I Open My Mouth and It’s Something I Read*

Oh sweet hallelujah, lo I were awake much later than I should have been on a school night, ere the quilting is complete! I couldn’t stop. Art brain would not allow me to stop. She was on a roll. The machine behaved too…no thread breakage, no needle shenanigans, no weird stoppages. What the hell. (Don’t question it…just do a quiet hallelujah in your head…or all over the internet…whichever works best for you.)

First I graded stuff, and then I worked on this stupid worksheet for school, and then made dinner, and then finished the outlining of the creepy hand.

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I wasted no time after that…it was already 9:30 PM. So I started quilting. I had barely started the background quilting the night before. And I had never outlined the cheesecake, so I did that too.

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I had originally planned to switch threads from the uber-dark to a lighter one where the fabrics changed, but I forgot and started quilting down into the lighter blue. Instead of pulling it out, I just did a little transition there from the dark to light. I think I might be the only one who will notice it.

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This was halfway through, at about 11:30 PM. At this point, I wasn’t sure I was going to finish. Kitten did not care at all…except that I wouldn’t let her lie on it.

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Past 12:30. Done. 9 1/2 hours.

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Tonight I will trim it and put the binding on…and email the photographer? Well, I have to put a binding on the other one as well. So yeah. I still think I can get it done though. And then panic about what needs to be done next…I’m fairly sure something has to be done by 5/29. But it’s not big and doesn’t need to be quilted. But I also have no idea what I’m doing for it. Minor issue, right? I also want to do that drawing that’s been lurking in my head since Sunday morning. It’s niggling at me. Poke poke. Hey. Over here. Draw my ass.

*Kongos, Come with Me

Dream of Better Lives, the Kind Which Never Hate*

Quilting is taking longer than I thought it would. Well. It is so far. It might be that when I get to the end, I’ll think otherwise. I finished the outline quilting last night at around midnight…about 7 hours’ worth. Only the background is left, and from what I remember with the other two bathtubs, because the image takes up so much of the quilt space, the background doesn’t take long, so I’m hoping to finish tonight. (Let’s not think about progress report grades…they are close to done…sort of. Program glitch of sorts…waiting on a logical answer…instead of the annoying time-consuming one that I suspect will be the actual answer.)

See that black fabric under Kitten? It was there for maybe 5 minutes before she appeared out of one room and sat on it. Then looked offended when I pulled it out from under her. Cats. Sheesh.

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So this is my teabag squeezer thing (insert official name here). I cleaned it all up to take it camping with us and then couldn’t find it. Since April 7. Found it! In the bag where I put it, which traveled all the way to the redwoods and back and a few other places after.

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Aren’t brains amazing?

So I went shopping for binding fabric yesterday, and got sidetracked by flesh colors. There is a binding in there, I swear.

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Lots of random spots seem to be in fashion right now.

Then quilting when I got back from dinner at the parentals, where they helped me sort all my Monopoly pieces for that stupid grocery store game. Still haven’t won enough to pay next year’s college tuition unfortunately.

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Lots of water and body parts to outline…

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The needle behaved last night. Not sure what’s causing the issue, but explaining it to mom, she looked horrified. Like NO, it’s NOT supposed to do that. Well, I KNOW that…but can I sew anyway for now? Because I have two to finish, hopefully by the weekend.

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There we are. All the outlining done, and even started the background quilting in the bush to the right.

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She already has a name. I think. I might change my mind. You never know.

More hand stitching…see, I anchored those flippy bits too. I don’t know where I’m going next…

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Unfortunately, I have a 2-hour staff meeting this afternoon…suspect that might kill my brain. It’s because state testing starts next week. Ugh. Need to start lining up some copyediting jobs for the summer, locked in around possible jury duty. Need to figure out the next project. Need to get the house straightened up. Ha. Well that’s obviously not very high on the priority list, right? Fabric manipulation comes much higher.

As it should.

*Modern English, I Melt with You

Kick My Brains around the Floor*

I’m finishing up progress reports, dealing with the last-minute panicking kids who are desperately turning in assignments to bring grades up (um. That 5-point assignment that is 125 days late will not help you.). I’m hoping to find quilting time this afternoon…surely I am going to buy binding fabric no matter what, because I won’t have time any other day this week…the shop closes too early. What’s more important as I go into the school week? Binding fabric or groceries? Um. Well. Are you asking me that? Because I’m getting the binding fabric first. Yup.

