Dark Blue on Dark Blue in the Dark…

Progress is slow, but at least I’m moving in the right direction. Now if someone would just clean up the kitchen besides me. I had professional development all day yesterday on coding, which I’m actually OK at, but there still isn’t a clear and easy way to use it in science without sitting down and reading a 38-page PDF. It’s interesting that we walk away from 6 hours of “learning” and I still don’t have something I can use in the classroom without spending more time and energy of my own. But that is how it always is. So I stash it away (with the giant-ass book, yet another one) in my cupboards and will try to implement it at some point, but probably not this year, because I don’t know where it would fit in our current curriculum and I’m finding that this year is already pushing my buttons.

I also graded yesterday, which caused a few panicked emails after midnight last night from students who hadn’t turned in that assignment. OMG! More work. Another assignment to be graded today. I want to start with my head above water next Monday…because it will quickly be under again, right?

Already I have 10 12 things on my to-do list for today, and some of them require going out in the rain…over an inch today. Amusing, since some years we total 5 inches of rain in the whole year…they’re guessing close to 4 inches here just this week. I have a garage that has leaking issues, so boychild and I went down last night and made sure there was nothing cardboard or paper on the floor. Many years ago, probably the last serious El Niño, we put everything up on shelves so that when the water leaches down the slope through the wall into the garage, nothing is ruined. It let me throw some more stuff away too.

I was up late finishing the machine stuff on the newest Bathtub quilt, hallelujah. It took another hour and 20 minutes of quilting, running out of thread (this is why I braved JoAnns hell on Saturday), quilting dark blue on dark blue in the dark (the lighting in here sucks)…

Nine hours and 34 minutes total in the quilting…that was less than I thought. Less breakage than on the last equivalent quilt? Less stuff to fill in? Who knows. Just glad it’s done. Don’t get me wrong…I like this quilt, I like quilting…but school is rushing towards me and there’s a lot of stuff going on in the next two weeks…enough that I’m doing a lot of deep breathing and reorganizing my brain to take it all on.

There it is…like you can see it. I ironed it to get it relatively flat. Mostly my quilts are flat anyway, but ironing helps because I do quilt heavier in the background than in the image. I know real quilt people want even quilting density all around, but I don’t. I want the image to pop, and it does that when I don’t quilt evenly between background and foreground.

Laid it out and stared at it for a while, because it’s not gonna be straight no matter what…and that wonky is OK. There’s no actual straight lines in the quilt. It’s the way my brain is…sorta wonky…made even wonkier by old-lady hormonal surges and fluxes.

I like her. I like her better than the last bathtub quilt. It’s good that I like my own work, isn’t it? (laughs)

I had another backgroundy fabric that I had considered for this one, but I’m glad I didn’t, because it was just a tad darker than this one and worked perfectly for a binding. I have a hard time with binding colors on these dark blue quilts…and yes, I make a lot of dark blue quilts. It’s a good background for the images I do. But you need something darker or a color from in the quilt to work as a binding. I don’t like using the same color, because then it doesn’t frame it. I like the eye to have a place to stop at the edge and then bounce off and wander back in. See. I did have art training. So there.

Anyway. I still have to do all the handsewing.

And email my photographer. Because this sucker is done early (well, if you look at deadlines) and that’s good, because I need to get another one done in less time. Which might be nuts. That’s one of the things on my list for today…tape together the enlargement and finish the drawing…which could be a good 5 or 6 hours of drawing.

But first, venture out into the rain and get the driving errands done. Should have grabbed some firewood for the fireplace…it’s going to be cold all week and I don’t really want to jack up the heat. Hmn…pollute the air? Or make my utilities bill horrendous? It’s a tough call. I only use the fireplace about twice a year anyway, so I’m not sure I feel too bad. I’m sure my footprint is entirely too large anyway, being a carnivore and a quilter (fabric dyes, cotton, electricity for all stages).

Crap. Now I need a name for that quilt too. Sheesh. OK. While I’m sewing on the binding. I know what this one is about (just like the last one)…so I’ll let that percolate.

