The One Right Answer

Planning life out just doesn’t work. It was on the calendar to walk the dog or go to the gym, but by the time the plumber was done with the garbage disposal (now I can grind up my hand, no problem), I was too exhausted to move. If I sit down at all, for more than 20 minutes and a cup of tea and a snack, I’m a goner. I won’t leave the house. Part of the problem is work is hard right now…I’m trying to get kids to problem solve, to think critically. I tell them they can’t google the answers for what I’m asking them, so what do they do? Google the damn things. Then say “I don’t get it!” because they can’t get an answer. Engage the brain, my pretties. Today I’m ramping it up even higher. The kids who do well are the creative thinkers, those who can think outside the box. We train students with state testing to look for The One Right Answer. Ironic. Isn’t that how we try to live all our lives? The One Right Person. The One Right Answer. No such thing. And even the support teacher wants me to give her “The Master” so she can check the resource kids’ answers. There is no One Right Answer. I will accept any claim as long as the student supports it with evidence and reasoning. I’m looking forward to some of the answers…there are some bright kids in there, and they’re not always the ones with A’s. The ones who turn in all their homework. But I don’t know if I can get those kids to Write It Down. They hate that part.

So yesterday I had to push them out of their boxes. I’m watching them google “How do I know if I have cells?” and I’m cracking up. Then they’re looking up the traits of zombies, which might help them today, but was totally useless yesterday. I didn’t ask you to prove he was a zombie. I asked you to determine if he had the characteristics of a living thing. Today I push them further out. Then tomorrow I give them an assignment with no example, no Please Ms. Nida Can I See the Sample So I Can Just Copy It? I feel like an evil doctor, chortling in the corner. In some of the slower classes, there’s a chorus of “I don’t get it!” (don’t get WHAT, I ask…the answer, they want to say but know I won’t respond well to that. Use your brain. It’s not in the book.) and “I need help!” (use your table brains, use google, use YOUR brain. This is a code phrase for “Give me the answer.”). Hard work for me to supervise this, to push the kids who don’t want to, who want it to be easy. I can’t just assign it and sit down and grade. That’s not how my job rolls.

So yesterday, I graded stuff online. And then the girlchild Facetimed me for a couple of hours on the Hardy-Weinberg equation…which is why there’s stuff like this all over the couch this morning…

My brain hurts. But it was nice to see her and 17 of her closest friends. I was joined by all three animals…cats sitting on opposite sides at all times…

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They just can’t be friendly. By the end of the evening, Midnight had knocked all the books on the floor. She kept the Kleenex. No one knows why she does what she does.

I did finally get to pin and start sewing binding. By then, I had watched the Dr. Who episode with Van Gogh, which made me cry. There was no explanation of why he still killed himself, although I can guess. But a tearjerker…for the hormonally challenged.

Miles and miles to go…miles and miles to go…

This Brain…

This is what teaching looks like now. I check my email on my phone. All my accounts go to one place. I see an email from a student, asking me to review something he’s written, an assignment, to make sure it’s specific enough (I say “Be Specific” so much, I can’t even tell you. I’m thrilled that one of them heard me.). I open it in Google Docs, read it on my phone, see that it’s awesome, and email him back about that. Done. Now yes, I did that on my personal time. But I didn’t have to. Another kid opened a Google Hangout with me (somewhat disturbing) for a similar question. I hung out and answered him. Do I get paid for that time? No. Do I do it anyway? Yes. Could I have done it on my prep? Well, normally, I wouldn’t be as booked on my prep period as I have been, but it’s been a mess lately. If I were busy, I wouldn’t do either of those things, but it was OK. I made that choice. Then later at night, I see a kid repeatedly asking for access to another student’s document, presumably because he doesn’t know how to do the assignment? And then his sister asks for access. I send an email telling him how to access his own document. Yeah, sure, the other kid could have given him permission as well, but I suspect I’ll be able to tell when I see it.

This is teaching in the age of the internet. Saturday night I graded analysis questions on my iPad. I suspect I will need a new one (just a mini…I don’t want a big one really) soon, because there is a storage problem and it’s getting slower with the new updates. It’s not a new mini. I use it all the time for work though. My phone as well. School gave us a tablet to use, but it doesn’t work well. I don’t like using it. I haven’t used it at all this year. Sad really.

