to come in and bully through. I wasn’t running a fever, so I knew it was probably just a cold and not the flu that’s been going around…you know, H1N1. That flu.
Drawn last night…
All I do every day is feel kids’ foreheads and decide whether to send them to the nurse. I’m batting pretty high on those…most of the ones I send to the nurse go home with a fever.
Wait a minute. I keep TOUCHING them. And no, I’m not an obsessive handwasher, and I’m allergic to half or more of the antibacterial soaps. So I take lots of Vitamin C and hope for lots of luck.
Today the luck ran out. I did nap for about 2 hours after school and rallied enough to cook dinner. I’m hoping to function well enough to finish cutting out the last 2 yards of Wonder Under pieces.
I’m not sure the drawing above is done, by the way. Dinner arrived and I stopped drawing.
The plus is that I am TOTALLY and COMPLETELY caught up with grading.
Oh wait. No I’m not. I have 26 essays to read. Ugh. Maybe next week.
This lady (?) tried reading those essays and just plain gave up.
Halloween is tomorrow, so this happened.
Maybe tomorrow I will have pictures of the kids in costume…because those bits on the floor were my butchering of the girlchild’s sleeves, per her request. Apparently she has issues with floppy long sleeves.
Girlchild finished this drawing this week.
It was colored pencils, which are apparently harder for still lifes. Still lives. Lifes that are still.
That’s a stuffed dragon, I think.
Playing music really loud doesn’t get rid of sinus pressure, in case you’re wondering. Maybe I’m just trying to keep myself awake. Going to go conquer that Wonder Under now. I feel bad that I don’t have anything to show up but huge piles of Wonder Under, but that’s the way it is here in Kathy’s World right now. I’m hoping to start choosing fabrics this weekend, but we’ll see. This virus may kick my butt instead.
Two of my quilts are in a show that opens tomorrow, Halloween, in Auburn, New York. The Quilts=Art=Quilts show looks to be a good one, based on the other names in the show, and I wish I could be at the opening.
My pieces rarely make it on the postcard, although one of my really old pieces (so old I don’t even have a picture of it) was on the show postcard when I first started showinq quilts instead of prints. I did have a PIECE of my quilt on one recent show postcard. I went looking for that postcard and couldn’t even find it. Lame.
Found it.
They chose 4 details from 4 artists. Mine is second from the left. It’s very abstract-looking because it’s been cropped so tightly. It’s a stomach, part of a liver, a piece of uterus, and I think some part of the heart.
I recently got the postcard for the SAQA Transformations 09: Reflections show.
I’m intrigued. I think there is a catalog for this one…hopefully I will see it soon. What’s interesting about this show is that because it’s traveling, they are trying to advertise in each space. This is the part in Connecticut. From there, it goes to Alaska, I think. Like I said, the quilts have a much better vacation plan than I do.
Here’s the back.
So many openings. Some day I may have a life that allows me to go to some of these.
| You Are a Lynx |
 You are a quiet observer of the world around you. Your wisdom comes from listening carefully.You’ve always been extra sensitive and aware. And it’s made it difficult for you to fit in. You see past people’s outward personas. You are able to penetrate a stranger’s soul. |
Some days I’m so efficient I freak me out. Dropped girlchild at art class, picked up puppy (who now weighs 50+ pounds, a full 15 pounds more than my dog), made tea, prepped dinner, and popped it in the oven. Went back to art class, picked up girlchild, am now home with 5 minutes until dinner’s ready. Wow.
And I finished tracing the one thousandth one hundredth and twenty first piece of Wonder Under at about 11:15 PM on Monday night. My goal was Tuesday night. Boo ya.
Here it is, all laid out (minus one length, which I had already cut out).
That’s about 9 yards of Wonder Under that I now need to cut out. Yikes.
Actually, as of last night, this box is full and I only (ONLY) have another 6 yards to go. Double yikes. Looks like I may meet my goal on the first quilt, anyway. I need a plan for the second one. Like yesterday.
I’m figuring 12 hours plus to pick out fabrics, and I want it done before I leave for Vegas…which would be fine, if I didn’t have 17 soccer games, a work evaluation, and 32 meetings to go to before that time. Minor issue.
I will go buy background fabric Saturday between soccer games (ooh. A fabric store…danger danger.). Meanwhile, the random parts of my brain that aren’t involved in cooking, organization, or work are now coloring in all the different versions of this piece in my head. Hopefully they’ll be done sometime in the next week, so I can pick a color or ten.
Soccer this weekend involved mud.
Not a lot of it. But enough. Note the painted two-tone toenails. Oh yeah. That’s my girl. And she’s stealing my nail polish (which I never ever wear any more). She is probably the only girl at her school with turquoise toenails (the previous color).
