Just Hanging by a Moment*

So last night, I tried to finish cutting out all the pieces, but even with 4 hours in (remember…I needed 6), I did not finish. I’m in the 200s, so about 2-3 hours are left. I’ll get those done today. I’m at 18 hours total so far.

I had regular dog company the entire time…he looks cranky because he’s really tired because he ran around all morning and then we took him on a walk.

See? Tired. I sat and cut for a long time…

Here’s where I quit…it was only 12:30, but I wanted to try meditation again before bed, because it seemed to help the other night. I’ve been bagging up the trash bits, so that’s only a third of what I cut last night. I need a bigger box for the pieces that are cut out. It’s full.

Here’s what’s left…oil drums, ocean bits, and the last of the mermaid.

Here’s the walk from earlier…it was still hot out, so we kept it relatively short.

I need more of those.

Anyway, today? Finish cutting pieces. Sort them. Start ironing them together. Also do two GISH things and submit them (it’s the last day), copyedit the last chapter (the rest is done…except I need at least one more run-through of the whole thing and then some fussy stuff). I’d like to go to the gym…we’ll see about that. The man’s band has a show tonight, but it’s a reunion, and those are harder to crash, so I’m on my own tonight…artmaking it is. I’m realizing how little time is left…how much of it is commandeered by other people. I think that’s what I hate most about the school year…how much time I lose to what other people need me to do. Not the actual teaching…but the immense amount of time that grading entails, plus all the professional development and meetings and trainings and crap that others put on me. Especially when I don’t get anything out of them. I need one good tip or piece of info or idea from a meeting or PD for it to be worthwhile. So many of them, I walk away with nothing.

And as for the meditation? I so didn’t sleep well last night. Still not…even with exercise and meditation. Going to keep working at it…

*Lifehouse, Hanging by a Moment

With One Foot in the Past*

No jury duty today. The last day of worrying about it. Glad it’s done. Maybe I’ll be more chill about it the next time the feds tie up most of my summer with not being able to schedule anything. Which is why my foot is going under the knife on Monday! First day I could schedule it. It’s OK…some weirdo cyst that’s been causing issues for two years now will hopefully finally die a horrible death. And truly hopefully, a quick recovery with no restrictions on standing or walking.

School is officially looming. Three emails yesterday from the principal, one about our rooster mascot, which something apparently finally caught and killed. Sad…I think every teacher on campus has a picture of him lurking in the lunch area or in the parking lot. I do, but I can’t be bothered to go find it. I have video of him serenading me as well. Like he did.

So the days to get shit done are counting down. With that in mind, I fully met the goal from yesterday and did 6 1/2 hours of cutting shit out. I’m proud of myself.

First, though, in true GISHness, I painted a portrait that I can’t show you of Jensen Ackles using Skittles as paint.

Note to self: Skittles suck as paint. The other year, I painted Jean-Luc Picard with condiments…still some lack in color choices. Sure, this year, I could have gone out and bought the other colors of Skittles, but no. I went old school. I’m not allowed to show pictures until the thing is over. Today I will be creating a portrait of my favorite actor, politician, or public figure in flower petals. This is problematic because I don’t have anything blooming at the moment. I did steal some from my friend’s house yesterday and will head over to my parents’ sometime today (shhh…don’t tell them…). I haven’t decided who to do, though. And then tomorrow, I’m making a special hat. A very special hat. Yup. And then it’s over…it’s only a week long! Sad but true.

So I had my sewing-during-the-summer meeting yesterday, where I’m mostly the only person who shows up, but that’s OK. I cut there for almost three hours…here’s where I was at when I left…

Then I went to Target to buy a birthday card. Yeah. So you know how that goes if you’re a teacher.

That is not just a birthday card. Pro: I’m almost done with school shopping.

And then I had to drive to Encinitas for an art meeting. I cut stuff out there too, for about an hour and a half, and then came back home and cut stuff out on the couch for another hour or so. The stuff that still needs cutting is in the top box…you can see it’s much emptier. All the cut stuff is on the bottom left and trimmings on the bottom right.

