Wading in Wonder Under

I have 12 hours and 12 minutes into the tracing. I’m at piece 1138, which is the hair of the larger figure. All I have left to do of her is the hair and all the crazy stuff hiding in her hair. Then I can move on to the smaller figure.

Turns out there’s actually 1852 pieces (not 1825…not dyslexic) and I missed some, as always, so there are actually MORE than that. Whatever.

I washed the batting yesterday, left it in the bathtub. The kids said something this morning about not being able to take showers. Turns out I totally forgot it was in there. They thought about telling me, decided I must be doing it on purpose (Ha! My momhood is complete! Even my crazy makes sense to them!). When I explained to them this morning that this was Menopause Brain, similar to Pregnancy Brain but possibly permanent, girlchild yelled down the hallway, “Don’t blame your stupidity on your hormones!”

And there we are. The wonder that is my household.

Seriously, I traced for about 5 1/2 hours yesterday in the long run, AND made a new dinner recipe, AND left the batting in the bathtub overnight. Which reminds me…need to go drain that fucker.

Kitten harassed me all 5+ hours by sitting ON the drawing and ON the Wonder Under…

Calli was almost underfoot, but not quite…(see how big the drawing is…)

And then Kitten stared at me balefully from the couch, where she slept because Mommy wouldn’t let her on the light table.

Meanest mommy ever. But I got a lot done…

Sometimes I want to just quit, but it’s easier to stop at the end of some section, and I crazily started the bird with 100 pieces in it at about midnight…so you know how that went.

Up too late, yet again. Thing is, I had to be up early this morning, because I’m not allowed to eat or drink anything after 9 AM. I can’t understand the logic of telling a diabetic NOT to eat, and then having her drive all over San Diego County for an MRI and a totally different place for the doctor. Hopefully I’ll have time to eat in between. I will totally be drinking an entire bottle of water, because I’m already dehydrated, and I drank two full bottles of water last night and this morning. Let’s hope they don’t need to take any blood, because they won’t get into my veins.

It’s OK…the uterus is just full of things that are benign but annoying and causing problems. I gave it permission to STOP being annoying, you know, like you give dying people permission to just Let Go? But my uterus is more stubborn than that. It’s convinced releasing eggs is what it should be doing right now, whether I like it or not. Hence stupid doctors’ appointments and procedures and tests and annoyances.

Anyway. So there will be lots of driving and dehydration and doctor’s waiting rooms today. Not fun. I’m going to trace some more before I go, though, and then pray for caffeine. I am more than halfway through the tracing…which is interesting, because we are officially halfway through summer break too, I think…although I personally start thinking of school officially on August 1, and this summer has been filled with school batting at my brain consistently, via email and text and signing up for classes, because everything is changing again. This will be the fourth website I’ve had to do for school, wait, no, I did a Google Sites one too, so that’s five. I’m not sure what was wrong with the last one, but now we get to learn a new one. Whatever. I’m sure it will be the most awesomest EVER, but if Google Classroom let us do a few more things, then I wouldn’t NEED another one. Wait. Google Classroom is number 5, so this is 6. Bloody hell. If I didn’t have to keep redoing things every time someone changed their minds about what was the coolest (and the cheapest), I might get more of my summer.

Rant over. Tracing will begin.

Distractions…aka Life

Summer is full of distractions. The weather alone can be an issue. Some days it’s just too hot or humid to work (yes, even here, when the thunderstorms pile in, it can be awful…for us, that is) and sometimes there are just too many little piddly things that suck up time, like today. Today I had to sign up for a class for school, write an email about a contract, and drive to the girlchild’s doctor’s office to get them to sign the one page of four that they missed the last time she was there. It didn’t take long to get there, but she was in the middle of something, so I sat there and watched 20 minutes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original), which I didn’t see until I went to college, because I wasn’t allowed up after 8 PM. Veruca…such a bitch.

Then I went on to JoAnns, which no longer has an apostrophe and may not even have two capital letters…wait. It does. And there’s a hyphen and no ‘s’. Ugh. Forget it. I usually hate that place, but it has Wonder Under and Warm and Natural batting, and I had a handful of 50%-off certificates. I was trying to manhandle the giant bolt of batting down the aisle and an older woman offered her cart, said if I’d lift it in, she’d roll it up…she wanted some too. So YEAH. Nice moment there. Hopefully some young thang will help ME roll that batting down the aisle when I’m 70.