Not Ready…

And there isn’t even a major holiday for me to be not ready for…

I did not reach my goal of having the binding on the quilt yesterday. I ran out of time. Now I could have blown off all social engagements (which would have included dinner and cake with my son for his 20th birthday), but I remembered I was a human and went and did ALL the things, and now I am about to go to school for professional development, so it’s early and I’m tired and I’m not quilting. I could have quilted last night, but I got home relatively late from a stitching thing and potluck that was fun and nice, so I vegged around on the couch (yes! I do that!) and then went to bed with a cat, a dog, and a book. Maybe tonight. I hope. I really only have about an hour of quilting left, around the very edges. Then I need to trim it and bind it. I also copied the next one, but it needs more drawing. Luckily, San Diego is getting rained on for days, which just reinforces my hermitlike tendencies, so I can get stuff done. But also…baby quilt, figure out what’s going in the Grossmont show and prep all of them (iron, dehair, hardware), and grade stuff. So not a stress-free relaxing week. It’s possible that I don’t know how to do those. I admit it.

I did get my holiday photo of kids and animals…

Calli refusing to look at me, both cats pissed off, and boychild refusing to smile. Oh well. Nothing new. Actually, he used to smile in the past. Kitten being reluctantly held by boychild and Midnight looking like a black blob being held by girlchild.

And then girlchild with her dog…who just went in the pool even though it’s cold and raining…

That dog drives me nuts. Notice Midnight trying to get into the photo on the right.

So that’s done. And the tree is divested of its ornaments and just needs sawing in half, which we decided against doing in the dark at 11 PM last night (but only barely). Because once Christmas is down, you just want everything put away as quickly as possible.

Anyway. So back to the goals…because if I can keep them clear in my head, I can maybe achieve some of them. Finish bathtub quilt in the next day or so…quilt and trim tonight? Maybe get binding on depending on exhaustion/frustration level (I really should grade stuff). Tape together enlarged drawing for next quilt (which has to be done very quickly, so remember that as you’re doing the rest of the drawing). Finish drawing it. Number and start tracing onto Wonder Under…OK, here’s the problem with that. I was going to use the light table to pile quilts that were prepped for Grossmont. Rethink that plan. I can’t wait to start tracing until after I install on the 18th. Stack quilts in office until done with Wonder Under? Yikes. Keep thinking. Has to be somewhere the dog can’t lie on it. The cats are going to be a whole ‘nother management level. Start baby quilt. Baby is officially due in like um dammit, I don’t have a 2016 calendar next to my computer like I always do so I don’t have to pull up an electronic calendar (I’m a visual person…it needs to be Right There). I was using the My Owl Barn artists calendar, but they don’t seem to have done one this year, so I will need to be more creative later. Not now. I think I have 3 weeks and a bit before baby is due. Almost 4 weeks. No problem. I should start cutting this week though.

See how vacation is eaten up? Yeah. Me too. OK, off to work in the rain. Not ready. Ugh.

Hermit Quilting Mode

I quilted a lot yesterday…not as much as I could have, because I graded papers and stuff, but mostly I sat down and I quilted…

I did all the outlining yesterday. I finished off the partial spool of thread and started the full one. Hard to say at the moment if I will need another one. I haven’t made it to JoAnns yet. I went into hermit mode. I do that a lot when I’m quilting. I refuse to leave the house.

That said, what I really need, if I’m going to stay on schedule, is to finish all the quilting in the background as soon as possible, so I can figure out if (1) I’m going to run out of thread and need to buy more and (2) I can buy the binding and get it on before tomorrow’s thing where I will have plenty of time to hand stitch the binding, unlike Monday, where I have to go to work and pretend to be a teacher. Well. It’s professional development, so I have to pretend to be professionally developed.

The thread hasn’t been breaking, which is nice. I put a new needle in and that seemed to solve the early problems I was having. So yeah. Change your needles. Yes, that means you have to buy more. I should look at my stash and see how I’m doing with that. Note to self.

At one point, I sewed the edge of the backing into the quilt, but it was easy to release. No biggie. Pay better attention now so you don’t do it again. The background quilting is really just all the stuff at the edges, around the bathtub, so it shouldn’t take long. Put music on and start! Except I’m hungry. The boychild made some heavenly smelling breakfast. Something about cumin and paprika. And salsa. He’s 20 today. Yikes! I have a 20-year-old now. And he cooks with spices! Bonus.

