Taking Me Where I Want to Be*

Whomp! Upside the head with a Friday. Hey. It’s Friday. This is a good thing. I feel like I’ve been run over by a semi, but otherwise, it’s a good thing. Thursday, ah Thursday, you were a kick in the head. It’s OK…all my extra irritation by the end of a long day? I used it to clean a floor and pinbaste a quilt. I didn’t get as far as I wanted, but that’s life. It sees your plans and then fucks with them.

I didn’t make it to quilt class. I didn’t come right home and pinbaste a quilt. I drove to a hospital twice and tried to avoid a fatality crash on one of our major freeways (I did actually manage to miss this) and ate dinner around 10:15 PM, which was cold pizza because my delivery guy had to be about 70 years old and he was very slow moving (I’m not saying all 70-year-olds are slow-moving and would cause cold pizza, but this guy was and did) and peed some dogs and ran them around for about 10 minutes before leaving again. It’s all good. Today everything will be better, right? At some point, I think that’s true. I’m waiting to hear all the good news.

So before the pizza finally showed up and after I made it home for the second time, I cleaned my entryway floor, so I’d have somewhere to lay the quilt out for pinbasting. Then after pizza, I sewed the backing together…I’ll have to remember to take a picture of that….because it’s big fishes for half of it and Monet florals for the other half. I had two big pieces of fabric. I used them. I don’t freakin’ care what the back looks like.

Laid out on the entryway floor…this is around 11 PM. This quilt isn’t actually that big. I think it’s 44″ x 52″? Something like that.

Wow. The lightbulbs in there really need replacing…

There will be no light in your photos. I’m really looking forward to the quilting part, where the details will start to pop.

I did buy the quilting thread already. I was supposed to quilt last night. I didn’t. It was after 11:30 when I finished pinning. I went to bed soon after, basically after I finished a glass of wine. Just one. So tired.

Sweet Calli…the dogs were very patient with me last night, mostly with my not being there and when I was there, not really being there. They know how to get attention. But yeah, I have deadlines right now.

And I’m trying to balance it all. But sometimes shit happens and people you love need stuff, so you deal with it. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t make this deadline. The quilt will still get done and put in a show somewhere…just not this one.

*Depeche Mode, Never Let Me Down Again

And Eight, Eight, I Forget What Eight Was For*

Maybe a nap a day, a tiny nap, a throw-your-head-back-on-the-couch kinda thing, a moment or less than 20 minutes of closed eyes and not reading stuff on the phone…maybe that’s a good thing. It doesn’t feel normal, but apparently it’s what I need at the moment. Today, though, today I’m going to have to come home and get right to work…if I want to be effective at all. Good to know ahead of time. Yesterday, I left school and went straight to Joanns (hell) for thread and batting. It was almost empty, so it was a good thing. Sometimes I’m incredibly efficient. So maybe that nap on the couch between 6 and 6:15 PM was because I’d been ON and GOING for hours. I see my brain poking ahead in the lesson plans, looking for the movie days, which are the only days we teach this unit where we get a break at all. It’s exhausting.

I know there are cultures where napping is normalized for adults. I know old people are allowed to nap. Little kids nap (well…mine stopped at age 2). I do worry that I seem to be more tired right now than usual. What’s causing that? (a lack of sleep, you dingdong.)

So the pluses are that (1) I finished all the stitch down last night…

I had done some estimating of time based on previous quilts, but this one was quick and easy, shorter than I thought. That’s a good thing on my inexorable stomp toward getting it done.

I was done well before midnight, too, so I took the batting that I had just bought and washed…

And I trimmed a piece the size of the quilt. What I really should have done next is piece the backing.

I was apparently too tired for that. I found two pieces that were big enough to piece, and I laid them out on top of the quilt, but that was it.

So I have quilt class tonight. What I’m going to try to do is leave school in a timely fashion (shouldn’t be hard, although I’m blowing off the World Cultures’ Fair, oh well), come home, piece the backing, clean the entryway floor, and pinbaste the quilt, so I can take it to class and start the quilting. Sometimes pinbasting takes a long time. Usually it doesn’t. I have about 2 hours. That’s a medium amount of time. Not a lot. So no naps today, eh?

But if I start quilting today, that’s going to take me about 10-15 hours. So I’m still in the range here. I could do it. I should probably email the photographer. Maybe Saturday? When I have more done? I haven’t even looked at next week yet…I just know it’s painful.