I woke up this morning, barely, couldn’t open my eyes (noise before actual wanting-to-wake-up time), but as I’m struggling to go back to sleep or something, persuade my bladder it doesn’t need to be up, an entire drawing pops, fully formed, into my head. Just like that. I know some of the places it came from…a focus on climate change and the effects, plus walking around ArtWalk yesterday. But yeah. A full drawing. That I now have to DRAW. Because I can’t download directly from my brain. Yet.

I have a bunch of cards of artists I liked from ArtWalk, but no time today to post…and I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of most of them. So I have the pitstops and distractions…one stop at (damn, can’t remember the name, but it was cool) for a cooling peach sangria and a seat…yes, those are fluffy sheep on the ceiling.

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Then more walking in the heat…

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A good set of phrases to keep in mind…

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Then a ride to a gallery opening, which wasn’t open yet. Awesome…Border X Brewing in Barrio Logan…

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Plenty of art there as well.

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I have photos from the all-women show at La Bodega Gallery, which is open again (seemingly without the crazy crowds), but no time to post today. We came back and watched two episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale, which is just as intense as you’d expect it would be, but definitely worth it (probably it inserted itself into my dreams as well; hence the drawing in the morning fuzzy brain)…and I did the hand on the right, except two stitches, I forgot the anchoring stitch, and I obviously didn’t finish the hand. I’m deciding how I’m gonna handle that. Not sure. Like the tree, it will take many days to finish perhaps.

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Today. Finish grades, do one day on this piece, quilt a lot, hopefully all of it (doubtful), find a binding, do the damn grocery shopping, get the mind and body ready for another full week of school…only 33 days left, and I’m skipping two of them and three of what’s left are minimum days for kids because of testing (this is not actually better, because we use up a shit-ton of energy managing kids during testing, and I’ve got a couple of uber-challenging sweethearts in there). And I gotta get that drawing out of my head and onto paper. Somewhere. Somewhen. Somehow.

*Queen/David Bowie, Under Pressure

It’s Never Quite as It Seems*

Leaping out of bed at 6 AM, grabbing the phone and finding the camera app. Not to go to work…simply to try to record what freaking animal travels past my bedroom window every morning, usually at 5:30, but apparently it sleeps in on Saturdays. Simba is barking wildly, like he needs to kill it. Then again, he barks at the wind, at phones ringing on television shows, and random shit that’s at least 5 miles away. So I’m not really paying attention to him. Did I catch it? No. It’s either raccoon or skunk…not sure why I care, except it’s constantly waking me up…not because of its stealthy movements through the leaves. I can sleep through that (usually)…but I can’t sleep through Mr. Barkypants. Some part of me thinks if I get a picture of it and show it to the pup that his tiny little brain will go, “Oh. That’s it. I don’t need to bark at that.” Um. OK. So when I write that out, I realize how crazy it sounds. That dog would just bark more.

Yesterday was Calli’s 8th birthday. She acts a lot older this year though…maybe that’s the growing arthritis. I don’t usually have her on Fridays, but I automatically went and picked her up, so whoops. I wanted to go on a walk, so I figured she probably did too (I was right). Even with the arthritis pain, she loves walks.

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It doesn’t matter how I try to organize and untangle leashes…the little one is a leash idiot.

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The plant growth this year is crazy…

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The last time we were here, it was almost underwater…

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This was exciting for both of them…that is a bunny. There were lots of bunnies, actually…

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And lots of wildflowers…

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And these weird giant spiky pod things…

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These flowers are here every year…there were actually fewer of them because they were inundated with the taller grasslike weeds.

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Unfortunately, Simba was badly designed. I constantly consider shaving his butt fur. It’s really impossible for him to poop without it getting stuck in his fur sometimes, which is lovely. Really lovely. He needed a flea bath anyway. The fleas this year have been awful…I feel like nothing is working…

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He doesn’t like water. At all.

Before we went on the walk, Calli went and rolled in the skunk-infused dirt again, so she reeked. So I bathed her with better-smelling stuff and her skin stuff, so she has to sit with it on for 10 minutes. Always fun.

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Yeah, I should remodel this bathroom. Remind me to put in a dog-washing station. Seriously. That pink bathtub has to go.

I finally caught up on three nights on this…almost a third of the way through? And I’m lagging. I filled in the eye on the left with three different colors. That’s it. Now I want to do a hand.

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I tired the dogs out at least. Tired myself out as well…was already physically and mentally exhausted from school.

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I finally managed enough energy to eat dinner and then started quilting. The machine was amazingly well-behaved last night…which is good.

