Ramble Much?

I started this Sunday and then completely forgot about it.

I think the hardest thing for someone like me to do is to just stop and rest. I suck at it. I tried a little Saturday and Sunday, but I have so much stuff to do that I can’t do it for long…although I’d really like to take a nap right now. I’m writing right now in order to procrastinate going to the grocery store…because I don’t really feel up to that…and it doesn’t really matter, because I have to do it. If I were just taking care of me, I’d probably blow it off and go take that nap, but it’s never really just me, is it? So no, I didn’t take time off work, which might be why I kept getting sicker, but as a teacher, it’s really difficult to take time off work, especially if you have to come up with a lesson plan that furthers the content you’re already teaching, but that a non-science sub can actually handle, and that’s just not easy to do. So it’s a wasted day (or two or three), and then you’re behind, and I’m already behind because grades are due in about a week and a half, and I’ve spent two weeks falling asleep at inopportune moments (like right after work), which obviously I needed to do, but there’s no backup on the teacher’s job…there’s no one who’s trained to do your thing and handle your kids and take over until you get well again. You just bully through. So I’m taking my meds and coughing like a fiend and trying to boost my energy and immune system and take care of myself and feed the family and get grades done and not collapse.

Really, I should take that nap. Sigh. Or go to the grocery store and get it done and in the fridge and THEN take the nap. I don’t know. Ask for more help probably. Text the girlchild and ask her if she’ll help with the shopping. Maybe.

It’s now Tuesday. You might be wondering what happened? Well, I did nap…after the grocery store. And then I worked some more and fell asleep on the couch. Eventually made it into bed. Yesterday, Monday, I actually felt pretty good. I worked all day, went to another store for stuff they don’t have at my grocery store, then came home and worked (for hours) to get caught up. Then the toner cartridge died, and unfortunately, it was something I really needed, so I drove to the store, because my app said they had two in stock, and then they couldn’t find them. And once they found one (where some asshole had hidden it behind another one), they wanted to charge me $21 more than the website. Anyway. By the time I got home and got through all the crap that had to be done yesterday, because we have one student who is going to be gone for three weeks, so I had to plan out until Spring Break and then revise a bunch of stuff because she won’t actually be IN the classroom (oh my god), it was after 8 PM. Twelve-hour day. It’s OK. I came out of the dark dismal den that is my office (OK, it has fluorescent lights, so it’s not really dark, but it also has a very demanding cat who wants to stand in front of the computer screen and sit on the mouse, so I was beyond frustrated at that point), and I sat with the girlchild, who unfortunately has prom on her mind. I offered her my prom dress (which was my aunt’s prom dress, so circa 1956?), and she cried. OK, she didn’t. She might have if I had forced the issue. It’s a very nice dress. I can see why she doesn’t want to wear it, though, because if you look at current prom dresses, they are made for girls who are obviously going to swanky cocktail parties with the rich and famous (WTF?). I suggested more of her body might be covered than the one I saw her friend buying, which looked like a bra with suspenders holding up a long skirt. Yeah. I am so out of it.

Then I finally thought I could trace some Wonder Under.

I made 23 minutes. Pure exhaustion. OK. I’m listening. I made it to bed eventually after tracing a whopping 40 pieces (well, it’s 40 pieces I didn’t have the day before), and realized that normally I wouldn’t have put in that many work hours before…well…sometimes I do, it’s true…but it’s getting better.

Unfortunately, about 10 minutes into my trying to actually fall asleep before the dead of night (see, my body is exhausted, but my brain won’t play along), girlchild comes in to tell me about the bomb scare at their school (it’s becoming a regular occurrence in their district…no real bombs…just dumbass kids who don’t want to go to school) and how one of the coaches (who is probably now fired) sent out a text to all his players telling them about it. When she left for school this morning…yes, I am the MEAN mom who makes their child go to school with bombs…she grabbed a bunch of snacks in case they went on lockdown (she wasn’t a Girl Scout for long, but damn, I did train her well), and I told her I loved her and not to let the terrorists win. Sigh. She’s texting me from school (it hasn’t started yet), and nobody is there. Great, she can get some one-on-one instruction! Yes, I’m a little crazy. I do think we Americans panic easily though. I don’t know how on Earth our ancestors made it here and survived (well, I guess the first few batches didn’t) all the hardships here without panicking and running back to from whence we came. It seems like all the kick-ass survival instincts were bred out over the years.