Well and then there’s this thing.

I think she’s happily napping here. Dogs do it so much better than humans.

Ok, gonna have to drag my tired self to school. Today we start with reproductive anatomy. Can you hear the screams from here?

*Violent Femmes, Kiss Off

Acting Steady Always Ready to Defend Your Fears*

Ugh. Braindead. Twitching eyelid. Mornings. Things I like: more sleep. Really, I think that’s not true. I want more hours in the day. But sleep sounds nice. It’s probably really nice to be asleep. Damn. It’s only Wednesday. Gotta get through relationship abuse (not personally…teaching about it), yes means yes, anatomy, and puberty before the weekend. We used to start on the first day with anatomy and totally freaked them out…but now we start a little easier and talk about liking vs loving. Already had to bring up repeatedly that it’s OK to love someone and NOT want to have sex with them. Sigh.

It was a long day…I have duty this week and I had tutoring yesterday too. I get home and I’m completely burnt out. I did sit down and calculate the hours it would take me to finish this quilt (approximately 31) and how many days I had (approximately 9…well…now 8). And I did some math and stared at the calendar. Then I calculated hours on the next one (100) and days I had (22? I think?). Um. Yeah. I then proceeded to work on this quilt, because I still think I can pull it off. I might be crazy.

Well, you already know the answer to that. I think I need to average 3.3 hours a night to finish. OK. Wait. I’m laughing hysterically. Last night, I did 2 hours and 50 minutes. I could have done more, but I was tired. So I took a break. Tonight I have more time.

I finished ironing the stuff on the mantel. That was easy.

Then I pieced the background and ironed everything down. That was also easy, although somewhat time-consuming. This quilt isn’t huge (it’s also not small), so it wasn’t too hard. I’m just realizing I’m totally gonna need thread for the background. I don’t think I have anything that will work.

Total iron down was 14 1/2 hours. When did I start? Thursday. Last night was Tuesday. That was fast.

And then I started stitching down. I got everything down on the floor done and started on the standing figure.

So that’s on my list for tonight…I don’t know if I need batting though. Damn. I should figure that out now. Because it’s closer to school than home. Ugh. OK. Thread and batting.

Calli on her daily ride back to my house, where she likes to escape the fence and run away to this house. Even though no one is there either. Weird dog.

OK, I’ve eaten and drunk most of my tea and I’m still exhausted. This job kicks my ass some weeks.

Is it realistic to think I will get this quilt sandwiched and pinbasted after school tomorrow, so I can quilt at class? Probably not. Sigh.

*Aimee Mann, That’s Just What You Are

Happiness Hit Her Like a Bullet in the Back*

Well today is the big day…the day we start teaching human reproduction and all the resulting crap to our kids. Are we ready? Well we never really are, although as far as attention span, this usually means we don’t have a problem for most of the rest of the year. That’s a plus. It’s a high-maintenance unit though, with not a lot of down time for the teacher. You can’t really set them free on the internet to explore a topic. So direct instruction for most of 5 weeks. Talking every day all day…let’s hope my voice holds up.

I’m so very tired, even with going to bed earlier…I think I can blame school. I’m really looking forward to a break. I guess that’s always true.

Anyway, I came home, walked the dogs, cooked dinner, and then ironed. I wanted to be done. It’s always like that…you wanted to be done or you were done. Or you knew you were nowhere near done.

We ate late so I started late. We ate late because I walked the dogs. So it’s like a cascade of late things. I started by ironing the fireplace…I needed it to be dark so the figures would stand out.

The female figure even mostly fit…I had to add two pieces of fire to make it work. It happens…stuff shifts around and doesn’t fit perfectly. I’m not particularly anal about perfect ironing. I make it work. You can make the pieces stretch or add stuff behind so it fills in.

At midnight, this is all I had left…a spider web, a key, and a candlestick in a holder. But I wanted to get to bed at a reasonable time…so I quit. I knew I’d have to piece the background before I could iron it all down anyway…so I guess that’ll be tonight.

He fit pretty well…I had one piece that needed shifting, but I just pulled it until they would stick together.