Then picked up the boychild and the dog and headed home, ate lunch, but then fell into the rabbit hole of insurance plans when the girlchild’s university called here and gave me some information that gave me pause. Wait a minute. Maybe I can kick these sweet little monsters off my insurance next month, since they have to be covered somewhere, and then I can save myself…how much…holy crap. $410 a month. Mylanta Georgia, as the girlchild says…that might just cover the shortfall on the boychild’s college fees. Maybe.

So I’m sitting here, buzzing like a bee, hoping magic is about to happen, money to appear in the sky (on my paystub as it were…whenever I might get one of those pretty things again), but I can’t focus enough to make my way to the damn light table and trace.

Which honestly is OK, because I traced for almost 6 hours yesterday. Apparently. I watched 4 episodes of Elementary and another bunch of SHIELD and then a movie. ‘Watched’ isn’t really the word though, because I traced the whole time.

The night before, I numbered the whole damn thing, which is about 60″ square. It’ll probably be smaller than that at the end. Maybe. It took 2 1/2 hours just to NUMBER it. Huh. And you can see some of the crazy there in the spider web.

But it came out at about 1825 pieces, which is less than 2000. That’s good. It’s big, it’s meaty, but it’s not overwhelming to think about. Maybe it should be, but I’ve done bigger than that, so I’m good. Last year’s crazy big piece had 1764 pieces and took about 144 hours to make. So I’m in the same range. I have about 2 1/2 months too, so I’m good. It would be nice if it finished early so I could work on something else…plus I shouldn’t ignore the other proposal I did…although I haven’t heard anything, so maybe my proposal sucked. Or whatever.

Here’s the drawing upside down on the light table. You can see why I love my light table almost as much as my kids. Seriously. It’s lovely.

And it does not talk back or leave dishes on the counter.

Kitten was trying to lie ON the drawing, UNDER the drawing, IN the drawing, so I banished her…to the top of the piano, on all my drawings and sketchbooks…

Isn’t that where all of us keep our stuff? So I had a little left to watch of the show and didn’t want to start tracing Monday night, so I cut out two of the smaller quilts…just the Wonder Under.

Really, I should be working on those this week and getting them ironed to fabric so I can trim them on Friday, but I can’t be bothered. I’m on a tracing roll. And tomorrow is a medical clusterfuck (thank you, uterus, for demanding ALL the attention), so I probably won’t get much of anything done. Plus it’s almost three today and I have started exactly nothing. These DAMN DISTRACTIONS. And a headache. Weather headache. Arrgh. Where’s the damn Motrin. And now I hear I shouldn’t be popping those? Someone should tell my damn head that so it can stop throbbing on command.

I started tracing yesterday afternoon…

And I just kept going. I stopped for dinner. I stopped to do some writing. I stopped to pee a few times. But I’m through piece 472.

So only a quarter of the way through. If I could be as focused as I was yesterday, I’d be done by Sunday. Ha! Not happening. Oh well. Distractions. It’s good if it saves me or makes me some money. I needed the batting. I needed it to be on sale too, and the coupon expired today. All those other fussy little things, fill out this form and that form, take the car in for this and that. I hate that shit. I need to delegate more out. My post-it list from two days ago still has 4 things on it.

Anyway. I will stand. I will go get headache meds. I will take the phone with me, in case the health insurance people call me back today. I will trace the Wonder Under. I will push off the other distractions until tomorrow. Mostly.

Ripping the Drawing Out…

So how do I get a drawing out of me? Sometimes it spills out, fully formed, from my head, where it’s been growing for days. Or I wake up with it in my brain from some dream I had. Or more often, I’m driving around or at the gym or on a hike, and I see a hand in my head and the pen is moving and the drawing forms right there.

But sometimes, I have part of a drawing and there’s more that needs to be done to size…as in, I’m drawing it the actual size that it will be in the final piece. This is rare for me, but it happens. And then sometimes, I have to rip it out of me. Staring at the paper, sketching ideas, erasing them, pounding my hand down, my head pounding in response. That drawing just won’t come out easily. It has to be birthed.

I had about 4 1/2 hours in by Saturday night. Then Sunday, I stared at it a lot, but put in another 2 hours and 50 minutes. With Kitten’s help (not)…but there’s the upper arm and the bird…

But in the distance, Katie…(that’s the girlchild’s foot)…

Zoom out. Red arrow is Katie, my parents’ dog.

Staring at Kitten. On the light table. Katie got picked up today, so Kitten has free rein in the house again. Which is nice, because moving her around so I could draw yesterday was a pain in the butt.