So I guess I need to cook some food now to appease the stomach. And then quilt. And then buy binding and maybe thread. And sew some more. And maybe grade some more. I did some yesterday and it didn’t totally kill me. Mostly. I didn’t copy the drawing because the copy place was closed. So I guess that’s on my list too. As well as make something for tomorrow’s thing. Food. Yeah.

Here’s my view at the moment. A winter pool with lots of trees and blue sky (hard to see that in very bright picture)…

Trees on all sides (need to clean those windows). I love trees. Surrounded by them. Yes, they can fall down and they drop leaves (I don’t really care about that like some people do)…

But I’d rather look at trees than houses. I’m expecting a new neighbor up there any week now. It’s been almost a month since it sold. I hope they’re not annoying. Then again, perhaps I am annoying…sewing in the middle of the night with music blasting. It’s probably not too bad now, because it’s cold and the windows are closed…but I do this in summer too.

Food. Then quilting. Worry about other shit later.

It’s OK. I Have a Plan…

Hello 2016. It’s nice to see you. You are bright blue skies and slightly warmer weather. You are currently quiet and peaceful (except for that crazy kitten racing down the hallways chirping at me) and I think you will be a good year. My biggest challenge for the year…at least right now…is money. And balance. It’s always balance though. The art brain wants more time. It always does.

With that, here are the 25 quilts of 2015…

Oh yeah baby. Nice job. Five major pieces, one freakishly long lady, three smaller works, and a host of small pieces for sale…still working on that part. One commission as well. And one ready to be finished hopefully in the next 4 or 5 days. You gotta love starting off the new year with a finish.

I already have plans for the new year of quilts…I have one I started drawing last night (more on that later) that has to be finished next. Then I have a plan for the next one, a la Earth Mother. And I’m hoping for a big one over the summer, like always. I don’t know if I’ll keep doing the smaller ones for sale. I’m going to toss them on Etsy and see how they do. I don’t want to waste time on them if they won’t bring in some extra money. But I’ll consider doing some smaller ones that are more Kathy style and see how those do. I have a lot of drawings I copied last year that I want to try…so this is the year, I guess.

Next week, I’ll be picking the work that will go in the Grossmont show…ironically, most of what’s in that collage up there can’t go to that show because it’s already promised out or traveling. But I have plenty.

So back to the drawing. I didn’t draw much in 2015. There were reasons for that, but I’m hoping to get past those this year. I’ve been working on it. So a week or so ago, I started this one based on those muses I posted earlier in December.

I’m redoing this. I don’t like the proportions on the middle female. And yeah, I’ll have to enlarge and then add legs once I’ve enlarged. But it’s a start.

But I know I have another deadline coming up and I wanted to work on that one last night. On New Year’s Eve, I like to ring it in with artmaking in mind…so I’ll either be quilting or picking fabric or drawing or something. I was watching science fiction (Ex Machina and then The Zero Theorem), but I had this idea with Kali, the Hindu goddess with all the extra limbs. I had read up on her, but didn’t want to just draw another Kali…and I’ve done multi-limbed women before.

This is another one that will need enlarging so I can add all the stuff that goes beyond the arms…remembering that the max width is 40″ (ha!).

No problemo. I can do that. It’s more detail than I wanted, and there’s another set of arms…or two more sets. I haven’t decided. In fact, I might just go copy it today like this so I can draw the rest at full size. Maybe. Enlarge 200%? That’s 28″ wide right there. Gives me about 10″ to play with. That’s plenty! (The part of my brain that draws is excited. The part that makes the quilts happen is a little nervous.) So a trip to the copy place today. And the grocery store for the boychild’s cake ingredients. Plus some grading. And a ton of quilting…because I didn’t do much yesterday…

I started…

I’m most of the way around the outside edge, but I really should have done the bird while I was there and I forgot. Whoops. And there’s a shitload more quilting to do.

It’s OK. I have a plan. Sort of. Balance? Yeah. Working on it.