So yeah, I spent some time on school stuff this weekend, but I also quilted. For hours. Really. Yesterday was over 5 hours. I think my butt grew roots into the chair. The plus is that I am so much closer to done, so that’s a relief.

Saturday morning, when I realized I was still in the outlining, I kind of panicked. I don’t have a lot going on at night this week, but I also know the binding will take a while. So before I even left the house to run errands, I finished the outlining. It only took about 30 minutes. Then I went and delivered a quilt, a box to UPS for the girlchild (need to do one for the boy next), stopped by Trader Joes for stuff (hate that parking lot…would go there a million times more if that parking lot was better designed), and to the quilt store for binding fabric.

I had this discussion with the staff about a gray shortage, and they said they had more grays now than they ever had. Say what? They were all light gray or conversation/holiday grays. Not a lot of standard middle range gray that could be used for binding. I checked the whole damn store twice (Rosies has a ton of fabric). Almost considered going to another store, but I found one that would work. They didn’t ask to see my quilt this time. Guess they’ve learned their lesson. Not sure I would have shown this one. It’s not that it’s weird…OK, maybe it is. I don’t know…it’s one thing to show your art to people who are expecting art. In a quilt store, that’s not always the case.

Sunday, I did a lot of sewing obviously. I started quilting in the background Saturday afternoon, and then that’s all I did yesterday. Fought it. The quilting in the middle means half the quilt is shoved under the arm…this is a 60″ square quilt. Sure I’ve done bigger and wrestled more, but this was work…because it was 105 degrees here yesterday. I didn’t know that until afterwards. But yes, I had that quilt on my lap and the damn hot lights were on and I quilted with no A/C in that heat. Ugh.

The result is that last night, when I finally quit, I had about 20 hours of quilting in (whoops…that’s how long I thought it would take total) and I’ve gotten around more than 3/4 of the quilt. I need to go back and do more on the one side, but I will figure that out tonight. Really, I hope to be done quilting tonight. Maybe I’ll even trim it…but I suspect that will be Tuesday. Then bind it. And probably ink it. All before it has to be delivered to the photographer on Sunday or Monday. Damn. Sometimes I even amaze myself. Now I barely talked to anyone for two days. I blew off two art openings and another event. I only talked to a few people in that time frame. I woke up this morning with no clue as to what day it was. But otherwise? I did do what I needed to do.

Of course, my brain is already trying to plan the next big quilt, trying to decide what to do next, looking at deadlines and thinking way too hard. There are two shows I want to enter. I’d like to make new work for both of them. That might be crazy.

This brain…it wants to make all the time. I guess I should be glad of that…

Not Far Enough…

This is my life right now. I got at least 6 major things handled yesterday. So far this morning, not really awake, I’ve handled one (it took 20 minutes. I fed the dog while I was dealing on the phone. Multitasking.). There were four things on my calendar yesterday that I re-calendared for today while I was sitting in a meeting at school. In fact, one just popped up, so I’m going to do that real quick…because it’s another thing I need for school. OK. Done. Trying to be efficient as well. But the quilting is suffering. I was really tired last night. I was so tired, I went to bed early, before midnight. Did it help? Fuck no. I’m still tired this morning. And really, I need to NOT spend all morning sleeping tomorrow, because I’m nowhere near as far in my quilting as I wanted to be by now. Dammit.

I hit 9 hours in last night, but only got about an hour and a half done total. I wanted at least two, closer to three. Not near enough. Will have to make up for that tonight.

Last night was lots of tiny fussy bits, which means all I really got done with the pubic area, the torso between there and the very bottom of the breasts, and part of the hand. Oh. And the lioness.

You can see the tiny stuff in the grass on her breast…I guess I made it onto the breasts…so slightly further up…but neither arm is done. One is barely started.

There’s a ton of outlining left and a significant chunk of background quilting. This is the view of what’s coming out the back of the machine…the part Midnight really wishes I would leave out so she could sleep on it and deposit large amounts of black fur.