Looking good. Tonight I’ll finish the last little bits and get it all onto the background…and hopefully start the stitch down. I’ve spent almost 13 hours ironing it together so far. Like I said before, I’m not sure I can hit the deadline on this one. It’s going to be tight if it happens at all. Oh well. That’s the way it goes. I don’t think I’ll be able to finish the next one either, honestly. Sigh. I’m debating quitting on this one for a while and trying to get the next one done. I’ll think about that. I’m really on a day-to-day basis at the moment. Probably not the best plan if I have deadlines. Tonight I’ll analyze my remaining time and make a decision.

There was sun yesterday morning. Satchemo found it. The chair is holding his head up.

There’s no sun this morning. Poor kitty. I wanna be a kitty some mornings.

*Florence and the Machine, Dog Days Are Over

Until I Have to…

So over the weekend, I managed about 7 hours of ironing this quilt together…but until I went and added all the time up, it felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything because I wasn’t DONE. Need to work on that mindset. I did OK. No, I’m not done…it’s true…and it’s possible I’m not going to get this done by the deadline. The world will not end. It’s still going to be a great quilt. It’ll show somewhere.

So where am I? I’m still ironing. Yup. Not done.

But first, a sleepy puppy.

Because he’s cute.

So I left off with the body done…but she’s holding this heart and sewing up a gash in it. So I ironed the heart together…

And then shoved it in the hole where it belonged…ironed some fingers together to go on top of it.

Strangely everything fit together fairly well. Then I ironed the hair in there and the face parts separately. They’re too hard to see with all the hair around, and I always iron eyes separately so I can place them correctly on the face. It’s less of an issue with just one eye. With two, I don’t want them crooked.

Face in place…all good. That hand is HUUUGE. I like it.

Then I laid out all the 700s…moving into the fireplace area…

And I ironed most of them down into the hearth. Seriously…that’s about all of the 700s right there.

I laid out the 800s, which is the stonework and the rest of the fireplace…and then I looked at the clock. Midnight. Damn. Can’t start out the week on too little sleep. It just snowballs by the end, and I’ve got stuff to do Friday night. Can’t be exhausted. So I went to bed.

All that’s left are the 800s and 900s…the fireplace and the stuff on it. Then iron the whole mess together and onto a background. I might be able to get all that done tonight. It’s more likely I’ll get most of it done, but not onto a background. Stitch down tomorrow night or Wednesday? One of those. It’s going to be tight, this quilt. I have to work hard at grading stuff at school, so I don’t have to bring it home. I’m not even going to think about next week. Until I have to.

I Would Like to Hold My Little Hand*

Happy mom’s day y’all…unless it’s not a thing for you. I admit to having a troubled relationship with the day, because I never had my kids on Sunday mornings due to the divorce agreement, so no breakfasts in bed, no kid-oriented stuff in the morning…I guess I had the ultimate mom break on those mornings (other moms would tell me that), but generally it just made me sad. Today, both kids are 3000 miles away (well that’s better than 11,000 miles away, for sure). One doesn’t acknowledge these things; the other is working 11 hours today, but texted me and then called me. They’re good kids. I think they’ll only need a little therapy to get over my influence on their lives. Tonight I’ll hang out with my own mom, who remembers every time I drive her bonkers that she raised me to be an independent thinker. My cohabitant is currently out buying breakfast burritos, because we don’t want to deal with the Moms Day brunch crowd. Sounds good to me.

Yesterday, I went to Pepperland, the Mark Morris dance group performance of an interpretation of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Group Band, the album. There were a ton of visual inputs at this show, both from the color of the dance costumes to the movement of the dancers. I don’t watch a lot of dance, but I do appreciate it. Plus there was a theremin, and that was cool…very much used as a voice in the music.

Otherwise, I spent yesterday ironing a quilt together…I had the legs already…so I started working on the rest of the figure…

It needs outlining and shading in the hand area…

I found this piece, but I don’t think it belongs to this quilt. Seriously. So I don’t know what quilt it belongs to or how it ended up in these boxes.

His head and chest…

Imagine the dark background behind him that’s not there yet…

Then I started working on the other female character…I’m missing the one black dot on the yin/yang. I’m hoping it shows up…if not, I’ll cut a new one.

I left it there yesterday afternoon…need to do the head and heart for this one as well, and then start on the background. It’s taking a long time…and I have stuff that has to get done today, so I was hoping to be done this weekend and I’m not sure I will be. I just laid out all the 600s, I think…so that’s 400 pieces left to iron. Maybe today? Ugh.