I do use photos as reference for animals…and bugs. I used this lion and another one to draw the one on the leg…

I looked at bee, butterfly, thistle, and howling wolf photos as well. And a raven.

Here you can see that the whole pissed-off Earth Mother figure is taking shape.

Here’s a better view of the left torso. I got most of that done yesterday…

And then I added a snake…a particular snake, with specific colors. So I wouldn’t forget, I saved it on my iPad…but I also noted the colors on the drawing…

Here’s the snake around the legs…

And that’s where I gave up last night. I stared at it and googled images for about 20 minutes before I gave up. Because I knew I wanted some sort of dog or wolf, but didn’t know where to put it, and at that point, I was debating bones or not, because there aren’t any in the other figure, but then that makes sense, because that’s the manmade version and this is the natural version.

Anyway. I drew today as well, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that. But right now, at 9 PM, no, I’m not done with the drawing. I’m hoping to be soon. I think I will be soon. I’m going to get some caffeine in me and see if I can bang it out…because this drawing has about 9 hours in it so far. And I wanted it done last night (ha!). So yeah. Done and numbered tonight, so I can start tracing tomorrow. The editing job fell through (seems a common theme), but a writing job is there, and I’m working on that. But not tonight. And I have some other errands I have to do tomorrow.

It’s funny, I know I’m stressed about money and projects because I’m grinding my teeth and I have those weird canker sores I get at the end of the school year and when stuff is really stressful, but I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be stressed over summer, right? Yeah. I know. My own fault.

Good news on the quilt front though…Earth Mother for Ventura got into the show up at the Ventura County Government Building, so it will be there from August 28-October 13 for your viewing pleasure…

So go see it. I won’t be at the opening. Can’t get there in time from San Diego. Good to be getting into shows again.

OK. Drawing calls. Loudly. From the other room. Rude little beast.

Some Amazing Splinters

Cue music. I am deep in summer mode. I find it torturous to do mundane chores or errands. I just want to write and make art. I’ll leave for social events, because I know I’m deep in hermit mode, but it’s hard sometimes to walk away. Yesterday, though? Yesterday I needed a break. I have a drawing I started ages ago…

April I think? And I enlarged it about 200% and then realized I had a whole ‘nother figure to draw and the piece could be up to 60″ square. I like big quilts. I like lots of detail. This was going to be my summer quilt, and yes, some other stuff jumped in front of it, but I delivered two quilts to the photographer today, and I’m feeling good! So yesterday, I pulled this one out…

And laid it out. You can see I added quite a bit to the left, where the other figure will be, plus some space at the bottom for the legs to be finished, and some at the top, just in case. Now it looks tiny.

There is no bathtub in this one.

I probably spent a couple of hours on the first part of the drawing. So yesterday afternoon, I started on the knees and the rest of the legs.

Then I penciled in a figure on the left and started deciding what she would really look like. I penciled in just general shapes…you can see some pencil of the torso.

It’s a good thing I started in pencil, because the head was WAY too big and had to be redrawn like three times to get it to the right size.

This figure needs to be standing over the other figure, but it also needs different things on it, so I have to keep stopping and thinking instead of drawing. That’s how I know it’s time to take a break…I’ve been staring at the drawing for WAY too long and nothing’s getting drawn.

The photos get more difficult at this point…it’s really dark in there. But you can see I got most of the head and chest area done…

One arm is done but needs decoration. The other arm is not done and I didn’t start the middle of the torso. There were just too many ideas in my head at that point, and I couldn’t focus. Why? Because I’d been working on it for two hours and 40 minutes. No small amount of time. And it’s not even halfway done, that second figure. Hmm. I’m hoping to finish tonight, maybe even number it. We’ll see.

My time totals rarely include drawing time, because I don’t usually keep track of that.

I tried to get a photo that shows the whole thing, but even brightened and put in black and white, it’s too hard to see. You can see the hips and legs coming down on the left.

So it’s almost 6 PM and I have to cook dinner. Well, the pizza dough is coming to room temperature, so I have some time. But someone is hogging the television, and my brain needs TV light to distract me from the part of my brain that wants to censor the drawing. Actually, I’m watching Helix, which is not light enough unfortunately. I keep having to rewind to figure out the story, but it is growing on me. Some virus that’s carried in honey or some mother tree or something. It makes the men infertile. I’m not sure what it does to the women. Having just spent time reading the summaries, my confusion between bees and honey and apples and Mother Tree and the bleeding tree makes complete sense. There is no sense yet. I think I have 4 episodes to make sense of it all. That might be how long it takes me to finish this drawing.