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Kitten was not so helpful. There’s some competition apparently between the two cats for time on my bed, and Kitten is being nonconfrontational with the other cat but very needy in the studio. Pet pet pet. Nice kitty.

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It took a wine assist last night…too stressed to think straight. It’s been a long week. But I got a decent amount of quilting done.

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There’s a lot of things on the to-do list today. But I’m up and trying to be efficient. Gonna get through the first two quickly so I can get on with some quilting and artful enjoyment of the rest of the day. Artwalk is downtown and there’s another opening I want to see…plus The Handmaid’s Tale is on someone else’s Hulu. So that sounds like a good afternoon and evening. I’m hoping. I need some down time before I barrel through grades. Tomorrow I’m hoping to be done with quilting and to buy a binding. And deal with the other quilt. Yeah…that much closer to having a clue what will be in the solo show…probably that’s a good thing.

*The Cranberries, Dreams

No Machine Drama

Sewing machines are such temperamental beasts. Now my needle thing…you know, the thing the needle goes into? It keeps randomly moving left…so far left sometimes that it almost hits the foot. (All my non-sewing readers just visualized something totally different than the rest of us.) And the only way to get it to go back is to turn the machine off. Then it resets the location and I start over. I was hoping this was a problem with only the zigzag stitch, because I was done with that mostly, but last night, it wouldn’t reset after doing some zigzag and turning it off.

This is not good. But I have the ability to move the needle over so it’s in the zero position (center) even though the little numbers say it’s not. I’m OK with that right now, as I try to finish this damn quilt and the other one. I can pull out the old machine too, if necessary. I don’t have time to go to the guy and have him look at it. So between the giant-ass nest of monofilament thread I had on the back at some point, and the weird stitches caused by the thread trying to get over the top of the spool (finally thought to push the spool up), I was just fighting the machine for the 54 minutes that I tried quilting.

I’d also missed an entire piece of leg being stitched down. I realized that while pinbasting the previous night. A really truly anal person would have stopped pinbasting and would have gone and stitched it down (it was after midnight. You’ve gotta be kidding me). I did not do that. So I had threaded the entire machine last night to start quilting and THEN realized it would be smarter to zigzag that down before quilting. So I unthreaded everything and rethreaded, and then the feed dogs were up so I changed that and that’s when I had a nest of monofilament. There’s something very frustrating about it being really late at night and being tired and just trying to get SOMETHING done and having it fight back.

Being tired and trying to fuss through that shit really just means it’s time to go to bed. Long week anyway, first week back. I stayed late at work to try to finish grading an assignment. I hate it when people think we don’t work a lot of hours. Dumbasses. Only a 10-hour day yesterday. No biggie. Then I came home and input as much as I could. Progress reports go out next week, so I’m trying to get caught up. Always trying to get caught up.

Tomorrow I want to sleep in…to be allowed to sleep in. I want to get my grades done and some quilting done. And then go to Artwalk for a while. Not think about school or deadlines or all the other crap. Have a nice meal. Try to watch some of The Handmaid’s Tale. Both kids are hopefully coming home for a couple of weeks this summer…maybe longer, but I don’t know. The thought of doing a whole summer by myself is not…ugh. Well. Empty nest syndrome when you live by yourself is a whole ‘nother thing to contemplate…although I guess for some people, now they are alone with someone that perhaps they do not like as much any more. But I hate it when people tell me “Oh yeah, I’ve got that empty nest syndrome thing” when they still have someone to eat dinner with every night. And someone who will help lift crap. I guess that’s all I care about (funny…and not entirely true). I’ll still have a ton of stuff to do…art and hopefully some copyediting to help pay for college.

So after all that crazy with the thread, I basically sewed around part of the bathtub and then I did the Golden Retriever…

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And then it was bedtime.

And I entered another show. And I went through my existing quilts in house and tried to decide what smaller ones would be in the show at Visions in July…the ones that would go on the back wall, where the ceilings are low. Certainly it might be an interesting conglomerate of stuff, because mine are usually bigger than that and not horizontal, but vertical. I keep debating the big ones too. The only ones I know for sure that are in the show are the three bathtubs and the Superwoman piece. Then my brain goes to mush. I think it’s because I’m having a hard time visualizing. In the two-person show last year, I just brought a shitload stuff and we figured it out as we hung it what should be in there. Not particularly efficient, but whatever…it worked for me and the curator.