The boychild managed a couple of headers…
and my photos are all blurry. The girlchild had a random game…very inconsistent.
Though they tied, unlike the boychild’s loss. The season is not a great one. Lots of inconsistency on both teams, and the girlchild herself is obviously feeling the strain of 7th grade. She loves the game, but I think having a coach that quit and having to deal with a new coach, who is female, has been hard on her. I think it’s GOOD for her to have a female coach, don’t get me wrong, but she doesn’t know how to deal with criticism well…so we’ve been working on that. Typical of the age…
According to mom, the beaded pink dress in the previous post was HER mother’s, my grandmother’s. OK. Even more reason to hold on to it, I guess. Grandma (my mom) made a run to local thrift shops to find the girlchild a girly girl dress and (I believe) succeeded, but now because Grandma and I made the mistake of telling her how CUTE she looked in it (and I rarely use that word), she’s stomping around telling us it makes her look FAT. Holy god. I hate that middle-school/high-school girl crap. She’s not fat. She’s not a stick either. Grr. Being a girl can really suck.
So I think she’s a pirate wench now. And the boychild is NOT a Twilight fanboy, but a vampire. OK. Gone are the days when I have time to think about and sew costumes. And when I’m writing posts like this one, which has been interrupted by dinner, dishes, math homework, phone calls from teen girls, printing photos for teen girls, and WordPress crashing…this is what the kitten does.
Man, does she have it easy. (and yes, my keyboard is THAT dirty.)
Off to Wonder Under Land.
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The Visions’ member’s show is coming up in three weeks, and they released the poster this week…see below.
I’m looking forward to this opening, since it’s local. The opening is November 14 from 5-7 PM in San Diego, Liberty Station area (aka Point Loma). I love having a local art quilt gallery…I hope they can keep things going. If you come, there is a gift shop. Think Christmas! Or any other holiday that includes giftgiving.
I’m going to bring my new Moo business cards. They turned out OK…I should have spent more time resizing and fixing colors to make them perfect, but I didn’t have time. I still like them.
They’re a nice heavyweight stock. And the other side…with some info whited out.
My website actually doesn’t have the www. in it. I always forget that and type it anyway. It still gets you there. Der.
Feel free to ask for one.
The biggest stressor this week is Halloween. The boychild chose to be a vampire and his costume is winging its way here from Transylvania as I write. The girlchild thinks she wants to be a girly girl. You know, pink dress and frilly bits. I have one dress that my mom wore in the 60s, but the girlchild refuses.
Not sure I blame her, actually, but I couldn’t bear to throw the dress away. I also offered her my Jackson Pollack painting dress (one year post-divorce I painted a black dress to look like a Pollack painting). It is a little big on her. So I’m not sure how we’re going to deal with the whole costume thing…she needs it by Friday, and we are booked solid (as usual). We tried Ross today, and there was nothing that would work that would pass dress code. Mom owns nothing (I am also not a girly girl).
Gotta go to the parentals. Will take Wonder Under with me to start cutting pieces out. Still tracing. Made it to the 700s today, but that still leaves 400+ pieces to go.
I got my flu shot today. Just a normal one. My doc doesn’t have H1N1 shots for adults yet…and after a long talk with her about my daughter’s symptoms last week, that’s probably what she had. And I still don’t feel well. I was yucky on Wednesday, fine on Thursday, and yucky again today. No fever. But I spent all day touching teenaged foreheads, saying “yes, you may go to the nurse” and “no, you’re not running a fever…you’ll have to stay here.” I’m waiting for the nurse to complain about how many kids we’re sending up, but hell…I don’t want them sliming their viral bits in my classroom.
So I’m on the top of the list for the H1N1 shot, once all the kids are vaccinated. Which makes me think…the girlchild, does she need a vaccination? We don’t have official confirmation of the flu, but it’s the only one going around San Diego County at the moment. I don’t know…such a pain in the butt.
So I’ve been doggedly tracing Wonder Under the last few nights, despite feeling under the weather. My goal is to have all 1121 pieces traced by Tuesday night, so they can all be cut out as close to Halloween as I can get. This is not because of the holiday, but because I calculated that I needed to be picking fabric by November 1 if I wanted to have it done by Tday. We’ll see how that works out. I’m figuring a normal quilt takes about 6-8 hours to pick fabrics, so this will be double that…at least.
The real problem so far has been the kitten.
She likes to sit under that pattern, which is fine, until she attacks from below.
And on Thursday, she apparently had a romp around the living room with the pattern and the Wonder Under, leaving random holes that I had to tape up.
Better than the black cat, who eats paper, but only by a bit. So I’m aiming for a few more pieces each night…
And succeeding so far. Wow. I thought I was still in the 300s, but I’m halfway through the 400s. My goal for tonight will be to break 600. More than halfway. Cool.
