You know you’re in trouble on a Monday morning when you feel like it’s a Friday morning, the level of tired is sand in your eyeballs and your head is reeling like you were out drinking, but you know you weren’t. At no point in time over the weekend did you make up the missing sleep…in fact, you are now deeper in debt and you will have to pay the piper at some point. Damn body, requiring shit like nutrients and rest. I can’t wait until Spring Break…I mean, I can’t wait, because lordy, school is weighing on me, but I really can’t logistically wait two weeks to get more sleep. I need to figure it out now.
Well, maybe not RIGHT now, because in about 45 minutes, I have to race the rainstorm named Goliath out of here to school. Since when do we name storms like this? I remember growing up in Southern California, fishtailing my parents’ car across Los Angeles County roads with never any knowledge of that storm’s name, or I might have yelled it to the heavens. It rained more then. It wasn’t a news item.
What art have I made in the last two days? I’ve done pretty well, mostly because after I finished grades late Friday night, I blew off school pretty much for the rest of the weekend. I sent the parent email. I posted one thing on Google Classroom. That’s it. And once I finished rolling up all the quilts, I started tracing stuff again, at least for an hour or so. I had to drop off a piece for a show where they were confused by my medium. I said, “It’s a quilt.” She said, “like a blanket?” “No, a quilt, but it hangs on the wall.” Blank stare. Oh well. This show was kind of a crapshoot. At least I’ll be educating people.
So I had almost half of the current quilt left to trace as of Saturday afternoon…
But all the pieces are tiny, so it doesn’t take long.
I think this is one of the biggest pieces in the quilt…
I kept tracing on Sunday night, and finished around 10 PM or so I think.
It took just under 6 hours to trace 819 pieces. Except there were two I never found. Sometimes I skip numbers in my head, count pieces that don’t exist. Sometimes I go the other direction and start numbering backwards for a while. And I found at least 4 or 5 pieces that had never been numbered, so they get to be a’s and b’s of the nearest number.
I fit it all on one yard of Wonder Under. Normally it would be like 4 yards of the stuff with that many pieces. Tiny pieces man. I’m gonna be in pain later trying to iron them all down. It’s like the Babygirl piece I did except much bigger…
This is 12 x 18 and the one I’m working on is 16 x 24. OK, not that much bigger. But lots more pieces, that’s for sure. Crazy numbers actually. I’m actually hoping I get no more shows with themes and crazy deadlines for a few months. I know I have some stuff to deal with over the summer, but I’m gonna need a break after this last run…and yes, I put myself in this position by trying to make pieces for shows with very little lead time, but whatever. So far it’s worked.
Anyway, I was watching the last episode of Downton Abbey and started cutting pieces out. I actually got pretty far along. It’s not going to take long…
Although I’m having problems with the fusible web releasing again. Seems we have come full circle with their fusible formulas. Sigh. Whatever.
Cats abound. Sometimes they sleep with me…sometimes they curl up far away on the other couch.
So I may get to the ironing phase this week. Which means some cleanup time in the studio. Aargh. Sleep? Or get ready to iron stuff to fabric? I know which I usually prefer. Even though cleaning sucks, it’s always for a purpose and that purpose is art. Sleep? Eh. I don’t do it well anyway. Best to leave it to the experts.
Kathy Nida 