I’ve also been writing. I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo in an attempt to finish the sci fi novel I started last summer and wrote a giant chunk of over November. I’ve written about 5000 words, which isn’t great, but is better than I’d done so far this summer without motivation, and then I got asked to write another story, so I did that in the last two days, almost 5000 words there as well. That stuff takes time, for sure…as does writing here. But it’s all good. Writing clears my mind. Drawing does too, but in an entirely different way. I can have the drawing working in my head while I write, and a hand moves around, putting objects all over, trying them out, while the words spill out on the screen. Same as when I draw, while I’m moving the pen around on the paper, the story is writing itself, characters bouncing around, dying off, meeting others on the road, making decisions about plot while I draw.

My brain is truly split off in some amazing splinters.

One Done, Nine to Go…or Ten?

So I finished another quilt last night, actually this morning in the early dewy moments when you know you should be asleep, but you’re waiting for the girlchild to get home from a performance, so you can’t go to sleep anyway, so you might as well finish the binding, even though you’re tired of working on it. Yeah. It was one of those. Sometimes my brain just fights finishing (because it knows what’s next and it’s afraid, very very afraid).

OK, really just apprehensive because I’m not sure how the next step will work out and there’s a lot of other things hanging over me right now that I am trying REALLY hard to ignore. Really.

So I trimmed the quilt.

I really hate having to make quilts to a specific size. It gives me the heeby jeebies. I’m sure I’m going to fuck it up. I check the size in the paperwork or online over and over, obsessively, and then trimming it just freaks me out. I’m sure it would be OK if it were a half inch larger, but I just don’t like it.

I had gone to the fabric store before and gotten the binding (plus some others wanted to come home with me…all those pretty pastel colors and then SKULLS)…

I tried for a dark blue and it just didn’t work…couldn’t get the right shade and dark enough. And then I thought about turquoise, but I don’t know if it’s just my store (which is huge), but I haven’t seen any good turquoises for months. Something to keep in mind. I put it in the wash before I went to my quilt meeting and it was ready when I finally got done with all that and dinnermaking and cleaning the kitchen. Yes, I started after 9 PM, I’m sure…

But this really is a small quilt, so this went relatively quickly…

Binding on, two sleeves, bottom and top…and then the handsewing…

While waiting for the girlchild to get home. It’s done. Emailing the photographer this morning to do this one and the Bathtub.

I also worked on some smaller quilts for sale yesterday, because it’s an easier project to lug around outside the house…I traced all the Wonder Under for 7 projects…

Having done two of them last Friday and then not touching them all week. Here they are, all ready for trimming…

I decided to try cats this year instead of birds. But then I digressed. Because I do. But starting with the cats, here’s 1 and 2…

Both drawn from real life. Then 3 and 4…

Three is the curled-up one and that was real life, but it’s also much more complicated. Julie is shaking her head at me right now, because complicated means more time.

And Cat 5…

whose expression is my favorite. That’s Kitten’s face.

Cat 6? Well, let’s just say I can’t always be normal. I really wanted to make this one and it kept talking to me, and I realize no one will probably want to buy it because it’s weird, AND it has over a hundred pieces (Julie throws her arms up in the air and stomps away), but I like it. So there.

So that’s 6 cats…then I liked the heart in hands that I did for the FFAC donation, so I had drawn one version that was way too complicated and one simple one…

So the one on the left will inevitably be cheaper than the one on the right. Whatever. I don’t even know if these will sell, but it’s worth a try.

And then I did another owl…

I actually pulled this from one of the bathtub drawings. There’s another owl I want to draw, but I really need to stop and get these started at least, because I need to draw this giant thing this weekend and start working on it, because there’s really only 4 weeks until I have to start really thinking about school (besides all the texts and emails all over the place that have been annoying me all week). And that’s not much time. And I have to finish that commission piece too. I’m kind of freaked out about the next step with that…will have to just suck it up and DO it instead of thinking so hard about it. Like that’s possible.

But I’m really pleased that I’ve stuck with my schedule so far…in fact, I’m about a week ahead. Of course, I might be screwed later today if the job I bid on comes in…screwed timewise, but able to earn August’s mortgage payment. That would be a plus. Trade-offs…one of the things I teach in 7th-grade science. Clinical trials for medications, cancer treatments, how to get money to go to the movies…all trade-offs. Yes, I can be an artist, but I am going to be behind on everything else and sometimes my schedule will go crazy, even though it’s summer and I should be relaxing. It is relaxing to be tracing Wonder Under or picking fabrics…it’s a different kind of relaxation. The sort-of workaholic kind. Oh well. It’s obviously in my genes. I will take some time off this evening and relax a bit, and then go crazy again.