Then get it down to the background and stitched down…I’m running out of time. Deep breaths. It’s OK. I’ll figure it out.

*Rusted Root, Send Me on My Way

Not Today

I have been looking forward to this weekend. No real events…just something tonight. No things I really HAVE to do, except work on these two quilts…which I should probably get going on. I slept in (but went to bed really late too). I need a swathe of unplanned time to just sit around in my pajamas and drink tea and maybe do what I want. Think what I want. Not really though. That’s what weekends SHOULD be…but I’m stressing out about school and getting stuff done and whether or not to give kids more time to finish something when I can’t really afford to give them that time. Because I need to grade it. Aargh.

Anyway. I don’t know who let all that shit in, because I was trying to keep it out. Deep breaths. Sip the tea.

I worked on both projects last night. I also wasted chunks of time doing hell I dunno what. Seriously. I really don’t know.

A student gave me a rose for teacher appreciation week (his mom made him)…I don’t pick yellow usually, but it’s pretty.

I traced Wonder Under for about an hour while my show was finishing up…I’m in the 300s? I think? All the way up both legs and now starting to do the stuff around that.

Then I moved into the studio and worked on ironing the second figure. He’s got legs…

And I did his hands (one hand is literally just the tips of his fingers)…

That hand was complicated. I like it though…and the arm attached to it.

I numbered the fleshy bits before the box he’s holding, so I guess I’ll iron all the body parts and then the box and then insert the box? Not sure. That was midnight last night and I was tired, so I quit…and then stayed up too late anyway. It happens.

Today I am braindead. So I’m going to eat, shower, drink more tea, and then start ironing I think. I have an event tonight, but I should be able to get a chunk done this afternoon. Kinda looking forward to it. Then tomorrow I can make a decision about whether to extend kids’ time or grade stuff or whatever. Not today.

Not Remembering My Existence

Well at least it’s Friday. That’s a plus. By the end of the week, I’m really tired, so I sleep better. I think. At least I don’t remember waking up to vivid dreams of coyotes or previous lives. I hate waking up and not remembering my existence.

I started ironing yesterday. I did a bunch of other things too, but really, the most important one was the ironing. I ironed for a long time too. Because it was nicer than other things. It’s often nicer than other things. I was going to write it’s always nicer, but that’s mostly not true…I do occasionally like to hang out with humans. Interactions are nice. But sometimes I still just want to be making art instead of socializing. Sad but true.

I ironed a backpack…it’s a little beat up.

Some pens…

Some books of some sort…really just a place to put some of that hedgehog fabric.

That might be all of the hedgehog fabric I ever use. That one piece. The kids will be getting rid of my fabric after I die and they’ll pull that half yard out with the one tiny hole cut out of it and go…WTF mom. Seriously?

Yup. Seriously. It was worth it.

A camera…old school.

Those were easy. Super fast. Then came the first of three bodies in this quilt…here’s all the 200s and the tail end of the 100s all laid out.

The two piles on the bottom left are all the fingernails and other pieces that were too small to cut up before…I’ve learned to cut them out right when I need them so I don’t lose them.

Now this would have been a good stopping point if I’d wanted to go to sleep at a reasonable time. However, I am less about the reasonable time (obviously) and more about getting to the point I want to get to…so I wanted to finish her and get her onto her rug. So I kept going. There’s not much left here…just one arm and her face. The rug was done already.

So I persisted. I could have stopped here too…but no.

On the rug. Good. Well done. About 250 pieces in, close to 4 hours.

Now that was satisfying. More of that tonight please. There are two more figures and a fireplace. I want her (the whole quilt…not the her that’s in the picture above) ironed down this weekend…ready for stitch down. Yeah that’s crazy. Have you seen my schedule for the next few weeks? Better that you don’t.

I ordered some threads I saw online on a whim…Dirty Threads from Deb Lacativa…and wow, they are gorgeous…yes the fabric came with it…gonna be using that somewhere too.

Lots of color in those strands…fun stuff.

And then this thing. Wants to be in my face. On the couch.

Hi Calli. You’re a dork.

Well at least there’s no testing today…except of my patience. More ironing tonight. I’m excited.