Not happening, you little psycho. Plus you’re the queen of vomit, and I don’t need that right now.

Anyway. Sigh. So a lot of quilting is left. And I’m buried in grading of assignments. Progress reports are coming. And I had to plan/rewrite the zombie lesson in the last two days (but it’s done!). Plus I had a ton of meetings this week. I’m sure if I’d blown them all off, I’d be further along in the quilting, but all that alone time would be fucking with my head (like it will next week). When do I think I can finish all the quilting? I was hoping Sunday. I’m not sure that’s realistic…I’ll know better after tonight. If I rock it tonight, that will help. But I have stuff I have to do tonight as well…stuff I’ve put off all week. Plus a couple of things tomorrow.

This is reality. I set goals. I want to be able to do more than I can. I’m really tired of cooking for myself. I’m tired of having to cook at all. I can’t afford to eat out all the time though. I need something I can just grab quickly in between working, heat it up, and eat it. Yes I know that sounds like frozen dinners. I hate those. So I could make my own (takes time). I get tired of eating the same thing too though. I am going to figure this shit out. And everyone asks how it feels to have the kids gone. It’s shitty. Silly question. At the end of sewing for a long time, I stand up, I stretch. My brain says, “Who can I talk to?” The dog groans and rolls over. A cat meows. There you are. Furry things. A friend told me it took 6 months for her to get used to being alone, and now she doesn’t want to give it up. The kids are back in less than 6 months. I guess that’s a good thing? But I feel so disconnected from them. I know that’s normal too. Girlchild still answers texts. The boy? More sporadically. Nothing new there.

Whatever. Transitioning again. Maybe I’ll make dessert for dinner tonight. That’s real mature.

Genetics Followed by a Bit of Quilting

I managed to get in two hours of quilting last night after going to listen to a science guy talk about genetic engineering. It always sounds so good when you talk about curing diseases or conditions, but scary when you think about modifying food, or the consequences of messing with the other stuff. For all we know, without my diabetes genes, I’d be someone totally different. I’m thinking of the study they did on the foxes in Russia, where they linked fur color to tameness (along with a lot of other crazy things, like floppy ears). So there’s a risk in fucking with DNA…no cancer, but everyone is a ginger? Probably not a bad thing. Or we all have floppy ears. Somewhat goofier looking.

This week is crazy for meetings out of the house…wish I could spread them out a bit more during the month instead of having three in a week, but it doesn’t work out that way. I haven’t finished my book club selection, but I read it when it first came out in 2003 or so…Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Read the whole Maddaddam series (more about fucking with genetics! A trend!). Definitely good stuff. Atwood has always been one of my favorite writers. I don’t remember what professor made me read (and then watch) The Handmaid’s Tale, but I thank them mightily. I’ve read everything she’s ever written since then.

It’s still warm here in San Diego…we were promised rain, but it’s been reduced to a tenth of an inch sometime today…much less than the half inch plus they said we’d get starting yesterday. It’s cool enough though that the animals are back in the office with me fulltime (it is one of the warmer rooms in the house). There’s a bit of competition for space, jockeying for position, although Calli is never on the desk or chair or table, so that’s a plus. Midnight likes to lie behind the machine though, even while I’m quilting.

You can see how close she is…you can even see when my machine was last serviced. I was looking for that label. Usually they put it on the inside so I can see it. Good to know I have some time before I need to take it in. Yup, I take it in once a year. I use this beast more than most people.

Calli inhabits the floor. If I’m lucky, she doesn’t lie right behind my chair, like she is right now. She was completely zonked out yesterday.

Too much excitement? Probably not from me.

I didn’t start quilting until 9:30, because I didn’t get home until 8:30 or so and then I had to eat.

Around an hour into it (while I was stitching down those tiny powerlines and electrical towers), I was yawning, tired, wanted to go to sleep. Nope. I need another hour. How about another half hour? See, my body does tell me to sleep. I just ignore it. And if I really had gone to bed then, odds are I would have been lying in bed for an hour, unable to fall asleep. That happened Sunday night and it was later when I went to bed. My brain really doesn’t get it.