Significant progress…I’m in the 600s, so if I spend another 6 hours today, which is the plan, then I will be done. On time. On plan. What a concept.

Knock on wood, because it’s never that easy, right? It’s a goal. I’m aiming myself at it. The to-do list is long and complicated, but it’s still good to have a goal. OK, on to the copyediting and errands and all that crap.

*Tears for Fears, Head Over Heels

As I Open My Lips, All My Words Slip Away*

I have a guaranteed 4 hours of cutting fabrics ahead of me today, but I’m aiming for 6. I didn’t make 6 yesterday. I made almost 5 hours though. So that’s good. Everything takes so long…I don’t know why. We humans are such inefficient creatures. But then, what did I do? I trimmed some bougainvillea, I wrapped presents, I packed stuff up for shipping, I sent some stuff by email, I entered a GISH thing, I copyedited for a while, I talked to the girlchild about her wasp stings (18 at last count…it’s OK…it takes 150 to kill you), I moved kid and dogs and cars, and I cut things out. So why do I feel like nothing got done? Oh yeah, and I talked my doctor down off the ledge and bought myself 4 weeks to get my diabetes numbers down again. So that’s a doctor’s appointment off my list of things to do. She’ll do the next one by email or phone. Wahoo! All good. No really. See the list and say, wow, you did a lot yesterday. It doesn’t feel like a lot and that’s on you. True that.

I guess knowing that the girlchild comes home in 9 days and her room needs to be clean, and school starts in 14 days and all that shit needs to be done, and I have two quilts that need to go to the photographer in just 25 days, and one just needs a binding sewn on (Arrowhead trip, easy peasy) and the other one is only about halfway done and will probably take another 60 hours to complete? OK, there’s the panic. But it’s totally doable. Back to the goals. If I write them out, say them in my head, every day, I’ll get there. Get everything cut out by Friday night. Sort pieces Saturday, start ironing together on Saturday. Get it ironed together next week (except friend visiting, so that’s a time constraint) and then stitch down…shee-it. See that’s a time issue. But it will get done. The first week and a half of school, there’s no homework coming home. I can come home (exhausted) every night and quilt. It will happen. And I have a week’s leeway in there. I’ll be OK.

Deadlines. I don’t know if they’re shortening my life or not.

I’m still on call for jury duty by the way. Irritating. But I should be incredibly grateful (knock on wood) for only getting called in one day in the whole month and not having to serve on a trial, unless they do it to me again next year, in which case, I won’t be grateful at all. Sigh. You know, I’d be happier about it if they’d allow me to bring in scissors so I could sew. That one thing. That would help.

OK, school goals for this year: balance (OK, I always say that), organization (ha!), tolerance, connections, mindfulness (theirs and mine), parent connections, positive thoughts. Less irritation. I’m not sure any of that list is different from any previous year…but I need to say it in my head.

Outside in the evening is always cooler than inside. This house holds heat like a black rock. I was outside on the phone (getting eaten alive by bugs) while Calli watched. I should sit outside more often. Remember the plan to draw outside? Ah well. That’s always on my list and rarely happens.

If I let her out, she would just want me to throw pinecones for her. Which I would do, but I was on the phone.

Simba kept me company on the couch. So the pieces are in the box in reverse number order, with the highest numbers on top and the lowest on the bottom (except I dumped a smaller box into this larger box at some point, so somewhere in there, the order will reverse, thus confusing the issue). What this means is that I can sort of keep track of how far along I am by what numbers I’m cutting out. So even though the box still looks INCREDIBLY full, because it is, there is progress.

I know that shows 1000-something, but mostly I finished 1880 through the middle of the 1100’s, so I’m guessing about 700 pieces are cut out. (Simba is still there…he left and came back without your noticing.)