So this is obviously a philosophical post. I could show another picture of the 40 pieces of Wonder Under I traced. Or not. I do have pictures from Senior Night for girlchild’s soccer…but apparently WordPress is being bitchy and won’t let me load anything…oh wait…NOW you’ll let me do it. Technology. Lame. So obviously in this picture, my ex has something derogatory to say about the coach, who is standing maybe 10 feet away…

All the other parents and kids were weeping, but no, we were making jokes while the girlchild threatened to kill us and we set voodoo curses on the coach so he would get boils all over his ass (no, I’m not vengeful at all…why do you ask?). I have promised the girlchild that we will do nothing to burn her soccer bridges, but that doesn’t mean we don’t talk about all the things we COULD do.

They’re in CIF now, so winding down to the end…three games more maximum. And then we go back to the relief of club soccer and a good coach and parents that only drive me half nuts instead of completely nuts. No more freezing games on bleachers…just freezing games on chairs instead (somehow it is more bearable on a chair…although I don’t have a chair…mine broke after 10 years and now I have to buy a new one for the last 4 months of soccer? Kinda lame, but I’m sure I will use it somewhere…at the beach? Huh. I’m not really a beach person. Maybe I should become one. I mean, I’m sending the last kid off to college. I can become a completely different person now. Once I’m done recovering from pneumonia. And I pick a job that doesn’t suck up all my waking…and nonwaking hours.).

AND…my doctor’s office just called to check up on my cough and make sure I’m not dead. That’s nice. “Are you taking your meds?” “No, I LIKE having pneumonia.” Yes, I’m taking my fucking meds. Duh. No, it’s nice to have them call.

My last commentary? Obviously my brain is functioning…it’s just my body that’s having issues…bows on bras? Why? I always cut them off. But what is the purpose? I do not understand. Yes, I am not a normal girl. I also don’t like pink. Except my pink fabric stash is huge…not as huge as my black and white stash, but huge nonetheless, because I do a lot of human figures, so the flesh tones run into the pinks, and they fill up a ton of drawers here. But there’s a good reason for that.

Ramble much? Yeah. Whatever.

On the Mend…Still…

Wednesday night, I felt OK…kept tracing…

It took a really long time to trace all the little apple tree parts: stems, leaves, apples. Tiny little beasts. I’m over 330 pieces in…and 4 1/2 hours. There’s 891 pieces, if you don’t count the 4 or 5 pieces I found so far that weren’t numbered. So another 560 pieces…another 6 hours? I’m done tracing the eentsy-weentsy pieces…so the rest should go faster. I hope.

Meanwhile, the coughing was getting worse though…

I had quilt class Thursday night, and I can’t trace a big drawing elsewhere, so I started cutting pieces out.

When I’m tracing, I often have animals helping me by lying in the way…thank you, Calli, for being mostly out of the way…

Babygirl has been coming out and socializing…which is funny, because she and the girlchild have a bizarre relationship. They didn’t really like each other in the beginning, but they seem to be developing some sort of relationship…

I guess when you’re down to two humans and three cats, and you’re a cat in need of attention, you can’t be too picky…which means it will be interesting when the girlchild leaves next year.

So yeah…I did go to the doctor…and I have pneumonia (whoops). I did actually suspect that back around Tuesday or Wednesday, and I already had an appointment for Friday morning, so I’m on antibiotics and will probably stop coughing up my lungs soon…I hope. And hopefully I’ll be more productive next week…

Proof of Recovery…

So there’s really only one way to prove I’m feeling better, that I’ve finally gotten over the nasty hump of this illness:

Yup. Making art again. So even though I was still running a nasty fever Sunday night, even though I thought I was better Saturday, even though I spent most of yesterday wondering if I’d be well enough to go back to school today with only half a lung functioning (I’ve coughed up the other half…into the sink…I saw it), I am finally on the mend. I’m still coughing. I’m still not well. I’m still not completely physically back (there’s no way I’m hiking in the next week…I’m aiming for the gym on Saturday morning, and taking it easy), but I can stand to trace Wonder Under. So that’s where I’m at…and some angelic soul found me Season 5 of Walking Dead, the bits that aren’t on right now, so I’m watching that while tracing. I got in a good two hours tonight…not how I really wanted to spend the hours, but it will do.

I should have been grading papers. But I went to work today AND I graded for like 6 hours yesterday AND I spent an hour and a half tonight moving files around and sending them to my students, so I don’t feel bad. I worked more hours in the last two days than I got paid for, as usual. The universe owed me a couple of hours of artmaking. And now I feel better about progress on these quilts.