Making Things Flat

Ironing is such a strange activity. Making things flat. No wrinkles. Folding only where you want it. I don’t iron my clothes hardly ever. My iron rarely sees fabric that isn’t in a quilt. And yet, I will iron quilt fabric to fold it up and shove it in a storage container (it folds better when ironed). I don’t iron all of it…just when it comes out of the dryer completely in knots or folded. I love ironing fabric I’ve recently dyed…you can see all the tiny changes in color that happened in the dye process. It’s very relaxing. Put some movie on and spend an hour or so ironing fabric. Ask me to iron your shirt? Yeah. Not happening. I might iron one of my shirts or a pair of my pants if they were awful, and when the boychild was doing college interviews, I ironed his stuff. But the girlchild did her own. Yeah. That was sexist. But she knows how and he does too…he was just being a stubborn widget.

Kids. Sheesh. I am handing them their expiring passports and letting them deal. If they’re smart, they’ll do it here while they have access to a car. It’ll be interesting to see how much mess gets left behind when the girlchild leaves. The boy is neater.

I iron mostly to stick pieces of fabric together to make a picture. Not to make things flat. Which is even weirder. Yes. It is.

So I ironed until the wee hours last night. Actually, it was before midnight. I actually BRIEFLY considered ironing the whole thing onto a background last night, but then it really would have been the wee hours, and I decided that wasn’t a good plan. But I got everything ironed together so far…a whopping 11 1/2 hours. Why? Well the damn wine glass alone was a bitch and a half to iron. Who thought reflections on glass and wine were a good idea? Yeah. The designer Kathy, who never thinks through the production part of the design process. She’s a pain in the ass sometimes.

I had finished the legs and one arm the night before, so I started on the torso…

Which has lots of overlapping crap on it, making it a minor pain in the ass. Lungs under and blood vessels over. So sometimes I just start putting stuff together and push vessels out of the way.

I ironed the whole wine glass with fingers on a separate section and then put it on top…because it has like 40 pieces in it.

It actually will turn out great I think in the long run, once the outlining is in there, but it was a pain in the butt…mostly because I ironed one piece in the wrong place and then had to cut a new piece for another section. Who knows what happened to that piece, but I did find the missing purple sock piece (314) hiding in the 700 bin. I had already cut a new one though.

Then it was time for the face…

I love seeing the face put together, because it’s the character of the piece, and I never really know what it will look like until it’s ironed…

This quilt is all about perimenopause and getting older. I hate this brain…it forgets shit randomly, acts like a teenager in the worst ways, cries at the drop of a hat, sometimes for no apparent reason. It is frustrating to deal with how the hormones fuck with your brain and emotions…knowing you don’t have enough control over all of it. I should have put more white or gray in her hair, more like my own, but I’ve noticed most of my friends and family that are my age dye their hair. I don’t care about the white…it’s interesting to me. Maybe Bathtub 6 will own the age part more…this was more about the brain. The brain part just sucks.

Here she is hanging off the ironing board. She’s not huge…the final quilt will probably be about 40″ w x 50″ h or so.

So this morning, I’m going to iron her onto the background and then start stitching down. I think I was supposed to start that Monday, but I didn’t think the ironing would take that long. I guessed 10 hours, and I suspect after it’s all on the background, it will be closer to 13. I’m guessing 5 to stitch it down…we’ll see. I could get that done today if I don’t do anything else (ha!). We’ll see. Sandwich tomorrow? I think I have a big enough piece of batting…and surely I can find a backing in this disaster of a studio.

Kitten says I can…

Cold weather…cats find the humans and stalk us.

In other news, a friend recently published this book…

Which was reviewed well by Donna Freedman (former MSN Money writer, current freelancer in Anchorage, place of my birth). It is the time of year for thinking about weight loss, right? In my house, there are still Christmas cookies. Makes it hard! Check it out…anything helps, right? Cooking better, eating right, exercising. Means my gym will be way too busy for the next 6 weeks. Oh well. Actually, my gym has new machines that you can sign into, and then it tracks everything on an app. Which reminds me…I should be heading there today as well. Aack. Already overscheduled. Isn’t it vacation? Sigh. Don’t ask me about grades.