Apparently bullying through makes you wake up (or the caffeine finally kicked in, hard to say), because I managed a second hour. While I’m sewing, I set goals…I’m going to get this part done…all of the left breast and the arm…

I did actually do that, but by then I was awake and it was more a matter of looking at the clock and reminding myself what mornings feel like with not enough sleep, and the fact that I teach 7th graders, which are more than a bit demanding of my energies…well, then I set a different kind of goal, like you are going to bed when you finish that left breast.

I just happened to sew a riveted heart and a bunch of nuclear plant towers as well.

I listen to myself about as well as my students do.

There’s a pin in the heart because I didn’t sew that keyhole down…missed it. So I’ll do it after I finish outline quilting probably. Sometimes I end up doing them at the end, assuming there’s more than one. I was going fast, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more than one.

So the first figure is barely started, the bottom border is completely done, and the second kneeling figure is done except for her (very complicated) head, right arm, and right breast. I need to do some writing tonight as well, but should be able to get her done and start on the other figure…because this is just the outlining. It’s quilting the background that’s gonna kick my ass. Dark blue thread on dark blue fabric, sewing mostly at night. Yeah! That’s how we roll.

Alone and Quiet…

Funny title for a post that starts out with an art opening where I was anything but. So yes, the opening was Saturday night and I think it went well…the piece is still hanging, so that’s a plus.

This is Empty Nest, 31″ wide x 200″ long.

At some point, one of my friends was trying to find my work (it was in the way way back, in the Education building) and someone else described it as the sexless Cyclops. I didn’t ask if the responder was male or female, but in case you didn’t know, we don’t need a uterus to have sex. And if you mean genderless, well there are ovaries and breasts, which implies at least a DNA-rendered gender. But whatever.

I have lots of pictures from the show, but not much time this morning (someone pulled a last-minute meeting AND I have a lab to prep for, which I already spent an hour at school for yesterday, but then left, because the alarm was going to go off and I thought I would have the 20 minutes I needed this morning. Never assume).

It was fun watching people experience the piece, since mine are usually on the wall. They stared, they walked around, they put their head in the hole…

Seeing it hanging and the forces upon it tells me that it should have been quilted, but I didn’t have the time or sanity left for that I think. OK, maybe the time. Definitely not the sanity.

Anyway, she’s up at Space4Art through October 10, so you should check her out if you like. This place is more about the openings then the rest of the month though. There were performances and there was music. And one piece had a little too much stress on it and might have fallen. But it was cool while it lasted. And a lot of people I knew showed up and that was also cool.

Saturday morning, I managed to pinbaste the new big quilt, which has to be done by the 28th at this point, because the photographer’s agreed to get it done in time. I found two fabrics that totally don’t go together for the backing…but they were the same weight and texture, so I don’t care. I wasn’t going to waste a good background fabric on the back of this one.

I laid the backing out and taped it to the entryway floor (after mopping it because the dog sleeps on it)…and then Kitten came and had her way with it.

I should have spent more time on the second taping down, but it was hot and I was tired, so I did it fast, possibly too fast.

I got everything laid out…

And spent an hour and a bit pinning it all down…it’s being fussy in the middle of course…

So that will be fun to quilt. And I’m fairly sure the backing wasn’t totally flat.

Oh well. I don’t deal with the quilt police. The quilting will make it lie flat.

And then I went to the opening and did life for a while…until Sunday.

And after 10 hours of work- and home-related stuff, I finally started quilting at 9 PM. Because Sundays are not mine. They are a planning nightmare. Too much to do, not enough time in which to do it.

This is slow quilting and quite meditative, which was good, because I think I’d spend too many hours alone and quiet at that point.

And though it seems that this is still alone and quiet, it’s actually art brain and it works fairly well until I finish and realize how alone and quiet I am. Sigh. The human brain is a pain in the ass.

I quilted for about 2 1/2 hours last night. If I could pull that off every night (and this week is a bitch for that…something almost every night), then I’d be done by Sunday. I don’t know if that’s really possible, but I guess I could toss it up there as a goal…

And then see if I meet it.

Meanwhile, meeting set for an hour from now and I still have to finish getting ready for the damn lab. So I’m outta here.