Speaking of relaxing, when I’m done sewing bindings but the girlchild isn’t actually home yet so I still have to be awake, or when I’m in a Barnes and Noble Starbucks with my stitching friends and I don’t have anything portable to work on, I do these…

This is Sue Spargo’s Bird Crazy, started three years ago? Maybe 2 1/2 years ago. I have 21 birds completely embroidered and 9 to go…here’s the 6 I’m currently working on…

They all have feet. The bottom half have all their background embroidery done. I’m working on that task on the top three. When these are done, there are only 3 left…then I can sew it together…and start on another one. Because I do need something to work on when I’m on a plane or in a waiting room or wherever, and these are easy and relaxing and don’t require a lot of thought, but the embroidery is fun to do. So yeah, I have those to work on.

OK, so I need to deal with that giant drawing now. Or breakfast. Whichever seems less traumatic…

Late-Night Title Number 17

I just can’t come up with a title. Sorry. Left all my brainpower elsewhere. It’s late.

So I finished quilting tonight…

About 5 hours and 21 minutes to quilt it all. Told you it was small. Small and quick. That was the goal. I’m ahead of schedule right this second. That could change at any second. So in a little bit, after writing this, I’ll calculate the binding and see if I have enough of something appropriate in house to do that…which would be nice, because I don’t want to lose time tomorrow morning with going out and buying it and having to wash it before I put it on. Why? I mean, if I’m ahead of schedule, why am I panicking? Well I had one copyediting job that I thought might start yesterday, but then that fell through (or extended out until October, hard to say), and then I had another request for bid tonight, so hopefully…maybe…I’ll have work for the next week. But THAT means I won’t have time (or as much time) to quilt. And the next one is a big one. A time-sucker. A giant-ass beast of a quilt. Well, at least I think it will be, because (don’t laugh) the drawing isn’t done. So that’s one issue. Plus I’m letting a ton of stuff just fall by the wayside at the moment. Because? I just can’t deal with all of it is all. There aren’t enough hours.

But I do make choices about certain things…yesterday, I chose to go to this concert…

Vokab Company (eh) with their crazy painter accompaniment…painting John Travolta as he danced to the music…

I’m fairly sure he had a shitload of paint in his hair this morning.

And then what we really came for, Dopapod…

Great light show and fun music…

More fun without all the drunk white boys, but what can you say…cheap tickets and apparently easy to buy beer (funny that they have more money than I do to spend on beer). Concerts haven’t changed much since I was 16…I still dance, even just to keep my feet from going dead, and I refrained from offering the excessively drunk tiny girls in the bathroom a ride home dearies. Seriously, I really wanted to mom them…briefly.

Anyway, that and a variety of other things waylaid my responsibility cart yesterday, plus the panic about a possible job starting (silly, since it didn’t). I was much better today…got some stuff done and bid on another job and got my focus closer to where it needed to be. I have a plan for tomorrow that will be better once I finish writing this and looking at bindings.

Boychild deconstructed the ancient play structure yesterday…

Quite happily…and trotted most of it off the lawn today. He is doing a bit every day on the list I gave him. Girlchild has signed up for her first college classes. They will all be gone in six weeks…leaving me in a very quiet house where the only dishes are mine. That will be interesting. And lonely. Sigh. Pros and cons.

This is why I try to hike with them now. But I’m not caving into guilt trips about whether I should be making art or not. This is who I am, what I am. If they haven’t figured that out yet, they will. Soon enough.

After I finished quilting, I inked shadows…

Funny…looking at this picture, I just saw something I needed to fix! No, I’m not telling you what.

I like this one. It’s so small. Trim and bind…that’s it. Then call the photographer and get my butt in gear on the big one. I have a plan. It’s all laid out in my head. There’s other shit that keeps piling in on top of it, but I’m trying to keep the big goals in my head, keep them straight and prioritized. Because in the long run, I don’t care whether that box gets emptied out and put away. I do care if my art gets made and shown. I do care if my kids grow up to be responsible. I care if my sanity survives the next 6+ weeks. I care if I can pay the bills and still feel like I have time to do what I need to do. So that…that’s my goal.

OK, measuring for binding now.