And I still don’t know what I’m doing next artistically. I cleaned up the entry form I use…finally put it on Google docs instead of on my computer, so I can see it on my phone etc. I really need to migrate everything over. There’s a lot of things I need to do. I watched a TED talk about that, about the things I don’t do, and admitting that’s because they aren’t very high priority. So true. Although the 90 quilts on the girlchild’s bed may soon be an extreme priority (yikes).

Anyway. Friday. That’s a plus. Assembly at school. Then trying to get through the day even though I’m really tired. What’s new, right? Hopefully quilting tonight with no machine drama.

Oh Life, It’s Bigger*

So am I the only one cleaning my floor at 10:30 PM so I can lay a quilt out for pinbasting before I go to bed? It’s certainly possible…but I had it in my head that I would get done. So I did. It always makes sense the night before. Mornings are sometimes a bit rough. My brain is functional, because I managed making tea and giving the animals a breakfast. Doing well!

Unlike yesterday, when Calli decided to go in the pool and then roll in a bunch of dirt. I had noticed her over there before, so I yelled at her, hosed her down (which she really appreciated (I got Sad Eyes for the rest of the evening)…

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And then went over to figure out the appeal of the dirt. Ah. A carcass. Another skunk. Bloody hell. That’s 4 dead skunks. So I removed the carcass, although I did not toss it…because it’s almost just bones. I could see the spine. Science teacher brain. Huh. So then I’m making tea and Googling How to Remove Skin from a Skunk Skeleton. Like you do. No decisions yet. Bet you’re glad you don’t live with me.

I was flailing a bit, tired, but not hungry. Ugh. So I started stitching down again, and the thread decided to hate on me…

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But I eventually got it to behave and kept going…

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Who needs dinner when you can stitch down a flaming halo?

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I finished. Really. I think it was about 4 1/2 hours total. Then I ate dinner and cleaned the floor…that’s where I lay out my quilts.

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By the time I was done finding a backing and a piece of appropriately sized batting, it was dry. It was also about 11:45 PM. Aargh. Well. I pinbasted. I’m pretty sure you knew I would.

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I went to bed a little late for me (a lot late for most of the world)…

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Definitely not wide awake at the moment, but happily onto the next step of the quilt phase. Quilting tonight for sure! I should see if I have a good background thread, so I don’t have to stop and wait, right? Thinking ahead. What a concept. Then go buy binding fabric on Saturday or Sunday. It will be done next week. I still have to put the binding on the other one too.

The scariest thing right now? I don’t know what I’m doing next. Yes, there are deadlines. But none of them are imminent. OK. Well one is. Sort of. I don’t even have a drawing for that one. No idea what I’m gonna do. Good stuff. And I’ve been coming home and ignoring school…probably with progress report grades due I can’t do that every night any more. Much as I’d like to.

*REM, Losing My Religion

Wish I Knew What You Were Looking For*

I came to some weird conclusion last night that I only had an hour and a half of artmaking in me on any given school night. Now I know that’s not true…there’s been nights when I’ve come home and figured out how to do 3-4 hours of work afterwards…but the week after Spring Break is not one of them. The machine did behave better last night and I was more efficient about the spacing out time on the couch (double time that space-out!), so that was good. But I’m still stitching down. I was really hoping to be done last night. Nope. Nopester. Nopealicious. Nopearama.

Not done.

I did this first…trying to be good and stay on it. The green ferny stitches on the top right on that bush that has been there for a while.

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Then I headed in to work on stitching down the stuff on the top. I had some blobby bits on the back, but got that resolved. I think it’s because the spool was almost empty. I’m using Superior’s MonoPoly right now. There’s no way NOT to read that as the game.

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Found some semi-efficient way to go through the water…I think all that’s done, except the Golden Retriever.

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Not sure how I missed the dog.

And then doing that bloody complicated bush was the thing I did right at midnight. Well that’s it then. Because I still had the torso and head to do, and that was going to be at least another hour. The bush was bad enough, all overlappy and then the bobbin thread ran out.

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I can’t really justify staying up past 1 AM on a school night right now. So I didn’t. Tonight I finish though! And then hopefully sandwich? I’ll have to get an earlier start to pull that off. Because kneeling on a tile floor at 11 PM is my way of having fun fun fun. Seriously. It is.

Kitten too. You can see it in her face.

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Here’s where I admit that she only has half her teeth because of some weird genetic thing. So she often gets this bitchy lip thing going that is really just because she’s toothless.

Anyway. Today? Finish stitch down. I can commit to that.