Iron All Night

My dad always gives me shit for not getting up early in the morning (despite the fact that I do when I need to, like if there’s a soccer game or I have to go to work). But he falls asleep by 8 PM every night, and that’s when I’m just getting started. I am a night owl. Always have been. And last night, I was on an ironing roll and felt like just staying up until I finished…until I looked at the clock and realized if I did that, I’d be going to bed around 3 AM. Which would be fine if the world didn’t wake me up around daylight with noise and dogs who need to pee and Kitten, who will hurdle me until I feed her. So I went to bed. At a semi-reasonable hour. And I’ve been up long enough to feed and pee things, living things, and make some tea, and wonder why the world is so fucking bright (ugh…artists like nighttime. Artists like me anyway. Semi-vampiric artists who burn when light touches them.). But the other two adults here are NOT awake. Amusing since I went to bed AFTER both of them.

I wonder if I can make one of them empty the dishwasher. AND put the dishes away. Gonna try anyway.

So I ironed for about 5 hours yesterday…and that doesn’t count the ironing I did the night before that was technically also on the 28th of December. It was good because I finally stopped grinding my teeth. My jaw has ached since school got out with stress over the holidays and grading and money and everything, but now that I know the cure is to iron for 5 hours…yeah. That ain’t gonna work most days. But it’s a step in the right direction. Art brain mode…meditative state.

So sometime before the soccer game in the rain, but after I had prepped dinner, I started ironing…

I don’t remember what I did the rest of the day. I’m sure it was very important. Oh yeah! I went to the gym. That was important. And I tried to enter an art show, but perimenopausal brain (which is amazingly spacey and stupid and forgets shit all the time) couldn’t read instructions, so instead of taking 20 minutes, it took all morning and the help of the nice lady on the other end of the email, who probably thinks I’m a total space cadet, and apparently, sometimes I am. Sigh. GIANT ASS SIGH. I hate when my brain does not behave well.

THEN…at some point after showering and eating, then I started ironing.

The rug on the other side of the bathtub. I went to the soccer game in the middle of all of that. Alumni game, so the alumni play against the current team. It was amusing. Girlchild held her own. I hope she remembers how much she likes to play when she gets back to college, and finally goes to the coach and maybe sings her a song and brings her baked goods and begs to shag balls and maybe even try out.

Or not.

Then I started on the bathtub, which was annoyingly complicated, because you have to consider how everything overlaps, and I didn’t do the best job EVER on tracing pieces logically, but then I always think that, and maybe that has something to do with perimenopausal brain’s influence over art brain.

This is where I first thought…hmmm…probably should call it a day. Finished the water. Good stopping point before I start doing the fleshy bits.

Yeah right. Even Kitten knew we were in it for the long haul.

I kept going…until I got two legs and a foot and most of an arm. Oh yeah, and a floating uterus. Because honestly, the way mine behaves sometimes, it would just be better if it were removable. Oh, I know you can take them out, but mine isn’t doing much but producing hormones in a psychotic manner at this point, so I’m willing to wait it out.

Today? Well, I have to do some stuff midday that might require me to shower first (dammit), but then I’m coming back and making lasagne (sauce has to cook for an hour, but I don’t have to be right NEXT to it for it to do that) and ironing the damn torso. And maybe the head, although that wine glass has way too many pieces in it. Glass. It’s a fucker to draw and iron.

So still off schedule, because I was supposed to be done ironing yesterday and hopefully start stitching down (bwa ha ha), but if I can finish ironing today? Is that possible? There’s a lot of complicated stuff left, but only about 300 pieces. So three or four hours. And then ironing down to the background. Eh. Maybe? Stitch down tomorrow…then sandwich? I might still be able to pull this off. Except it means I’m pulling that old art brain maneuver where all I do is art and occasionally run the dishwasher or prep a meal. I don’t do anything else. I was going to grade a bit this week, and one period’s worth of one assignment does not really count as “a bit.” Aarrgh. We’ll see. Not in the mood right this second.

What I want to do is iron this sucker together. Like now. Despite the complaining tummy and the need to shower and the appointment in two hours and the full dishwasher and the living organisms who dammit just got into the shower. Bloody hell. Well there goes the hot water. Ugh. Note to self. Shower when you rise. Then you beat the younger generation to the hot water. By the time I remember that clearly, they’ll be gone again.