“go” bonkers

The plus with keeping data on how long it takes to perform each quiltmaking-related task is that when I am coming up against a really tight deadline, I know pretty well how much time it might take. This is also the CON with keeping that data. I think sometimes the realization of how many hours I need to put in before this or that date causes more stress than I need. On the other hand, not knowing also causes stress. Really, I’m just making stress. But that’s what gets the work done, so I’m going with it, and I don’t think it was a bad thing to overextend myself on these two projects, and when I was offered a copyediting job in the middle of it, I very realistically told them I couldn’t start until the end of September. I even emailed my photographer so I wouldn’t be freaking out at the end, so hopefully my dates work for him and I have all the time I can spare. Which isn’t much, let me tell you.

With that in mind, I was determined (but not positive I could do it) to finish stitching down the big quilt last night. You’d think I would come home and start sewing then, wouldn’t you? But part of being a teacher is grading papers, and I had given my students an assignment Thursday and Friday that was supposed to give me grading time, but they’re working like molasses, so it was more like babysit me on my computer day because if it’s not Snapchat, I can’t possibly figure it out without the teacher helping me (I really love technology…I do…except when I have to monitor 150 7th-graders on it). So I got no grading done, and this is just going to snowball on me if I don’t try to keep up. So I came home, popped my Game of Thrones DVD in (because who doesn’t grade to rampant death and rape and crazy shit…I watched PBS after that as a cleanser), and I graded for three hours before I couldn’t stand it any more. Seriously bad shit going on there…on the papers…sighs. Big sighs.

Then I ate. Because I have to eat. Then I came in here and realized the art show I was supposed to enter tonight had an 8 PM Eastern time deadline. Fuck. Well then. That ain’t happening. Whatever.

Time to stitch down. Even though it’s so hot in here that sweat is literally dripping down my face, back, everywhere, even with the fan blowing directly on me. Ugh. It’s cooler here than it was earlier this week, but it’s still muggy and hot.

Stitching down…I predicted another three to four hours…

And I was right. I had to do all of the larger figure from the knees up, including the bird. I didn’t start until just after 9 PM, so yeah…it was 3 1/2 hours and I didn’t go to bed until after 1. Someone should tell my neighbors that, because one of them was doing garden/yard-type stuff way too early for my brain, which made me pull the pillow over my head. Luckily, I had no dog this morning (yes, I share custody of my daughter’s dog with her dad), so the only wakeup call was Kitten, and she seemed to be fully aware that it would be a mistake to wake me.

At around 11 PM, I wasn’t sure I could do it. I was tired. But somewhere I found the extra energy I needed and kept going. It took 8 hours and 17 minutes to stitch this down…I can’t remember what I predicted. Ten hours?

The scary thing is I’ve been using last-year’s big quilt to estimate on this one, and I figured about 40 hours left before I started stitching down, and this one took longer to stitch down. Huh. I think I did my math wrong? Anyway, looking at last year’s, I’m estimating about 2 hours to sandwich and pinbaste today (longer than the other one because I will have to piece the backing), then about 20 hours to quilt it (2 hours more than the other one), and 5 hours to bind it. Now it might take MORE than that…but at least I can sew binding in more places than my house, right? Because I have some stuff on my calendar for this week (might have to ditch some of it). My goal is to be quilting as of tomorrow…maybe even today, but I have an opening tonight and I’m moving slowly today. But let’s say 27 hours left and my photographer just OK’d my delivering it on the 27th or 28th and photographing it in time for the entry. That makes two weeks basically. If you don’t see me in those two weeks or I cancel something you thought I might show up to (because there’s a fine line between working my ass off and getting incredibly lonely because I don’t talk to humans for hours or days on end…students don’t count), well now you know why. Although I do build in time on the weekends and during the week to be a social animal, because otherwise I might go bonkers.

“go” bonkers. Yeah. I know.

OK. Off this and onto the floor with pins. I hear Sion yelling…why??? Why not just spray baste like you did the giant-ass woman? Yeah. I don’t know. For one thing, I don’t have any spray baste. For another, I still like the pinning better. Crazy, I know. But those snot cans were driving me bonkers. They were the best option for that quilt, but I don’t know if I want to do it again for something big. Certainly isn’t happening today.