*The Church, Under the Milky Way

Underground Like a Wild Potato*

Oh yeah. School kicks your butt. Just plain old physical exhaustion at the end of the day with some measure of mental (what’s another word for exhaustion…I’m too tired to think of one or even access a thesaurus dammit) tiredness. Enervation. Fatigue. Lassitude. That might be the first time I’ve used the word lassitude on this blog. Might be the last too.

I’m still braindead this morning, after two hours of cats cleaning their nether regions right next to me, one on each side, unable to toss them off the bed because of my parents’ dog Katie, who tends to chase them. Even in the dark. In the middle of the night, she’s lurking right next to the bed, waiting for something tasty and sharp (claws don’t seem to deter her) to fall from the mattress.

I wish she’d get over that. It’s a pain carrying the furry beasts around and depositing them appropriate places so they can eat and poop, and then Kitten was demanding that I bring her to bed, despite the fact that she’d be stuck there all night by Psycho Dog. Katie goes home tonight, so the cats will be free to walk around like the bossy furry beasts they prefer to be. And I will be free to toss them off the bed when a 4:30 AM butt cleaning seems like a good idea.

So school was fine really…and then we had to wander over to another school for a talk by George Couros, who was a principal and a teacher and has a TED talk you can listen to at the link. If you want to. I won’t force anyone to listen to a TED talk. I like a few of them, but mostly I’m like, yeah, OK, either that makes sense or where’s your evidence. Or both. So. Just like every day. I didn’t get anything revolutionary…or revelatory (yes, WordPress, that IS a word) out of it, but whatever. I thought it was ironic that they were trying to motivate us to be passionate and amazing when there ~~are~~ were only 38 days of school left. They kept saying there were 32 days of school left, but I counted again, and maybe they’re not counting days that I am counting? But it’s 38. Except now it’s 37. The cool thing is that he said it was OK if we were on our phones or asleep, and I did neither. I happily stitched. Happily stitching meant that I could focus on what he had to say AND stay awake. Seriously. I wish my boss would figure that out, although he hasn’t made me stop drawing in staff meetings.

No, I’m not done with the bird, but I’m close…so technically that would be done with the top block, whatever number that is, and on to the bottom block with the tree etc.

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The frog. That’s what it is.

I also caught up on this, three days’ worth. I’m getting less efficient as the year goes on. I was panicking about getting the quilt done. So I did the eyeball outline on the left, to be filled in later, the weird branch going off the eyeball, all in chain stitches for both, with pistil stitches coming out of the chains. Then I did a chain stitch in an orange color near the tree, to the left, filling in some of the black in there, finishing up with French knots above one of the yellow flower shapes.

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You’d think I’d finish filling in before branching out. Oh well.

I had some space-out time. I read for a while. I couldn’t deal with anything. Then I finally got up and started the stitch-down on the bathtub.

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The machine was a little fussy, but I figured it out and got a good hour and a half into it. Didn’t get a lot DONE, but I stitched. Slow but steady.

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More tonight…hoping I have the energy. Today is a long day. Most of them are long days. The first week back is exhausting. I said that already.

*The B-52’s, Private Idaho

Felling Any Foe with My Gaze*

OK. I can go back today. I guess. I’m not ready, but I never am…so what’s new. I managed to grade 6 of the 9 assignments I had…and to grade all of the stuff kids turned in late. So I didn’t do horribly…but progress reports have to be done this weekend, so…ugh. Already ugh.

That said, I got a bit of a reprieve on trying to finish the current quilt. I thought I had to be done and photographed by this Friday, and that’s not gonna happen. But apparently it doesn’t have to. I might be the only person who reads the contract. So I’m feeling pressure to get done still…but not psychotic crazy pressure. Hallelujah.

Anyway…I did get a lot done over the weekend anyway. First of all, I marched for science. My marching team has a plan for how we do this…we meet here and eat a fortified breakfast.

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The Other Kathy had the best shirt ever…if you’re a size medium or smaller, go here to get one.

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If you’re not a medium or smaller, be sad, because she’s sold out. But a lovely shirt nonetheless. She’s a paper cutter from Canada (the artist, Ali Harrison; not my friend wearing the shirt)…which makes sense when you see the image.

Then we leave two cars where the parking is easy and we park in this garage, within easy walking distance of the march. The artist is Christopher Konecki…whose art I love…and his cover picture on his website shows this and a few other of his downtown murals (there are many).

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We take the obligatory march photo…which shows my hat…

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The weird Earth Mother that was behind us while we left the plaza…

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You can see my weird hat (I wear this at school at least once a year)…better in the Other Kathy’s picture…

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Got my lab coat on too. Anyway. Science marchers are different than Women marchers in that it was quieter…but still a good thing. Because science. Duh.