Don’t Bug Me…

Well. Yeah. Goals are nice. And they’re nice even when you blow them. So I barely ironed Saturday and I didn’t even START ironing last night until after 11 PM. Life got in the way. Shopping for food and cleaning stuff up and finishing some writing that needed to be finished and trying to grade things and getting all the holiday cards ready to mail…all those things conspired against me. Much like this morning, when I tried to enter an art show, which should have been an incredibly easy thing to do, but ended up with three browsers not working and emails to the woman in charge, who was very helpful, but unable to diagnose the issue. Whatever. It’s done. She let me enter via email. Hopefully it worked. You know…email. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sigh.

So a frustrating morning soon to turn into a productive afternoon, if I have any say over it.

Rug one ironed together…

Owl ironed in the deep dark hours of the morning (really, I just told myself to not look at the clock…it’s not like I’m sleeping well anyway at the moment).

This is the same owl I did as a one-off (which is still available)…but in different colors. I like this color version of it.

So I’m into the 300s now…going down the other side with a tree that has a million pieces and then another rug (or the same rug?) on the other side of the bathtub. I said I’d be done ironing today. I lied. I know I’m at a soccer game in the rain tonight, plus I think I have to make a casserole this afternoon for dinner, so the boychild can just insert at the appropriate time. Obviously haven’t done that yet. Still debating the gym. Ugh. So tired. So stressed about work and quilts and money. Exercise would help with that. Remember that.

I was down in the garage yesterday and found a replacement entryway rug for this one…

Which my mom made for me a million years ago, when she still was a weaver…it’s falling apart. Too many washings and the warp is unraveling. Poor thing. Anyway. Trying to clean stuff out still. Will never be done with that apparently.

OK. Art entry done, blog done, breakfast? That would be smart. And then the gym and making a casserole and ironing fabric. Lots of that today. Seriously. No other side gigs today. Ignore the kid who emailed about her grade yesterday. Phone just rang. Quick tech support for parental units. I’m done. Not answering the phone or the door. Don’t bug me.

Bathtubs

I finally made it to the best part of making the quilt. Well, besides the drawing. I love the drawing part, but I usually make quilts a really long time after I’ve drawn them, so that’s a totally separate endeavor in my head. My favorite part of making the quilt is ironing it together. I don’t make a master colored drawing, so I never really know what it will look like until it’s all ironed together. It’s all in my head up until then. My head’s a big place, apparently, with lots of colored drawings in it. And undrawn drawings. And piles of worry. I did try drawing last night, but I’ll need a redo. It’s OK…it’s a process…especially if I haven’t drawn for a while. I can get a little rusty. It’s harder to get what’s in my head out on paper. But it’s coming. Today I think.

Anyway, so you’ll see the not-so-good drawing and then the better one…I promise you. I hide nothing. Well, almost nothing. I’ve hidden how many cookies I’ve eaten in the last five days. But who needs grocery shopping? We have cookies! Breakfast lunch and dinner, there’s cookies. Yeah. I know. Whatever.

So I started ironing yesterday, just like I planned…I didn’t get far.

OK, I got a little further than this…started on the rug on the right side. But it was a good start. A pile of books, some scissors, some embroidery thread, and a hoop. Because yes, that’s what I have hanging around my bathtub. Just to clarify, I don’t have a free-standing bathtub like this. At all. I don’t even know if I’d like one. I do love baths but don’t take them often because the kids’ bathtub is not particularly comfortable. And cats like to walk the edges. Well, not all cats…just Midnight. And she’s a big ~~fat~~ fluffy cat, and occasionally she falls in. So that frightens me. Well, and taking a bath is such a thing…I used to do it in the old house all the time, especially pregnant. Soaking in warm water. It sounds quite nice at the moment, but I don’t have time. Maybe that’s part of what this series is about…taking the time to soak in the tub with all your things around you, populating the room. Yes, I am admitting now that I didn’t think out this series before I started drawing. Yup. That’s pretty much how I always work. Just start drawing. Sometimes there’s an idea or a spark or a phrase or a theme, but the bathtubs came out of nowhere. That thing I used to do to relax. Hmn.

