Outlined

So the plus is that all the outlining is done. The minus is that I want to finish the fucker and I have to go to school today. I think that is the core problem with my entire life (not really), that I’m always interrupting my art with that silly job thing that pays the bills (and honestly, gets me out of the house and dealing with people, which I really don’t like at the moment, because otherwise I’d be a giant hermit who only comes out for groceries once a week and snarls at everyone when she does come out…oh shit, I think I already do that).

Fucking Sigh.

Anyway, I quilted for another 3 1/2 hours yesterday, not starting until late again (maybe I should just dispose of that notion that I get any work done in the mornings at all, because I don’t) and only stopped because I knew how early I’d have to be up this lovely fucking morning (can you tell how thrilled I am by the prospect of 7 hours of professional development?). And then realized that I wasn’t tired yet, that my brain was speeding along, all excited that the quilting is almost done (Is It? Is It Really? Or do I have hours of filling in the background to go. C’mon brain. Figure it out.), so I didn’t go right to bed, which is what I should have done, because I’m “awake” now and my brain is significantly impaired by the lack of sleep I got anyway, despite stopping early.

I was quilting the upper torso, head, a giant eyeball, a dog, and a chastising thought bubble. In fact, I think I’m going to make a small quilt just of that thought bubble and call it Chastising Thought Bubble. It would also make a good band name.

I had to do a lot of careful stitching through this section…I’m over 12 hours in at this point, but remember, I guessed 20. I think that’s an overestimate at this point, but I could be wrong. That’s the heart.

It doesn’t really matter. Time is time. It gets used up one way or another. I was looking forward to the detail of the line stitching on the face. It always brings the face to life. I don’t always use fabrics with a lot of contrast on bodies, especially the face, because I expect the line to be a major part of the image. So here’s the face before stitching…

And during stitching. I went really slow with the eyes because of the details. Even the whites of the eyes are filling up with tears.

This quilt is all about the sad. The lost. The losing. The changes. A friend of a friend posted a link to an article about menopause, a humorous article about the blood and the irritability and the facial hair and all those things that come with being a woman approaching her 50s, and her husband posted a beautiful remark, and I thought, “Wow. That’s what it should have been like. That’s what you’re missing. That’s what you didn’t have. Support. Unconditional love.” And all that’s in there too. This notion of what a woman is and should be, this crap from the 50s about the perfect housewife providing for her man in this way is still an expectation in the backs of many men’s heads, even as they say all the appropriately modern things about women being equals. I read elsewhere about “nice guy misogynists”…guys who are generally nice, but harbor these feelings deep down about women cooking and cleaning and always perky and happy and men needing things done for them after a hard day at work (think Mad Men, which I can’t watch at all). All that’s in there. Plus a broken heart and a lost something. Just plain lost.

There’s her face with the stitching. See the difference?

There isn’t actually a lot of background on this quilt…the image does a good job of filling the fabric, but today’s activities don’t leave much room for quilting, so maybe that will have to be Thursday. The schedule adjusts yet again.

There are a lot of tears on this quilt…both in fabric and real-live ones that fell while I was working on it. Drawing it, tracing it, cutting it out, ironing it to fabric…I cried. I cried when I trimmed the fabric, when I ironed it together, when I stitched it down, and when I quilted it. I will probably cry while I bind it too.

When I stopped quilting to go to sleep, my brain did not want to comply. It often just fucking ignores me, which is greatly annoying, but what are you going to do? No idea. Let me know if you figure it out. So I only had the sleeve left to stitch on the Mammogram quilt. So I did that…

Not an official picture, but it’s officially done as of August 6 at about 1:30 AM. Fuck. Not enough sleep, people. Not enough sleep.