Enough Enough

The load’s not completely off my shoulders, and surely 5 other things have jumped in to take its place, but I did finish sewing that giant fucking woman yesterday. Rather early even, in the afternoon. I’m installing this afternoon…completely nervous about it. Not sure it will work or look good or be big enough, or enough enough, or even enough.

That’s the thing though. It has to be. At this point, it has to be.

In a situation like this, where you’ve made a piece specifically for a show and they have a space set aside for you, well, you just have to show up with what you have. There’s this worry in your gut that it’s not good enough, it’s not the right size, it’s not what they expected, even now, after doing many of these. I still worry. I still stress. But I’m also really happy it’s done. I won’t know until I hang it if I’m happy with it in general.

Yesterday, I laid it out and started ironing it as flat as I could…

I had to pin the hole on the side to get stitched up. The fingers…those damn fingers. They pressed out OK…

And then I clipped and turned the belly hole. That was easy enough. I didn’t hand stitch it closed…I just used the machine.

Then I stitched around the entire edge. Took a while. It’s 17 feet long and I had to go up it and down it and then up and down each arm and up each side of the legs as well. It was not a short and sweet affair…

But then there she was, all folded up, ready to go. Well, except for that place in the hand where I had to add a backing piece. I did hand sew that closed.

Really, I should tape her down to get rid of hair and threads before I go over there. I have a ladder in my car. I have to get some fishing line, strong stuff. I’ll need some tools. I had to make a sign. So I had to pick a name. I’ll tell you later, when I have photos of it hanging, hopefully tomorrow. Unless a disaster happens. It’s possible.

She took almost 33 hours to make. About a third of one of my big quilts. A little less time than the one I just finished, which is pretty small. I have three nasty burns on my left arm from the iron. My fault. No holes in my fingers. I still have spray baste on one finger…keep finding bits and pieces of it everywhere.

So you might ask what I do when I finish a project? I spend a few hours grading papers instead, because school has started and I’ve been blowing it off. Tonight, I’m hoping to be back on the sewing machine with the little commissioned boob and with the big piece. I really don’t have time to take a break. I just need to put my head down and get back into it.

Remember…

Remember. Remember that school only started about two weeks ago. That you feel this exhausted every year for the first few weeks. That it kicks your butt. This might be why I write a blog…simply so I can go back to early September every single year and read, “I’m tired. I’m so tired.” And then I don’t feel so bad about it. It’s normal. For a teacher.

On top of that, I think I’ve developed an allergy to chapstick after all these years. Or something. I feel like I could sleep for the entire weekend. But I can’t.

So I have completed many tasks in the last 24 hours…sending photos for a show I’ll be in come January, trying to get new house insurance because the Auto Club doesn’t like me, paying this bill and that bill, making a label for and packing up a quilt that needs to ship today!, trying to find a cord online so I don’t have to buy it in a store, stupid shit. Grading papers at a stitching meeting because I need to get them done (I didn’t get them done yet). By the time I got home from the stitching meeting, I was exhausted again. Shocking really that doing a lab all day made me tired…OH MY, we all have one period, sometimes two, where Listening to Instructions just doesn’t happen…but the best was when a kid asked “How do you measure length?” 1. The same way you did yesterday. 2. Weren’t you listening yesterday? 3. What did you do yesterday? 4. I repeated instructions today. Were you listening? I think I got a tad frustrated with that class.

Our team has had to be hard on these kids. It makes us feel bad sometimes, but there are certain behaviors I won’t deal with and now is the time to crush them. They’re really elementary kids at heart…and this is 7th grade. So while I’m standing up front giving instructions, some tiny beast will be wandering up to me and standing right in front of me and wanting to ask a question. Um. What are you doing? Go sit down. I swear, I wonder sometimes what goes on in other classes. I suspect they are just like us and kids are just like dogs…they want to be in your space. They want your attention. They hate to wait. They do believe they are the most important person in the world and no one else exists. This behavior training is exhausting as well. Sit down. Raise your hand. Ask the people at your table. Look at the board/screen for instructions. What part of it do you not understand. Don’t say “I don’t get it.” I will just walk away. “Don’t get WHAT?!” Meditation. Yup. During passing periods. Already meeting about kids who are unable to read or write in 7th grade. Meanwhile, count your extra books, put your books in piles by period for the state government check on whether we have textbooks (which we can’t check out to kids because the state hasn’t checked up on us yet), then we give you two new kids and you have to find them books, and how many headphones do you have? Tell me by Friday. Tell me the number of extra books by Thursday AM, but 10 minutes later you need two of them.