Kitten even came out and held down the paper for me…

cuz that’s really helpful, Kitten. Really helpful. I had all three cats in the room at one point. Not bad.

They weren’t easy pieces to trace…two hours to do just over 100 pieces…most of them flames and waves, very convoluted and complicated pieces. I do like me some flames and waves, that’s for sure.

Girlchild was allowed back on the field on Friday (long story…she’s a bit of a thug, apparently)…I think I was mostly conscious during that game…

Tomorrow night is Senior Night, so her dad and I have to stand out on the field and listen to them read the statement I wrote (after the ex sent me a starter paragraph to destroy) about the girlchild…and she said I should make her cry. Unfortunately, it means I probably will too…dammit. It’s strange knowing it’s the LAST season…a relief in some ways, especially with high school soccer, which has just been an incredible trial to all of us. The coaching…the girls…it will be a relief, truly, to leave that behind. But realizing that next year at this time, she won’t even be around…that’s a little harder to stomach, and that’s what will make me cry out there, plus the part about how she refused to put her hair in a ponytail for the longest time, just cuz she was a stubborn little girl. Don’t know where she got that from.

So I guess with one day of actually feeling good, I’m a little crazy running a lab tomorrow (it’s an easy one) AND going to soccer afterwards…but it’s not like I have a choice. This is life and it keeps coming, and you can spend days and days in bed (I did), and life will still be there…and so will the art. My FFAC quilt made it to Florida and I received one from Jette Clover, which I am infinitely pleased with, and need to get a frame, so I can get it on the wall, along with a bunch of other art that just needs to get hung. I do feel bad that I kinda lost two three-day weekends to being ill, but so be it. Moving on. I received applause today from my classes for announcing that I refused to grade anything over my birthday weekend, so all their makeup work was due next Friday…I don’t know if they were applauding me for putting my foot down or for reaching another birthday…it’s hard to say. And most days, I can’t remember how old I am anyway…which is truly sad.

So back to our regularly scheduled art events…looking forward to making more. Which reminds me, sounds like I will have a show at Grossmont College with one other artist, a sculptor, in 2016…my first…um…it’s not a solo; is it a duet? Hard to say…so you locals will have to come to the opening and support me, because this is going to be kind of scary for me…I have no shortage of pieces to fill the space, of course. Someone asked me how many quilts I had made, and I said “over 50″…but you know what? It’s 94. And there are a couple that are made but not “finished” for a variety of reasons…and yes, that includes all the birds and some other smaller things, but that’s a lot of art quilts. Those are the art quilts…not the baby quilts or the ones that hang on my kids’ walls or the landscape quilts that I made for a variety of bridal showers and donation events and my sister-in-law that I never really cataloged. They’re not all awesome…but there’s a lot of them. So here’s to making 94 more…

Have Faith

I don’t think I’ve been this artistically fallow for years. I’m ill…this is day 6 of fever and malaise, and the cough kept me up all night the last two nights. I thought I was getting better, but maybe not. Possible relapse? I finally took cough meds last night, which helped for a few hours. I’ve decided the reason they make cough meds taste so awful is so you can’t possibly ever drink them for fun (and yet people do).

No art is happening, except in the swirly black space I see when my feverish eyes close. Well, there are the tie designs on Agent Carter (lightbulb paisleys being the most current still stuck in my head). A week behind on artmaking and paper grading…not good. But you can’t plan for this shit. It’s not the universe out to get you…it’s just a silly viral cell out of control.

At least I have today off…if just to recover more before heading back into the pit of vipers. I could make plans for art this week. For the gym. For getting shit done. But I think I’m just going to do what I can (I did the dishes), get a ton of rest, and see what else there’s energy for…maybe not much.

Have faith. Art will happen.

Viral Whomp

Apparently that cute little cold wasn’t done with me. Nah, it turned around and whomped me. Probably I should have stayed home from school the last two days, especially when standing became an issue, but a statewide shortage of subs, plus my brain’s inability to plan for such contingencies meant I stayed. I sat a lot. I coughed a bit. I glared at students who had similar coughs, since they obviously gifted me with this viral beast. Then both days, I came home as soon after work as I could and went to bed, arising only briefly the first night to eat a bowl of goldfish crackers and some chicken. Protein. Yesterday I managed a bit more, feeling a tad better, but also running a fever. Aha! Nights of hot flashes and chills, and I finally get a fever. One. Briefly. OK, I’ve probably had more than one, but at some point, a hot flash, a chill, and a fever all produce similar symptoms, and if you’re sick enough, you just don’t care.