Art Drive

When your brain wakes you up because it knows how much you have to do today. Not good. But I got a decent night’s sleep…for once, the mockingbird was silent when I crawled into bed. I was tired from kayaking and quilting. I finished the outlining last night (not early, by the way, but before midnight? I think? Wait, there’s an app for that. Yup! 11:50 PM)…

It’s funny, I’m not actually doing that much art each day (wish I were doing more), but this thing is getting done. It took 3 hours to do all the outlining…

It’s nice to do a smaller, less-complicated quilt every once in a while. It’s kind of a relief. Ha! The next one is a giant beast of a thing, and I don’t even know how big yet, because I haven’t finished drawing it. I piled all this stuff up on my light table yesterday, trying to get my head around what I needed to do, thinking about the proposal I submitted the other day for an experimental piece, something I’ve never done before (aack). But I need to stop worrying about that until they notify me (I won’t necessarily get in) and get this one DONE…

which means quilting the whole background today. No really. I mean it. And then draw the other one and get it started. Like now. OK. Maybe by the weekend.

Really, I should walk away from the computer right now, but my text messages are blowing up over school stuff (crazy changes ahead, again), and I’m supposed to go to the gym and I don’t feel like it. I feel like sitting down and quilting for three hours and finishing the beast. Aargh. This is what happens over summer. I can’t do anything but make art because it feels like there isn’t enough time for everything and the art is the most important thing. Fuck house cleaning and handling errands. Just make art. It really is a drive for me, a crazy impulsive thing that runs through me and tugs me along in this direction and talks to me when I’m trying to fall asleep. It murmurs in my sleep, disrupting circadian rhythms. It knocks on my skull during the work day and in staff meetings. Right now it’s screaming pretty loudly, but so is my plummeting blood sugar, so I should deal with that too.

Food. Then an internal argument over going to the gym (you get to read there! It’s good for you! It will make up for what you’re going to eat for dinner!). Then quilting. Getting it done.

Relaxation…the Workaholic Way…

So relaxation does not come easy to me. If it’s “vacation,” I tend to be doing just as much if not more than I do during the work year. I’m a workaholic. I do vacation the same way. With the foot injury and recovering from pneumonia way way back in February, I’ve really been trying to get back on track with my exercise plan, which has included trying to hike with the kids once a week and get back into going back to the gym. I’m also continuing to try to make art every day, which is a LOT easier if you don’t have to grade papers every night.

So I managed yesterday morning to clean a floor (kick the dogs out!) and then lay out a quilt on it and pinbaste the beast…

It’s actually quite small for me, supposed to finish at 18×40″. Teensy. I managed the pinbasting before the dogs broke through the screen door to get back in the house, and more importantly, lie all over the floor and detach their hair upon it.

I also stitched down the handy boob from last night…need to figure out what next on it.

Then the boychild and I set out upon a hike…It was supposed to be about 6 miles, but I think the boychild added a mile and a half onto it. The first part was what I expected…this is Hollenbeck Canyon Trail out near Jamul…

Although I’d never seen these flowers before…

There was still a little water left in the canyon…

And the only geocache I can keep in my memory banks was still there…

But then we had a divergence of opinion (I was right). Boychild wanted to take this path, which is not actually the trail that’s on the official map. OK. I’ve done this trail before. I remember the bitchy hill at the end of it.

Here’s the beginning of it. No matter what on this trail, there is a bitchy hill…

You can choose this one or the other one. This path is longer, but I don’t think the hill is worse.

Notice he’s way ahead of me. Mom gets tired on the hills. Can’t breathe. So I stop and look back and take photos of the looming thunder clouds (no rain for us).

And he waits for me at the top. I actually picked this trail because there wasn’t a lot of having to wait for mom. So normally, we would now take THIS trail…down. Into the back end of the hike. But no…

He wants to take that one. Hell. That’s not on the map at all, dear heart. It’s not.

But I’m a good sport and he seems to think he’s done this before (he has).

But instead of heading north and then west to catch up with the other trail, it seems to be heading northeast. Like away. Hmnn. There’s a bird nest up in there.

Probably hawk or turkey vulture. So below, way far in the distance, is the trail we should be on. I just printed the map and I think we did an extra two miles on that section…

He’s going to argue it was less. Oh well. Eventually, after traipsing through poison oak and shady groves, we met up with the normal trail, a lovely walk through oak groves.

And this. Fenced off…marked with signs that it’s a wildlife special place (I’m sure there were more official words than that)…

And I’m betting this is a motion-sensor camera (which recorded me and the boychild making faces at it)…planted right in front of the water.