Anyway, I’m hoping to iron for 4 or 5 hours today. Isn’t that what I said yesterday? Can’t remember. Yup. But I also said iron a few hours yesterday and that turned into about 45 minutes, because it took longer to pack stuff up to ship, and then I finally FINALLY finished the Christmas letter (it’s OK, I titled it Holiday Letter, and it’s still the fucking holidays, so get off my back) and printed it, and now all I have to do is address all the envelopes and put stamps on them and decide if the kids should sign them, and yes, it would have been smart to sign the original before I copied it, but here’s one OTHER thing I decided…sometime between now and the start of the next school year (that’s 8 months from now-ish), I’m buying a new color printer, because mine is crap. It’s seriously older than my divorce and it won’t print color for shit…and I’m done with it. So there. Maybe even in a combo with a scanner so I can get rid of that beast as well. Maybe. I have a small space in here. Because that would be cheaper than copying the letter elsewhere, plus I print color stuff for school sometimes.

So. I did that and I moved money for college, and that’s where my head went down a giant financial rabbit hole, because that’s a whole shitload of money I need to make in the next 5 months. OK. So there it is. I need an extra 1-2 K a month. Deep breaths. I can do this. Probably not if I spend a bunch of time in a bathtub.

Really it’s much better to deal with the short-term goals for today: shower (always a good plan), grocery store (for something besides cookies), clean up a little, maybe even start pulling quilts for the exhibit before I put everything away in my room, and then iron. I’m even going to grade some shit. Seriously. I am.

Bathtubs though. I’m thinking a big deep white bathtub somewhere in the house (is the boychild coming back this summer?). Or maybe just in my head. For now.

I Got No Title…

Hope you all survived Christmas, if you celebrate it. There’s always too much food and everyone needs a nap. I did manage to finally finish cutting out all the pieces for the next Bathtub quilt…it took 10 hours to cut them all out…seems like too long. But it takes however long it takes. I sorted them yesterday afternoon…

Meanwhile, the girlchild is texting me about a missing muffin pan (pan, not man). So I had hoped to make it in the studio and start laying stuff out for ironing, but I had to deliver a table and chairs and said pan and a bunch of other stuff. So I took over my bird embroidery and sat and did that while the girlchild cooked. I’m so far behind on this one. Oh well. I’m not super-motivated at the moment. Oh well. Still brain dead from school ending.

We made a ton of cookies (this plate was fuller by the end of the day)…

Kitchen in the middle of baking chaos…there is not enough room in there.

Dad with Calli…always a ball in her mouth…

Told ya…

Calli helping to open her present…

And sleeping later on…with her mom and her grandpa…

We cooked up the rest of the cinnamon buns…so the dough wouldn’t go bad. But I think I’m freezing these.

I finally got the Seattle presents wrapped and in a box to ship today…

I did get fabric for Christmas…I like when people pick out fabrics they like for me, because it helps my stash if other people contribute. I buy the same types of stuff, really. So this is a plus…

The studio is almost ready to iron this bathtub together. I need to move the fabrics out of the way and clear part of the floor…

But I’m remarkably brain dead this morning. Last night, I just sat on the couch with a cat, a dog, and a kid and vegged out. I’m hoping my brain lets me get something done soon. Work looms in the back of my head. Need to look at what pieces will be in the Grossmont show…will have to prep all those quilts for hanging as well. I’ve booked the week after Jan 1 for that.

So I can set a goal…let’s look at how long it would take to iron this thing together…maybe 10 hours? Another 5 to stitch it down? A couple of hours to pinbaste it? About 12 hours to quilt it? Another 5 to bind it? So if I’m good and I start ironing today, maybe just a few hours…and then another 5 or so tomorrow? Then finish ironing Monday. Girlchild has a soccer game Monday night, so I will be freezing to death on metal bleachers for that. But maybe I can start stitching down Monday night…finish it Tuesday. Then maybe sandwich and pinbaste Tuesday? Start quilting (need thread…pretty sure I need thread. Might need batting as well). Quilt Wednesday and Thursday. New Year’s Eve…got plans. Won’t be quilting that night. But if I can finish Thursday during the day? Then trim and start binding on the 1st? Boychild’s birthday is the 2nd, but I don’t know what he wants to do…plus I want to hike again next week. So that’s not on the calendar yet. But let’s say I can get this thing done by next Sunday? I can do that. And then call the photographer…and get the drawing done for the next one that has to be done super quickly. And I can start it the following week, even though I’m prepping quilts for installation.

No grading this next week? I might try to do say one class one assignment per day. Just to make the following week less hellacious. We’ll see.

