The List of Things I Feel Like Doing

Yeah I’m about 10 hours off on my normal writing time. I meant to write this morning before I left, but then I had to deal with doctor stuff and then I just plain old ran out of time. I think I read my book for a while too instead getting on with things. Hey, it’s break. I’m allowed.

So the year is almost over. I like reviewing previous year-almost-over posts to see what I was thinking. Last year’s thought was stop having expectations of years. It’s funny…no not funny, strange…but I already know that the next 6 months will be hard jobwise, so I’m just trying to center a reality in that. Balance, my ass. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions in January…I’m a teacher. We do them in August. So accept some of the shit and try to rein it in, pepper it with things I want to do: some art exhibits, some camping, a music show, maybe a trip or two. Then hope to Goddess that the 2023-2024 school year is better than this one.

I just looked at my calendar in here…stopped crossing days off on the 22nd. Good plan.

So since Wednesday, I had some friend time, two friends visiting, separately, so I parsed some time out of my incredibly busy (book-reading) schedule for them. Yeah, I know. Actually, I worked on school stuff for a good chunk of Thursday afternoon, got 8 days of school planned out for real, minus the daily warmups. That was good. I had done a chunk of it already, but needed to figure out this one 3-day assignment and then how everything else fit in. So that felt good. I also did a bunch of doctor things and breakfast with the one friend, down here from Seattle…here’s the only photo I got, in the elevator (I tell you, this is the year of shitty documentation as far as people go)…

There are two other people in the weird elevator with me. Today? I took no pictures of people today, only piñatas. I always forget. Ah well.

OK. So I finished that little quilt…which got named Christmas Lights ’93 (after the year it was drawn)…

I got the binding and sleeves sewn on Wednesday, I think. Then got the binding sewn Wednesday night…

And finished the sleeves last night…

In case you’re saying to yourself, oh hey, I bet that was quick (it was, compared to most of my pieces)…guess how long it took? C’mon. Guess.

Nine hours and 5 minutes. Yeah. Not bad. It’s not huge though either…15″ wide x 13″ high.

The next one will be bigger. I cut paper at about 44″ wide and 54″ high…dunno if that will work, but it seemed like big enough to do what I want but not absolutely massive like some.

So far, it’s a bunch of really light, vague pencil sketches and some totally appropriate post-its (thanks to the SIL for those). It’s possible that I should start a different drawing first, but at the moment, this one is speaking to me. We’ll see. I have two deadlines I’m looking at, and both of them are far enough out that I should be able to do them both, but last year, I thought I would be done with the desert quilt in April, and that so didn’t happen, not even close.

I was freaked out by my finished quilt list for 2022 yesterday, thought I had only finished 5 quilts in the whole year, although 4 were large. Usually I can pull off 6 or more though. Then I remembered I hadn’t put the other one on the list, so 6 it is. Whew. By the skin of my teeth with a tiny finish in the last week. Two finished in December and one in November. It’s been a rough year for artmaking. Sucks.

I did get two back from the photographer today…this is Same As It Ever Was…

She’s 57” w x 71” h. Took me from July to November to finish her. Ugh to school for that.

Then this one, which has a tentative name or two, so you’ll just have to wait until I post her into the gallery for a real title…

She’s 35.5 w x 43.5 h and was finished last week. Her fake title for the last month was Vomit…so I need something better than that. No suggestions please. I’ll get there. Some of them, like Same, have names from the very beginning. A small few get titles while I’m working, and most of them just need to percolate in my head for a day or two before it comes to me. This one might be more than a day or two. Give it time.

I also wanted to get this quilt quilted…it’s been pinbasted for over a year, I think. This is a Sue Spargo block-of-the-month pattern that I have always called Bird Crazy, but I know that’s not the real name.

I stitched most of these birds at the girlchild’s soccer games in high school. It got sewn together and then there were 90 balls that had to be sewn on…I think that was at the beginning of COVID? I could be wrong. OK, so I finished embroidering the last of 30 birds in July of 2016. This is the 2013 BOM (I like the embroidery, not the finishing). Oh yeah, and there are 96 balls. Anyway. So this is a 10-year finish? Maybe.

I’ve quilted 7 of the blocks so far. It’s not hard, but I have to be a little creative with figuring out what to do on each block. Keep it simple but not? So that should be done next week hopefully. A few a day. Although none today. So far. It’s relaxing to quilt. Meditative, I’ve said it before. Also to embroider. And draw. Bird DANCE it’s called.

I thought I was done with this block (and hence all of the April blocks), but no, there is a giant trellis stitch sun…

Something you have to stitch all in one go. So not right now. This is also Sue Spargo. It is called Homegrown and might be the 2019 quilt? Maybe? I have another one done and ready for pinbasting, but quilting it will be a mess. Probably this one will be too…so much stitching on them. Maybe just lots of stuff in the skies. I prefer the embroidery parts of these to the finishing parts.

I have two pieces that will be in this show at the Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad.

The opening is January 7 from 2-4 PM. One piece has never been in a show, so that’s cool. I will be at the opening.

We made it to the piñata exhibit at the Mingei today. Very cool.

Totally recommend. I love the Mingei…and hadn’t seen the new and improved version. It’s nice.

Also love that I live somewhere that people don’t ban books. Because that’s stupid.

Also going to go add all the banned books to my reading list, those I haven’t already read (which is an awful lot of them). Also Texas? Florida? Fuck you. Grow the fuck up. Let kids read. You’re not solving problems. And the states with 1-10 bans? I’m curious what those are. Is it 1-10 books? Or 1-10 schools banning books? Not sure. Probably the former. What’s the point of banning so few books? One could ask what’s the point of banning ANY books.

OK. So. It’s New Years Eve Eve and the Man and I are doing date night tonight, because tomorrow night is not a time we want to be out and about, between the celebratory crazy shit and the rain that’s headed our way. It’s been cold and drippy all day today, which is good for the plants and the part of my brain that wants to hole up and read, so hopefully more of that tomorrow, plus quilting and drawing and probably (honestly) some schoolwork. Just because it needs to get done and it’s easier to do in small chunks than big honking ones.

I need to make a collage of this year’s finished pieces too. Tomorrow. Today? More tea and then a discussion of food. Then something off the list of things I feel like doing. Also that crazy landscape that created itself in my head in the car today. That. Totally.