It Could Happen

I really need to work on this thing where I sleep through the night. It’s like having a baby around…except it’s my brain or the dog or who knows what. Exercise seems to help, but I don’t always have the time or energy for it…like if I walk in the door at almost 6 PM and I’ve been working that whole time, except for a nice leisurely lunch with my coworkers because it’s teacher appreciation week and the only kids who appreciate me are last-year’s kids (I’m OK with that…we’re probably pretty annoying right now…by this time last year, they won’t still be annoyed by us)…well then I THOUGHT about the gym, but a wave of exhaustion hit me as I walked up the stairs to the front door. So I didn’t. I will later this week. I’ll just do it on a day when I get home before dinnertime.

I think mostly the sleep thing is stress. I have other signs: the twitching eyelid, the canker sore I always get, the tight jaw…yup. That’s stress. I’m trying. I really am. So last night, after getting some stuff done like rejecting one proofreading job because the timeline was too tight for someone who works during the day, dealing with beneficiaries on my life insurance (yo kids! It’s you! plus how did they spell my brother’s name wrong? It’s the same as mine!), and some other email stuff…I decided to start tracing the next quilt. Yup. I don’t hardly ever, as far back as I can remember, work on two at a time…except when I’m working on one and the deadline on the other is more important. Then I might set the less-important one aside to work on the more priority piece. But I’m doing these pretty much simultaneously. Mostly because I had a Netflix video that I knew my video-watching partner wasn’t going to like, and he was gone, so I could watch it while tracing, but not while ironing (two different rooms, only one has a DVD player. I wrote VCR. I mean, it has that too, but we don’t use it any more).

I traced for almost 3 hours. Meditative.

IMG_4249 small

I didn’t get super far…all the stuff in the bottom, ready to start on her feet. Maybe 150 pieces or so. Not sure why it took so long, but it did. My brain fighting the process. I’m still working on not bringing any work home…on getting stuff done at school and at meetings, so I don’t have to bring it home. Not sure that will last, but I’m trying.

I got a phone call this morning at 6:30 AM from a duct-cleaning place. Every other day or so there’s another message from one of them. That and the phone researchers…one called last night at 8:45 PM. Annoying…not sure how to get off those lists.

Early meeting today…hopefully I’ll wake up and find my brain by the time I get to school. It could happen.

I Am Superman and I Know What’s Happening*

Well girlchild is home. In Boston, anyway. Strangely, now I miss her more. Because she’s in the US but not here? Mom brain is a strange beast. I’ll see her in 2 1/2 weeks. Plus even better, we now can revive the mom-kids group text! I bet the boychild is thrilled about that.

I’m so tired lately…I know I don’t sleep enough, but usually that’s not a huge problem. Right now I’m not sleeping well AND it’s not long enough. I even went to bed early last night, but I still feel like a truck hit me this morning. End of year exhaustion? Starting in early? There’s 26 days left. It sounds like a lot. Six weeks sounds worse. And then I think about trying to finish these two quilts in that time and I panic.

All right then. Let’s not think about that. Back to a day at a time. Today is the first day of state testing. Never fun. One kid said yesterday that this must be the teachers’ favorite time of year because we love torturing kids. Oh for fuck’s sake. I hate testing. Arbitrary contrived bullshit stressing the kids AND us out…to what end? Accountability? Yeah right. Whatever. There should be a better way.

Yeah. I’m cranky. I’m going to be artmaking tonight (after school and a union meeting).

Last night, I managed to finish cutting out the last little bit of pieces (it was an extra 38 minutes, so if I’d done it the night before, I wouldn’t have gone to bed until after 1 AM, so it’s probably best I didn’t listen to art brain.).

Here’s all the pieces ready for the next step. It took 11 hours and 12 minutes to cut them all out. Much longer than I thought it would.

Ready to sort them all…I really hate this step, but it’s mostly necessary…otherwise I’ll never find the pieces I need in a pile of a thousand.

An hour later, I’m sorted…with a cat butt to assist.

I wish I could say I then got up and ironed or did anything, but you remember that part about being tired? Sigh. Not a particularly productive night. I always figure my brain (or body) needs the break, but it frustrates me. So hopefully I will frustrate myself less tonight.

Simba likes it when I sit down somewhere that he can cuddle next to me though. So there’s that. Abstract with dog.

I made the dog happy.

*REM, Superman