Sorry. Ranting. I have no one to talk to most of the time. That’s kinda sinking in as well. When I’m buried in work/art, it’s easier not to think about it, but last night, it was not easy to not think about it. My brain says, “Hey walk down the hall and check on a kid, just say hi.” “There is no kid.” “What? No kid? When will they be back?” “Almost 4 months. Shut up.” So that’s going well. I’m sure it will get easier. But not before it gets harder.

After a day like that, even though I had an enjoyable coupla hours with Julie, I was not ready and willing to sew, but I knew I had to. I wanted the legs done last night…and that didn’t happen. I got the second leg done down to the first…

I really am so close to done on this part of the sewing…

That’s it. That’s all there is. Here’s the purples already laid out for that last leggy bit (that was at 11:45 PM)…

For tonight’s sewing excursion.

Then I’ve gone through what happens next about 100 times in my head and I’m not sure exactly what will happen, but I’m not pinbasting anything. I do still want to add some stuff on top, and I don’t think it would take much time, but I’ve basically told myself it has to happen tonight. AND I have to trim it to size tonight, which won’t be easy either. All that after an exhausting week. Then tomorrow…spray baste to batting, cut a backing, sew it on, flip the fucker, iron it, maybe stitch it a bit. Have to remember to insert tabs so I can hang it up. Install is Monday. House is still a mess. Brain is a mess. Woo hoo! Incredibly behind on grading. Haven’t put any grades in the computer at all. Could be a shocker for the kids…

Anyway. Wish me luck. I’m really wanting to be done with this one and back on the other one. Although I really really have to finish the commissioned boob first. It won’t take long. I’m hoping to get it done by the end of the weekend. I’m hoping to get some sleep too though, so we’ll see how all that goes.

Sewing Ribs…

I should listen to my left eyelid. It’s twitching at intervals. It’s stopped again, but it was going like wildfire when I was feeding the animals. It’s a combination of high stress (too many deadlines! too many people want something from me! too many things need to get done!) and not enough sleep. You’d think if I were that tired, it would be impossible for me to wake up at 3 AM and be unable to go back to sleep, but no. It’s not. Because my brain’s in overdrive. I keep forgetting to do things because my calendar didn’t remind me (let’s put blame where it belongs…I didn’t put it in the calendar because I was sure I would remember…ha!) or it reminded me too early and I couldn’t do it right then and then I forgot about it. I’m a chicken with my hair on fire.

The funny thing is, I know in about a week, a huge part of the stress will be gone, although I think I’m replacing it with more stress (just bid on a copyediting job…but dammit, I need the money!). Whatever.

So yesterday I did manage things quite well. School was exhausting, but it always is for the first month. I have to remember that this is only the second full week of school. I especially have to remember that with certain students who are already an issue. Because I have 37 more weeks with them before I boot ’em to 8th grade. And maybe, just maybe, I can get that crazy under control. Or not.

I even went to the gym for the first time in a month, post-procedure. It was awesome, but I wanted to read my book and I had to deal with dueling texters and a Clash of Clans end-of-war that was kinda disastrous…so I didn’t get to read much. It helped to have dinner already pretty much cooked from the night before (keep that in mind). I was able to start sewing around 9 PM.

I had piled up the next batch of blues the night before…darker and more vibrant blues.

You can tell I’m not even trying to match anything. I did originally think this was going to have more color, but…well…it’s not. There’s enough chaos going on. There will be more color as I go down, because it did finally color itself in my head the other night (while I was asleep), so that’s a good thing. It’s nice to know where you’re going.

I had sewn a dark strip down the middle of the torso the night before, because I thought this would be the best way to fill in the space…kinda like ribs.