Very strange. More walking, as we consider when the sun will go down and whether boychild allotted time for his mother’s tiredness and short legs (he did it in 3 hours with a few walkbacks)…

Bug analysis…

Lots and lots of ants and their holes…I’m sure I killed hundreds of them by walking on them.

Long vistas with the marine layer coming in (a sign that night is near)…

These funky dead flowers…

And vistas worthy of a little home on a prairie apparently…

It was beautiful, and this little old lady did it (whatever IT is, 7 miles? 8?) in 2 hours and 40 minutes. With an ankle brace. Suck THAT.

Yeah. I know. I have issues.

So then I came home and actually was able to quilt after that…

No, I don’t know how. I just did. I didn’t do a whole lot, but I got started on the quilting, on the outlining. I think I’m up to the torso at this point. I might have part of a leg to do. Honestly, I got tired. Plus, I knew I needed to get up in the morning for THIS…

Oh yeah baby. Wet butt, probably sore neck and shoulders later tonight…kayaking on Mission Bay. A real joy. Mostly calm (some speedboats teaching kids how to ski), a seal ahead of us. I really enjoyed it. Not so long that I was in pain, although I’m tired right now…but totally long enough to know I did a mental and physical workout.

I need to do some more quilting now, because it looks like I might have an editing job coming in tomorrow. AACK! It really gets crazy now, doesn’t it? How many different ways can I have to earn money at once? As many as it takes. So quilting, editing, the odd writing job might pop up, a commission, some small art quilts. The boychild’s financial aid came in finally, and it was better than last year, but not as good as I wanted it to be, so I’m short money…I knew I would be. Just not how much. So I take deep breaths and figure out how to get it all done.

But apparently the relaxing part means running around outside in the natural world…which is the best thing for us hermits to be doing anyway. Tomorrow? I might just go to the gym instead. Just for a change.

Hermiting

Making art is so often a solitary process. Yes, I love having the time off during the summer where I can spend a ton of hours making art (although I feel guilty the entire time for not getting my yard into better shape or finishing the painting of the house or cleaning out the garage or whatever), but it is really isolating at times. I spend hours talking to no one, texting occasionally, with a random phone call NOT from a solar manufacturing company tossed in there for some semblance of sanity. I try to get out and go to the gym or hiking or to meetings with friends, and that helps, but really…I’m spending hours in my head making stuff. I do WANT to be making the stuff. It would just be nicer if there were more people around occasionally. I need to be in an artists’ commune or something. Or not. That would drive me nuts.

So on the 4th of July, as the sun goes down, when most people gather with friends and family, I gathered with my fabric…

Only for a little while though. I did go to fireworks with the kids and their dad, like we do every year. But I got her eyes ironed down in the right place before I went. I always iron them together separately and then make sure they’re placed NOT crooked.

Sunday, I spent most of the day cleaning I think. Or trying to avoid the grocery store. The fridge is all cleared out and totally clean, except for the drawer that only comes out if the door comes off. I think I need to replace the door seals. I don’t know how to do that, but I’m fairly sure I can Google that shit. Maintenance is not my strong point.

But I did finally go back to the ironing. I only had the snake’s eyes to do, and then I needed to iron the whole thing down to the background…

That’s what it looks like when I pull it off the teflon sheet…ready to place on background fabric. I had a brief moment of panic when I thought it was totally the wrong size (I am making this one for a show, so it probably won’t get in, and I don’t care, because it will go somewhere. Sometime.)…

So I obsessively measured it and it’s fine. Not huge, though, which is a good thing, because I think I have to finish it this week. Deep breaths. So that was last night around 9 PM. Or so.

So what next? Start stitching it down? I’m working on this small commission piece, though, and it just seemed easier to put that one together now that the iron was all set up and ready to go…

So I started doing that. This is a smaller version of a section of my Mammogram quilt. This one is the actual size of the original drawing, whereas the quilt was enlarged probably 200-250%. So it’s tiny in some ways…

Yup. Those are some tiny fingernails. I probably could have reduced the detail in those for the size, but I didn’t think that through. But I did get it all ironed down to a background…

It’s straight in real life. Actually, it’s going to wrap around a canvas frame, so I’m leaving extra on the sides for that. Not sure how I’m going to finish it though…need to figure that out.

Then and only then did I start stitching the other one down…

Yes, I looked at the clock. I wasn’t going to finish it last night…just start it.

At least, that’s what I said to myself at the beginning, but then it just got easier and easier to think I should just finish it NOW (here’s how I get into trouble sleepwise)…there’s the back.

