I’m realizing this week that I’m not coming home and doing schoolwork. I’m not grading assignments. I’m not being a responsible teacher person. I’m behind and need to get caught up, but I’m not doing it. I will. But this project is driving me. I need it done and out of my head and at the photographer’s so I don’t have to think about it, see it, feel it any more. Plus I’m going a little bonkers because my co-conspirator in furry beast maintenance is not here this week and said furry beasts are being more than a bit demanding.
So yesterday I went to the gym. That was good. I read. I exercised. I zoned out in exercise brain. It’s a good thing.
And then I came home, peed the dogs (which currently requires a couple of leashes and a flashlight due to coyote incursions and massive spider webs), then started part of dinner, showered, came out and checked the timer on the food (16 minutes) and cleaned the entryway floor for later artistic shenanigans. It might be the only way that floor gets cleaned regularly, honestly, because it’s never high on my list. Finally food was ready and I ate and read some more. I do love to read.
Then I had no choice but to get in here and get this thing sandwiched. Huge as it is, this was gonna be a pain.
Iron backing. Trim selvages. Cut in half. Sew halves together. Iron some more. Trim excess off.
Lay it upside down on the now-clean entryway floor (barely fits). Tape it down as flat as possible (replacement floor in here should be tile…but bigger tiles and less obvious grout).
Try to figure out how much batting to cut by laying the top out on the chunk of batting I found over the weekend. Cut batting a bit larger than the top.
See seriously sleeping dog.
Lay batting out. Iron quilt top and lay it out on top. Try to get it straight. Wish I cut the backing a bit larger to make that easier. Duh.
Stare at it for a bit. Realize it’s after 11 PM and you will need to finish pinning before you can go to bed. Accidentally spill all the pins onto the quilt. Not what you meant to do.
Start pinbasting. Look at this view. Disturbing.
That dog. Seriously.
Then this one…he’s never seen me do this before. All the cats have an interesting relationship with my quilts. This one wouldn’t listen when I told him to get off.
The cats never do listen.
This one has learned to stand at the edge and woof at me. Wait. That’s not a cat. And you saw the other dog. Totally ignores me.
Pinbasted by midnight. Ready for quilting. Getting close to the end. Closer anyway. I don’t kid myself…quilting and binding this sucker is going to take a while. No shortcuts on that part.
I head for bed. Kitten. You need to move.
I’m tired this morning. And none of the grading got done. Oh well. I worked for 3 hours last night on that quilt. Sometimes that amazes me. I worked all day in the classroom, went to a meeting after school, the gym for almost 2 hours, and then 3 hours of artmaking. I really wanted to sit and watch some light TV and draw with a glass of wine last night after all that kneeling and crawling around on the floor, but then I looked at the clock and it was almost midnight…so I went to bed anyway. Probably the smarter thing to do, but I still want that other time. Maybe tonight? Or not. That really is the part of the balance I haven’t been able to slot in. Teachers. Silly teachers. Always talking about balance and never achieving it. Sigh.
*Big Data, Dangerous
Kathy Nida 