You can imagine that not much art is made under these conditions, and you would be right. In fact, there was none. Not a tiny little bit. Honestly, I’m barely more than alive. I know I’ve been feeding cats and buying more medicine, but not a whole lot more than that. Oh yeah, and apparently teaching. At some point soon, though, I’m going to have to evaluate the time left before these artistic due dates and what needs to get done by when…I think I’m OK with the smaller pieces, but the big one makes me a bit nervous because I haven’t even started it yet…the tracing is all set up, but if you can’t stand up for long periods of time, it puts a damper on tracing tiny pieces onto Wonder Under.

I do have this lovely 3-day weekend coming up though. I do want to go on a hike, probably not until Monday (and only if my respiratory system agrees, and probably I have to start eating more food so I have the energy to move faster than a sloth). I have a ton of grading (what’s new?!) to do, mostly because I haven’t been awake for much of the last few days. I have been grading at school while I wait for kids to do their presentations, but I can’t get much done in that short piece of time. I also want to get some art done, so I’ll have to find the time and energy for that at some point…maybe Sunday. Saturday will be spent running all the errands that were on my calendar for this week that I didn’t get done because…um…sick. Yeah.

But first of all, I have to go to work and a soccer game (presuming I don’t feel like collapsing at the end of the day like I have the last two days; also presuming my car doesn’t decide to die, since the ever-present Check Engine light is on again, with no backup if it fails this time). Then I’ll let girlchild cook me dinner and go to bed early again, unless I have some rush of energy heretofore unanticipated. Then hopefully I will wake up Saturday morning with most of my facilities and a tiny bit of energy to get it all done. That’s my hope anyway.

Iron out the Puckers

Whatever that fluke of physical nature that slammed me the last few days has finally settled into a normal, voice-killing cold, always good in my profession. I don’t feel uber-bad, though, despite runny nose and phlegmy cough, so I did manage some art last night. I was feeling like it had been days (it pretty much had), and that never feels good, sick or not.

I started by stitching down the two cancer hands…

Which took no time at all. And then I sandwiched and pinbasted them, so they are ready for quilting. That also shouldn’t take long. Maybe tonight? Maybe not. Multiple meetings today. There may be nothing left of me by nightfall.

Then because the machine was already set up for stitchdown, I went ahead and decided to do the upholstery piece. It’s scary, because you know it WANTS to fray. You can see it in the edges…they’re ready to pop free and wander off somewhere.

So I set my zigzag stitch longer and closer together (if that makes sense) to try to tame the savage beast.

And it freakin’ worked. Mostly. And my machine went through the multiple, heavy, sometimes still sticky layers with no issue at all. The thread only broke once.

You can see it’s almost a satin stitch on the back…

And it’s puckering like crazy…my camera is giving me trouble…the display is apparently gone. I’m sure I did something to make that happen, but I don’t know what. I am apparently very hard on cameras.

So stitched down doesn’t look a whole lot different than ironed down. That’s good. There’s some puckering, but I was able to iron most of it out…violently and with steam, lots of it. I think the rest will come out in the quilting (knock on wood). I didn’t have the energy (it was after midnight and I am actually sick) to sandwich and pinbaste it last night, but maybe tonight. She’s kinda scary looking. It’s the neck I think.

I did finish sorting all the batiks for the other recycled piece, but they are in piles on the floor…not very conducive to picking and choosing. So I will have to sit down for a while and sort through each color pile for each piece of that color and fold them all up together, because that’s how I like to keep fabrics. Anal, I know. What can I say? Some parts of my life are utter chaos, as was apparent yesterday afternoon and evening, so I control the few things I can, and fabric appears to be one of those things.

My FFAC quilt is ready to mail…I made a label for it last night and packed it up. I didn’t have a car yesterday, though, so I couldn’t mail it, and today I am booked through 5:30…I can’t remember when the post office closes, but I think it’s 5. Because working people? I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder.

