To Build a Wall Between Us*

Someone said it was the last Friday of 2018…thus reminding me of what day it was. Good one. Last night, I sat down with my list of errands that I blew off yesterday in order to walk the dogs and iron for over 5 hours…and I made a special post-it note for today of all the things I need to drive around in my car and do today. When I’m teaching, errands get shoved into the few hours before or after school when I can drop by this place or that, or they get shuffled into the weekend. On break, I could go out and do one or two things a day, but then whatever art I’m working on sucks up my brain and I don’t leave the house for days unless forced by others. Yesterday was the oil change…so I had to leave the house TWICE. I know. Crazy. And I did walk out of here with the dogs and come back an hour later. But that’s different. Today I will need to go to a multitude of places and do all the things, because next week is messy and I won’t be able to do that.

The first stop, though, will be the post office to mail off the drawing from 12/26 that sold, so that’s cool. I don’t really think of the drawings as art in their own space…more a means to an end. And the ones I’m doing now definitely aren’t probably maybe going to be quilts, so it’s OK to draw things I would never try to reproduce in fabric. Like this rug…

I’m pretty sure the concentric not-circles don’t line up and if I tried to make it, my brain would explode. But I might redraw it for a quilt, if I wanted to. I really am considering these brain exercises. I’m enjoying it though. I tried to institute a Friday-night drawing plan a few years ago, since I was usually braindead from school and couldn’t function to grade, but honestly, I was too tired to draw a lot of the time too…OR I would want to get right to whatever artmaking I had postponed all week, if I did have any energy. So maybe drawing one night a week is a thing? I do have two drawings I’m supposed to be working on, maybe technically three, and so I should get going on those.

Art takes time. I fight to make sure I have it pushed into my schedule. That’s how I get so behind on school and grading and errands and cleaning house and gardening.

So yesterday, I was hoping to get a big chunk of ironing done…and I did. Here’s the sun…

I like suns. And moons. And stars. They show up a lot.

I’ve had this yellow fabric for a long time. I had a half yard of it, because that’s normally what I buy when I’m filling the stash. This is all that’s left.

It gets hard to fold up into a logical square at this point. But I love this fabric.

Finally Figure 5…so I’ve used a different run of 5-7 fabrics for each. I find that if I don’t challenge myself to use new fabrics, I’ll use the same ones over and over again (like that yellow). So this is a very pink/purple person. Two of the fabrics below had never been cut into…

Challenge accepted.

And there they all are, laid out, ready for ironing.

Now I’m down to the last bits and pieces…

Heart, wings, lungs, grassy chin (you read that right), a bee, and a beetle. That’s it! I’m almost done. Today, surely…

I didn’t clean up much last night, because I did a bit halfway through the day. It was getting all chaotic and confused. I couldn’t find anything.

I’ll organize one more time, into color runs, before the end. I like to see how much of each color I used.

So besides running a bunch of errands and finishing a multitude of little tasks (move the table, bring the plate, pay the bills, put that envelope in the mailbox, return that frame, buy another one, buy this, return that, find those…)…I will be ironing at some point today.

Girlchild and Simba watching some TV show together.

Not sure how much WATCHING the puppy is doing. But he seems happy.

As was Kitten this morning…curled up with me.

I did not want to get up. The other cat made me. He wanted food.

Well, at least I have a plan. (Just don’t ask me how I’m doing on grading right now.) I couldn’t resist this post title. Politics makes my head hurt. Stupid people scared of unreal stuff make my head hurt. There’s so many things that make more sense than a wall…but that’s the problem with government and law…it’s not about sense.

*Crowded House, Don’t Dream It’s Over