OK. First part of all this is get off this chair, take a shower, eat some food, and go ship that box. Then come back and start the ironing. This is how I get the quilts done. I have to make a plan and then I can go faster or slower, but at least there’s a guideline there instead of just doing it when I feel like it…sometimes I just have to get up and go because I wrote about it here and I know I’ll have to answer to that tomorrow, so that’s motivation…

Making a Gift

I occasionally make quilts as gifts…I sometimes get hints from people that they’d like a quilt, but often that’s just not an option for me…whether I don’t have an idea for them or because my larger quilts are pretty significantly time-consuming. You’ve got to be a fairly important person in my life to have one of those, and it might be even more difficult now, because I did give one of my big ones away and now I wish I hadn’t. It’s hard to think about one of my babies out there where I don’t think they deserve to be…but that’s life. I don’t mind selling them…that’s a fulfilling transaction. But if I give you a $2000 quilt, hell, you better deserve it. That’s months of work.

Anyway, so I made one gift quilt this year. I was making those cats and realized someone I cared about would probably like a quilt of his cat…so I took some pictures of Satchemo’s squished little face…

He has a tiny nose and kind of a grumpy cat facial structure. These pictures were dark too, and I realized I had no full-body pictures, so I trolled Facebook to find this one…

Perfect for his body coloring and how he curls up. Then I spent about an hour trying to draw him…the first few weren’t quite right, but then I got his face right, traced it, and added it to a better body shape.

So if you’re wondering if I could make a quilt of your cat…well, probably. Because if you had a perfect picture, that would be awesome, but obviously I can take one cool picture (the sink one) and mess with it to make a straight-on quilt. Although maybe I should have done the sink too. Except then there was no way I would have finished it in time.

Tracing the Wonder Under…

That’s all of it…

And then cutting it out…

Satch has 40 pieces, so more than most of the small cat quilts I did earlier this year. Some stages of the quilt took longer than with other quilts, because I wanted to make sure the quilt looked like its namesake. So color choice and drawing were kind of time-consuming. I’ve found that people like the quilts to be in the $100 range, but with the style of quilt I make, that’s really difficult. That’s about 3-4 hours of work, not counting materials, and I make these in more like 5 or 6 hours. And yes, I know people who would work on something for 10 hours and charge $100. I won’t. I work hard to put my kids through school and keep my head above water (most of the time). I’m not working for $10/hour, because my 25 years of quilting experience has to pay better than that.

I had the sink photo up for the body fabrics on my iPad. The face photo was up earlier. The grays are always a challenge.

Here they are all ironed down. I thought his back end was too dark until I saw him sitting there again. He really is darker in back.

It didn’t take long to trim the pieces…although now I’ve lost my little scissors. No idea where they went…and that’s the second pair gone missing. I need to do a deep clean. There’s gotta be 50 pairs of scissors in this house.

Ironing is the next step…I did the head separate to make sure it all went together well…

Before I put it on the body. Faces are important. If it’s human, I iron the eyes together separately and then put them on the face, to make sure they’re not horrendously crooked.

Then to pick a background…can’t be too dark, because of the dark parts. Can’t be too gray or too light, because the lights won’t show. Has to be a color and pattern that isn’t too busy.

I finally found one…mostly blue with some green in it. Then I stitched it down and pinbasted it. Starting quilting with a dark thread around the cat itself.

DSCN2752 small

Then found the thread for the background, except it wasn’t anywhere near a full spool. Oh well. It’s a small quilt, right?

Oh yeah, I ran out. Oh well. I did a fairly good job of quilting evenly around it before that happened.

It does change colors in different light.

Then yesterday, in between cookie-baking, I trimmed and bound it…

Finishing the hand-sewing about 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave to meet the recipient (it’s OK, I had a backup plan).

I forgot to measure it though. I can do that later. But here’s the finished piece.

Satchemo took about 6 1/2 hours to make, not counting drawing time…in a commission, I would count that…legitimately. I think he looks like his namesake. That cat spends a lot of time on my lap, clawing the crap out of my thighs and/or boobs, so I’m prettty familiar with his face. And he was the 25th quilt I finished in 2015. I’m unlikely to finish another one by January 1, so I guess he’s the last quilt in 2015. Not bad. Now on to the next one…