Today I start a brand-new, never-been-used assignment with my kids…seriously hoping it’s not a clusterfuck. It could be! That’s the wonder of new technology though…you have to experiment to find out what can go horribly wrong. And then you move on. Meditative breathing might come in handy there…

Meditative Breathing, My Ass…

OK, so I know I’m sick with something. I have a cough. I have phlegm. It’s green. When I took Sudafed, I felt better, less shaky, less dizzy, less spacy. There are some other symptoms that are cold-like or flu-like. Then I’m having chills or hot flashes almost constantly, but no fever. I even got up last night and checked my temperature AND blood sugar to make sure it wasn’t that, because I couldn’t sleep. I felt not only like I was on fire, but like I needed to get up Up UP. Like something was really wrong. I hate that. I needed to be out of bed. So I did what (some of) my ancestors would do. I got up and made a cup of tea (the rest of my ancestors would have had a beer, before they were diagnosed with diabetes). Yes, I realize caffeine and a hot drink when you’re hotflashing do not make any sense, but since the slow, controlled meditative breathing I’m supposed to do wasn’t working for shit, I went for comfort tactics, and I stayed up for an hour plus reading blogs and slowly drinking tea until I yawned again. Then I headed back to bed, where the hot flashes and the distinct feeling that something was wrong continued. More meditative breathing. A cat attacking my head (I guess I was breathing wrong). Finally fell asleep after 4 AM. Not good.

I hate not being able to trust my own body. There are too many meds messing around in there. Too many things that could go wrong. I know if I go to Urgent Care about the nonstop hot flashes and chills, they will just blame menopause or whatever virus I have, and maybe that’s what it is…maybe it’s all about hormones gone awry and there is nothing else that is making me feel so wacky crazy. Ask me again about intelligent design? I guess if God were a middle-aged man and he was trying to get rid of his aging, menopausal wife so he could date a younger woman, this is how he’d go about it. Make her look crazy so it would be OK to dump her for the cute young thang. Get his teeth done. Color his hair. If that’s the god you believe in, I wish you luck.

Dear doctors: it’s not a hot FLASH if it never stops. Please look up the definition of flash and get back to me.

Anyway, despite all that crazy (and it does feel like crazy, even in the broad defining daylight of morning, a morning where you have to go to school and be fully functional), I did stitch a little last night…

All I did was stitch them down. I wanted to get so much done on my day off yesterday, but I felt like crap most of the day. I did manage to go to the chiropractor, so either the headaches were the neck being out of whack or they were early stages of this weird malady I have, because they are gone.

Although I did have a heating pad on my neck while I did these. I also graded papers, but I didn’t get very far. I didn’t eat very much either. Probably not a good thing.

I had this photo on my camera of the entire fence in front of SCRAP…

Little samples spelling out the name.

And this picture of the girlchild…

I think she actually headed it, although it’s hard to tell from this photo. Soccer right now. Sigh. It’s a clusterfuck.

Anyway. The car is going in today (all the dash lights flashing along with the Check Engine light), so I have no ride home (yet…have three contenders for the job). I feel like crap. I’m still hotflashing. I’m full of green phlegm. I feel completely off. And it’s an assembly day, so school on speed. Fun stuff. Meditative breathing…my ass. Oh, I’ll DO it, but you know it won’t stop the crazy or the hot. Meds. Removable layers of clothing. I got this. I’m not happy about it, but I got it.

Traveler

I went north to San Francisco this weekend to visit a high-school friend…who doesn’t actually live in the city of course. We ate Ethiopian food…

Tanya joined us, thus connecting two parts of my world in one small restaurant.

From there, a tiny bit of wine tasting…

Then on to SCRAP in San Francisco

Where we ferreted through artistic junk for stuff we might like…

And tried to decide what would fit in my already full luggage (it was raining, so I had to bring a jacket).

There was a lot of fabric, and we only had about 30 minutes…

Here’s what I should do with all my yarn…

The surrounding area is not particularly pretty…

Liked this flower, but couldn’t figure out what it was (Julie!)…in Vickie’s friend’s garden…

Wine, juice, and ginger ale tasting after Gilbert and Sullivan…

And now breakfast is being created by many hands…I might survive it! No seriously, it’s been a fun-filled weekend and I have enjoyed all the interactions.

Hello Friday…

Hello Friday. I’m glad you’re here, although you will be long and full of tests and whiny kids who didn’t study because they think grades are magical things that happen to them and there will be soccer and a plane flight and lots of girly squealing on the other end…wait…no…this is me and Vickie…we don’t girly squeal…we guffaw and snort and make rude comments. So there’ll be lots of that. And maybe I’ll be allowed to sleep…who knows? But there will be lots of food and a musical and hanging out with Tanya and Ethiopian food and maybe some SCIENCE and some art supplies and who knows what else.

But it’s Friday at least, and although I will get absolutely no art made today, Saturday, or probably even Sunday, that’s OK, because I will be feeding the artist’s mind with all the experiences and laughter and goofiness and serious discussion that it needs to be what it is. To do what it does.

Plus I have Monday off, so I can catch up!