So I set the first piece as a triangle and followed it down.

It’s tiring to do this kind of sewing late at night. Lots of turning and twisting in the chair to iron and cut and get fabric. I wanted to quit many times, but I needed to get a significant amount done. The clock ticking down is freaking me out. So I got all the way down one side to the giant hole that will be in this thing.

You can see the dog’s legs underneath. There has been a lot of animal interest in this space, since I am the only human around.

Here you can see the arm next to it. The arms will hang down towards the ground. The rest will be suspended above. I hope.

Kitten has taken over the keyboard area. Midnight was behind the sewing machine for a while.

I even started the other side and thought I could get another big chunk done…until a wave of exhaustion kicked me in the ass. So I stitched it down to get rid of the pins, and then I packed up for bed.

Here’s where I’m sewing and ironing. You can see how much of the side is left, plus the legs coming down.

Oh holy moley. I’m not out of the woods yet. So my new goal is to have all the pieces covered, sewn down, by the end of Friday night. Then Saturday I can do batting, background, sew it all down, etc. Whatever that’s going to look like. I left Sunday open because I know I will need more time than I think I will. I have some other things I’d like to do if I have the time, but realistically? I may very well not. But there’s an eyeball and a uterus and a heart that could go on there…if there’s time.

Sometimes, though, you just have to do what you can and accept that it’s done. Like this blog post (school!).

Black Head…

What was my goal for sewing this weekend again? I know it was get the torso to some point…which I did. I feel like I didn’t get as far as I wanted though…the head wanted to be black…

There’s a reason for that. Interesting thing about severe depression. It actually changes your brain. Like physically. And then when bad shit happens, even when you just have a bad day, the brain spirals much quicker than it would before the depression. When I was sewing the head, my own head was in a bit of a spiral. It’s mostly out again, but it’s hard to kick that black head.

I sewed the head down over a neck piece that was already there. Then I started filling in the upper chest, which was kind of a pain because I couldn’t just string piece like I did on the arms. So I messed with it and made it work.

The dark is for under the breasts…it has to go down first so I can sew the breasts down on top of that.

That’s where I quit on Saturday…wanted to be further, but that didn’t happen.

Sunday, I really hoped to have more time, but that’s life. The plus is that my school website is up and running, all my school stuff for the week is done (well, mostly), and I prepped food for the week as well, hopefully to forestall the lame foodness of last week, when I didn’t really prepare. We’ll see how that works.

So Sunday night, late, I started in on the breasts again…

And got both done…plus a plan for the torso above the hole.

This is not the easiest thing in the world to photograph. But there’s the rest, the torso and legs, which still need to be done.

No. It’s not a small amount. The plus is that it finally colored itself in my head, and I think I have a plan for finishing the whole thing, although it may not matter, because if I run out of time, I’m cutting the finishing out.

I’m still not feeling OK about this getting done in time. I do have to teach and sleep and eat. Maybe I will feel better by Friday. I hope I feel better by Friday.

This piece is for a show called Response…

I don’t really know what to say about the response part, because that kind of disappeared for me at some point. But whatever. I’m still responding to them, even though their response was to run away! OK, not really. Sometimes a response is to hide or gather in a circle for protective reasons or to pull the blanket over one’s head. The opening is September 12 from 6-10 PM at Space4Art in downtown San Diego. I’ll be there for the early part at least. Not sure how long I’ll last.

There’s always at least one animal in here with me, often Kitten. Sometimes all three are in here. Right now it’s Calli. Last night it was Kitten.

I did take time out on Sunday to see the traveling bit of the SAQA trunk show that is in Southern California.

It was a nice break, got me out of my head for a bit.

Then I came home and prepped 12 breakfasts (bacon, egg, and zucchini muffins)…

Yes, they taste as good as they look. Plus 2 dinners and 4 lunches. Five lunches would have been better, but it didn’t work out that way. No, I don’t mind eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch for days. Dinner though? I need variety. So I tried to build that in there. We’ll see if I have the energy to actually cook it by the end of the week.

Wish I had more positivity with which to start the week. I think it’s just Head Down until I get enough done that I can breathe.