Yes I finished the damn thing. Why?

Now I can clean the entryway floor (dogs have been sleeping on it) and then lay this out. I think I even have enough batting for this one. Although I should be watching sales…because I know the next big one will need a chunk of batting and I don’t have anything big enough. Although I haven’t finished DRAWING that one yet (minor issue) and there might be another experimental one in between. PLUS, I’m supposed to be working on those little ones for sale. Got sidetracked again. By art. And yes, I have my own chores for today. Sigh. But I’m going hiking with the boychild (he doesn’t know this yet…in fact, I’m not sure he’s awake. I think he is. He has not shown his face.). But first, clean the floor and lay out the quilt. OK, I should eat too (diabetic). Maybe shower just in case someone comes here (doesn’t happen). Another cup of tea. I do shower every day. I swear. Unwashed artist hermiting in her house. I could do that. I could.

Ironing All Day…

A nice cool breeze wanders in the window. I spent over 7 hours yesterday making art. I was pretty significantly braindead at the end of all that, but I got a lot done. I didn’t get anything else done. Well, I made dinner. I copied some stuff. I picked up some stuff for my parental units. So not NOTHING. Just close to nothing. It’s OK to do that sometimes. Seriously.

I actually started by picking the fabrics for the breast commission…I had my iPad with the original quilt, so I could see if I could get similar fabrics.

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Which meant sitting on the floor and going through 5 drawers of flesh fabrics…but I found a range that worked.

I was supposed to be at my quilt meeting about 30 minutes after I got to this stage…I was only about 15 minutes late.

And this is what was underfoot.

The first fabric in the range, I’m down to this much fabric on this print…the long piece and the pile of tiny pieces above it.

I think I had a 1/2 yard to start. Luckily, I didn’t need much. The way I make quilts works well with tiny pieces of fabric for most of it.

Here they are, all ironed down…

And then I went to the meeting and cut them out…

I also started working on some smaller quilts for sale. I have 1 owl, 2 hearts in hand, and 6 cats. One cat is really weird. Can’t seem to not make the weird. They are all numbered and two are traced onto Wonder Under. I did all that because the larger quilt I’m working on is not really portable at the moment.

Then I came home and ironed for a good long time.

Kitten was hiding from Katy. The stuff above was what I got done before I started dinner. Well, except I had already done the head and random hand last night. Each hand has around 27 pieces in it. And they’re tiny. Kinda crazy.

I kept going after dinner…

I did actually converse with humans (albeit related to me) at dinner. OK, I conversed at the quilt thing too. Before that, I went 16 hours with no talking, except to the dogs and cats.

I stopped here, tired, and took a break. I had one part of an arm and another hand to do (you can see the fingers in the bottom right)…

I actually ironed the lungs and heart separately, and then put them on top and made them fit.

Then I had some apple crisp and managed to finish the arm. And that’s where I stopped last night, well after midnight.

There will be a lot of detail added with stitching. There’s just the last head left (and all the crap around it). And I need to iron the legs to the torso. I’m at 7 hours and 15 minutes. Not bad. It’s fussy ironing, tiny pieces, but not particularly hard to do. There’s at least another hour, maybe two in this…and that’s to get it down to the fabric as well.

It’s actually really hard to stop at this stage. But I needed to sleep. And be woken by dogs early and often until one kid took one onto his lap (yes, a dog) and the other finally settled and I put my pillow over my head, which is my signal to Kitten that I really need to sleep and she’s annoying me. And for the first time all summer, I did sleep. A miracle.

Katy really isn’t letting Kitten be Kitten…

That look. She might kill you, Katy. Katy is under the ironing board there. Because that’s not an annoying place to sit.

But no. I need to go to the gym, and there are fireworks tonight, and I might even socialize with people. OK. Person. Let’s not push it people. I don’t count my kids in all that. And I should get some ironing done as well, as I’m waiting for everyone to be wherever it is they want to be. No barbecuing with the family (parents are gone, kids are with their dad…I got them last year), no party, just another Independence Day. Reminds me of the July 4 we spent in Sweden, where no one celebrated with fireworks etc. It was strange. I think it was the first year in my life I hadn’t had all that. We are not hiking to fireworks this year. Maybe next year. I just don’t feel like it. Too tired. I want to sit right under them and hear all the annoying people playing their stupid radios and the crowd getting there and getting back. I want to hear the little kids alternately squealing and screaming, not sure if they’re scared or excited.

Meanwhile, need to get my butt out of here so I can come back and iron. In true independent fashion…