The sane part of my brain is having a field day with this. The doctor asked what I was doing with my spare time, and I tried to explain this, but couldn’t. Oh well. She was trying to figure out why I don’t sleep well. Ha!
I forgot to post what I got done on the third Home Sweet Home block at the quilt guild meeting.
Pink roof makes sense, yes? Wait until you see the red door.
I was caught up with grades last night, and then collected a bunch more work today, but most of it is input, and I’m not doing any grading tonight. On Monday, I didn’t grade…I sewed a bottom sleeve on a quilt that needs to ship out tomorrow…
I covered up the label. Oops.
And I drew again last night…
It seems the busier I am, the more I get done. Scary stuff.
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Posted by Kathy
You know the day before you get sick? You feel kind of off? A little dizzy and achy maybe? Tired?
Yeah. I got all that. I’m hoping it can be slept off, though, because I can’t afford to be sick like the girlchild was (still is).
We dissected eyeballs yesterday…
It was really good. Nobody lost a limb (well, except the cows, and that was an organ), the kids loved the experience…even the girls who screamed and got all wiggy on me went to their other teachers and told them how cool it all was. On days like that, I walk away from school with a really good feeling, like I did it right for once.
I’m still tracing Wonder Under for the Giant Art Quilt That Will Take Over the World. I have traced about 175 pieces now, and at this rate, if I do the same every night, I will be done tracing on Monday. My goal was to have all the Wonder Under cut out by the end of the month. Can’t guarantee it, but I’ll try. And let’s ignore the fact, please, that I still need to draw the second quilt (shh. don’t tell anyone.).
The reason I didn’t trace anything on Monday night is that I made a concerted effort to get me and mom to our quilt guild meeting. I go about once a year. It’s a production, because both kids have soccer and my dad had to make dinner (and I had to write out instructions) and one kid had massive amounts of homework. But it was worth it. We saw Becky Goldsmith, one half of Piece o’ Cake Designs. I’ve loved their designs for years, since I started the Simply Delicious quilt back in who-knows-when. Have I finished any of them? Hell no, but I’m trying.
Here are my first 6 blocks…I think I have three more done, but they don’t have their little squares yet, so they don’t count. Anyway, most of the lecture was about color, which I don’t really have a problem with, but it was nice to see her quilts and hear her theory of color.
And after, we got to see her quilts, which was also cool.
I realize that her stuff is more traditional than my own quilts, but I enjoy applique and theirs often has a quirkiness to it that I really like.
And even more interesting was watching her photo shoot of how she designed this quilt. It’s not how I design at all…I do it all in my head, really. I lay fabrics out next to each other as I’m picking them, but it’s sort of pre-colored in my head. The quilt I’m working on now is already getting colored in the cranium.
The other cool thing was that I met a quilter who has a piece in the Art Quilts: Significant Stitching show at the Chandler Art Center with mine. She’s going to the opening (so jealous). Her name is Linda Laird (could not find a website for this particular LL) and the piece on the right will be at the show.
She is a brave woman for standing up for show and tell. My mom and I joke about bringing one of mine in, but I’ve never done it.
Anyway, we had a good time and were very tired when we got home…got nothing else done that night. Kind of how I feel tonight, but I think I might rally with a cup of tea. I took an hourlong nap earlier, which didn’t seem to help, but now, after food, I’m feeling a little less woozy.
This is in my yard.
It would be nice if some lawn were there too, but desert-livers can’t be choosers. There were two trees here that are now gone. They were sucker trees and too close to other trees to really be healthy.
And there was a monster of an old pepper tree here that was sick.
Most of these were my neighbor’s trees, but they have changed the vista.
This rolled down the slope and landed in my yard. I kind of like it.
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Posted by Kathy
I finished numbering the pieces in the first Sightlines quilt. Understand that until yesterday, I had a quilt with 800 and something pieces as my most insane effort. Nope. Beat it. Hands down.
One Thousand One Hundred and Twenty-One Pieces
I started tracing Wonder Under last night. I made it to piece 57. Tomorrow I will post why I did none tonight (it was quilt-related!). If I only do 57 pieces a night, I may be done in February 2011 instead of 2010. I promise to get my butt in gear.
What was I thinking. It doesn’t even seem like there’s that many pieces. I can’t even show it to you.
You can look at the Wonder Under instead.
Exciting. Once they’re all traced, they all need to be cut out. And then ironed on fabric. And then trimmed. And and and.
Girlchild raises her hand (finger)…
Mummy, how will you get all that done AND go to all the soccer games AND deal with work?
Ask me later.
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Posted by Kathy
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