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I don’t know how you ignore 15,000 people in San Diego…especially when they’re fucking with traffic…

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They only gave us half the road this time. Lots of good signs, but I’m not sure the people who need to be paying attention are getting it, after seeing the Trumpster’s statement for Earth Day. It seems his science teachers have a lot of explaining to do for his level of ignorance about cause and effect with the environment. Hopefully some of his party will pay attention to their constituents.

I came home and ironed…body parts…

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She’s not as pink as the others…

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Should be interesting seeing all three bathtubs hanging together…

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Then I took the torso and limbs and inserted them into the bathtub.

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I only had about 100 pieces left at that point, but needed to leave and go to an opening.

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Which is where I found out I had more time than I thought.

Yesterday, I had a ton to do, but helped out the ex by letting him drop a beam on my shin. OK. Not really. That was an accident, but it hurts today. Oh well.

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I get it. It’s hard to do stuff around the house when you’re the only person. Luckily I persuaded him that trying to lift the beam up from the ground and hold it was fucking nuts. So we did it from the deck…if it dropped, that would have killed the ladders, but not one of us. I feel like I need to drive over there today and see if he is still alive, because he had other stuff to do…this might be why old single people need to live in communes, rather than by themselves.

I had a California Fibers‘ meeting yesterday (we have so many shows coming up, it’s crazy)…and this was on a Chinese screen one of the members had in her house. Everything else was traditional old dragons and water and clouds (which apparently are a fungus, not clouds?)…but these look like flaming metal eyeballs, don’t they? I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be, but I really like them.

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Back home, finishing some grading, dogs at the ready…

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Or asleep…whichever works.

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Back to the ironing board, earlier this time…

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Eyeballs ironed separately for better placement.

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Her face done…with crown of fire (can you say hot flashes?).

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Piece the background after (smartly learning from my mistakes) washing it in that stuff that removes the extra dye…Retayne (wish I could retain brain cells, dammit…couldn’t remember what it was called)…

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Then all ironed down and steamed appropriately.

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Damn, if I didn’t have to go to school today…I’d be stitching this down. Yup. Oh well. Back to the day job. That’s what all the artists say.

*Blue Foundation, Eyes on Fire

So There

I have 12 minutes before I need to get ready to leave to march for science. Funny, it wouldn’t have been my first choice 30 years ago, when I was in college. I was very much an English literature and art major before I was a science person. Some of that was teachers who told me girls don’t do this, so when I asked questions, mostly trying to figure physics out (it’s still not my strong point), they wouldn’t answer. Somehow I should have gotten all the information I needed from their dry, boring lectures or from the textbook I barely cracked.

When I got my tattoo earlier this week, the fact that I was a teacher came up and the desk guy, who looked barely out of high school, was entranced with physics, with the labs, though…not with the post-lab work…like many of my students, he likes to do and explore more than he likes to analyze afterwards in some sort of productive manner. I love science for its creativity, its persistence, its ability to fuck with us…but I also love it for how it solves problems…and not just in one way, but in millions of ways. I didn’t know back in high school that this subject was one of the best for people who are both right and left brain, who like to see order in the chaos, but are admitting the chaos is always there…who like to find answers even while making more questions.

So I march for science. I march for the Lorax. I march with Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I march with all the women who have chosen science as a career despite all the men who stood in the way. I march for my students, who love the labs, but not the work that goes with them. I march for a subject I didn’t particularly like in school, but grew to love over the years, a subject that now distinctly colors the art I make. I march even though it’s going to be hot and there will be no bathrooms. I march even though I didn’t make a sign (I have a lab coat with my name on it and an eyeball hat and a Lorax t-shirt). I march with my co-teacher, even though she’s currently marching in Texas. I march for the people who don’t believe in climate change, because they can’t see the science through the politicians.

So there.

In other news, I’m putting a binding and a sleeve on this one and trying to hang it from a wall instead of putting it on a bed…ironically, since it’s a quilt about being a quilt.

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I didn’t get much done on this one due to yesterday’s errandness…

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Puppies are bitey and old lady dogs aren’t.

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I worked on this while gaming…

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And I did three days’ worth of stuff on this, mostly down in the bottom right…Some blue star stitches with french knots and cross stitches, then some stitches to decorate the herringbone, both straight stitches in peach and fly and lazy daisy stitches in green.

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Just trying to fill in space as I reach the 1/3-way mark. Whatever for? I do not know. But I can’t stop now.