Who am I kidding? I will never catch up. Seriously, I have three assignments that need grading from last week, can’t hand any of them off to my TA because they’re too complicated, and I’m about to get four more today. Really I should take all my grading with me (not happening). Or I should stop assigning things.

I am looking forward to coming back and getting my focus on…it’s been off this week for a variety of reasons. I need to stitch down, sandwich, and quilt the two cancer hands. I need to stitch down (although it will probably fray like a bitch) the first of the recycled pieces and pick fabrics for the next one, because they are currently in piles in my living room. I need to start tracing Wonder Under for the Earth Mother from Ventura (seriously, I think that’s her name). That’s next week. Ha! Because I won’t have 7 assignments to grade, 2 soccer games, a union meeting, and god knows what else that hasn’t even hit me upside the head yet?

Yeah. Whatever. I can do it.

And I’m taking my sketchbook on the plane. I’m hoping to sit beside some conservative businessman and draw scary boobs with eyeballs in them. Wait a minute. I really do like that idea. I have not done that. How have I not done that?

Hey Vickie, can I sit at the breakfast table with your kids and draw? She’s gonna say yes.

Meanwhile, my FFAC donation quilt will be winging its way to a newish art quilter in Florida, while mine comes from Belgium…

I’ll post pictures when it gets here. Could be a while. I can handle waiting. Then maybe I will hang art in the living room, ignoring the girlchild’s edict of no nudity. My house. My rules. Ha. Like that works.

In other cool news, Earth Stories is now traveling through the middle of 2017…

It will be in Athens, Ohio, May 23-September 7, 2015; San Jose, California, November 6, 2015-February 28, 2016; Huntington, West Virginia, June 25-October 2, 2016; and Erie, New York, January 20– June 11, 2017. Plenty of opportunities to see it…I’m aiming for the San Jose one of course.

I fly places once or twice a year…my quilts? They get to go all over. Lucky beasts.

Ironing Her Down…

My hand hurts tonight from cutting the upholstery fabrics for two nights running…it’s harder to cut through than cotton quilting fabric. And my scissors probably aren’t great.

There’s the trash…

Here’s the upholstery fabrics I used…texture really was the only pattern.

I had all the pieces ready to cut out on Monday night…

Oh yeah, I had two cottons…white because there wasn’t any, and black for the pupil, because it was going to be tiny and the nipples are bad enough in this stuff…

I started cutting stuff out Monday night (and almost finished). You can see the seam in the arm.

I did find a background fabric that works. I usually pick them first, but because my fabrics were limited, I started with what I had for the body. I figured I could thrift shop a background fabric if I couldn’t find anything in my house. Which yes, of course, meant that I would be carrying around cut-out body parts, like boobs and things, to local thrift shops. I don’t always think these things through. There it is…it’s purple…it’s a Jinny Beyer tiny dot print probably from the 90s. ANCIENT. Or vintage. You decide.

What’s left in the box is what I had left Monday night at 1 AM, when I decided sleep was in my best interest. Sometimes I think these things through…not last night, though, because I was up Way Too Late. I blame the full moon. I blame it for lots of things.

Tuesday night, I finished cutting pieces out and then started ironing.

This quilt only has about 150 pieces, so I could lay them all out at once…

The textures were interesting. Here’s me ironing the eyeballs separately. Then I can lay them on the face at the same time and make sure spacing is right and they don’t look kittywampus.

I was going to go to bed around midnight, like after I had ironed a whole bunch together, but then I realized I was almost done, so I didn’t stop. This is what causes my sleep issues. My art. The part of my brain that thought that was a good idea.

And here she is on her background.

Looking much pinker than she is in reality…she’s more the yellow tones in the upper picture.

The bitchy bit is going to be the stitchdown, because I think it’s gonna fray like crazy. I debated putting tulle over it, but I don’t think that will stop it and it will just annoy me. So I’m just gonna go balls out and stitch it down. I don’t know when that will happen though, because I’m going to be gone for a few days and I’m way too tired tonight (see last night’s excess for explanation) to start anything that involves a needle going up and down very fast near my hand. I’m going to finish this post, print one thing for school, and go to bed. Well, first I’m going to have to rinse the girlchild’s dishes, because although I asked her to do it before she went to bed, I don’t think she did, so I will have to do that so I can run the dishwasher. I was gone for 13 hours today and she couldn’t manage to get the dog from her dad’s house and feed both the beasts. Ugh. She needs to go to college. I love her dearly, but she needs a reality slap upside the head.

And I need more sleep.