I made art for over 4 hours yesterday. I didn’t work when I got home. I couldn’t. It’s been a really long week. Again. I keep reading articles about how to keep sane as a teacher, and they all scream BALANCE at us. And then you have a 14-hour day. (I made art on that 14-hour day. I’m a little nuts.) It helped that it was my monthly quilt meeting last night and I had something at the right stage for working on there, but still…I worked a full school day and then some (testing was extended an hour due to internet issues), and then I came home and (collapsed for a good long while and) made art.
I don’t know if I’m doing it right, because I’m pretty stressed and tired at the moment, but I think I’d be that way just because of my job, and the art is the part that makes it all OK.
This quilt is finally interesting. The fabric-choosing part really sucks me in. I find it hard to leave it, even at 1 in the morning when I know I have to go to work the next morning.
So I finished last night…76 fabrics, 7 hours and 53 minutes to choose them all…
Not a ton of color in this one. The blues and whites are the largest sections, I think. I’m looking forward to seeing it come together.
Here’s what it looks like when I have a bunch of small, weirdly shaped pieces that are all in the same fabric…this is hair.
I cut all those out yesterday too…here’s the whole bin full of pieces at the end of the ironing, although…
I had already started cutting stuff out at my meeting earlier in the evening…
I got a lot done in an hour and 40 minutes. I was exhausted when I got there, but managed to keep going. Bought dinner, drove to my parents and picked up snow chains that I won’t need, then home and ate. That woke me up a bit, so I came in, ironed for almost two hours, then looked at the clock.
I’m not going to sleep before midnight. So I might as well keep cutting…
There’s all those browns cut out, plus some others. Still got a good chunk to cut out, but I have a good start. I’m debating taking it with me this weekend. I have a hard time sitting still without doing anything. Then again, I have hiking and canoeing on my list for the weekend (hoping my foot is finally healed). Not a lot of sitting still with that, but we’ll see. I prefer to take a bunch of artmaking stuff with me, so I can pick and choose. I’m still debating taking grading with me. I don’t want to. I should. We’ll see how that pans out. I just know I need some sleep and some time away from my job and my life. Isn’t that what 3-day weekends are for? Yes. Yes they are.
I’m actually thinking this quilt might be put together by the end of the school year, I’m that far ahead at the moment. That’s two weeks earlier than I had thought…which is good, because the other one has to be done by the third week in July. And I’m sending out stuff on editing jobs too. So I might have paying work on top of all this. Crazy.
With that, I have to get out of here to that place that makes me crazy…