Which means I have less than 1200 to go. I have about 7 hours and 45 minutes into the cutting, so it’s about an hour per 100 pieces. Twelve more hours, so 6 today and 6 tomorrow. To-be cut on top, trash pile (I dumped the first batch into the ziplock bag already) on the left, already-cut pieces in the middle, dog on the right. In case you couldn’t tell.

I do keep all the trash bits until the quilt is fully stitched down, in case I need a tiny piece of something to shove in there. I lose small pieces quite easily…in fact, the super-small pieces don’t get cut out until I’m about to iron them down because of that. Traveling with these boxes makes it more likely that I’ll lose stuff, but I do it anyway.

Still doing GISH things. I need to paint with Skittles water and make a portrait with flower petals (I have no living flowers at the moment…it’s the heat of summer…will have to go steal some…er…liberate some from somewhere else. Not sure where.). Probably see if something else can be drawn, since those are easy for me. I love to draw. I can say that about most of my life…I draw, I love to draw. I really should do more of it.

*Yazoo, Nobody’s Diary

Managing All the Things*

OK. So meditation helps (duh). I managed to stop working last night around 12:15 AM and then meditated (it was hard…my brain was all over the map and trying to fly into space) for 20 minutes. I didn’t fall asleep immediately, but I did much better than I have been. So there’s hope. Still working on it.

Girlchild is worried that her room is not going to get clean by the time she gets home. And she should be! Because I have a ton of stuff shoved in there. But it will get done. Sometime. Mostly it’s sewing stuff that I don’t know how to store or process. I started back in June and then it was HARD. So I quit. Really mature of me. So that’s on the list. So is mailing stuff that needs to get out of here, trimming that damn bougainvillea, finishing this quilt, copyediting, and regular exercise. I had my blood tested yesterday (double poke, thanks to a phlebotomist who was scared of my tiny veins) and my A1C is not better with the new meds, so my doc freaked out, but I read that it takes 6-7 weeks for the meds to kick in…and I’ve only been taking them for 3 weeks because it took me so long to get to the damn educator to show me how to use them. So I think her freak-out is unwarranted, but it means more appointments and panicking, which honestly doesn’t help ME sleep. So there’s that. I’ll talk her down off the ceiling on Monday.

The to-do list grows overnight.

But where am I on the quilt? Yay! Progress to the next step! Hallelujah! This is what a cat looks like when I iron it, by the way…in fact, it’s THAT cat…the one in the very back of the picture.

She’s in so many of my quilts. We thought we lost her yesterday…it took 30 minutes to find her new hiding place. She made a cave in my office. In fabric. With a Rubbermaid box as her roof. She got out a few years ago and disappeared for about 24 hours…completely freaked me out and depressed me. So even the boychild was walking around with a flashlight to find her. This morning? She brought me a wool sock. Usually she comes when she’s called and yesterday she didn’t. So I’m glad that turned out OK.

So then, after 27 hours of ironing things down (oh yeah), I had to organize them. I always have to organize them.

There are 192 fabrics (that’s a lot for me) in this quilt. There they all are. The flesh tones run through the pinks and peaches into the browns. The hair runs through the browns into the blacks and then the reds.

It’s a huge pile of stuff to be cut out. But I want it done this week. So if I look back at other quilts to try to estimate time, it’s hard to find a comparable piece, because it took A LOT of hours to iron to fabric because of all the different runs I had to do of flesh colors, but I don’t think it’s any different for cutting…so I’m guessing 15 hours. And I did 3 last night…

The last big quilt took only 19 hours to iron but 17 hours to cut out. I just looked back though and it only had 1350 pieces…so maybe I need to up my hours. Damn. OK. So let’s say 20 hours…17 to go.

Yikes! Things to be cut out on the left, trash on the top right, cut-out pieces on the bottom right. I have two meetings tomorrow, so plenty of cutting out can be done at those. I am starting the copyediting today, but I need to eat and take meds and I was gonna go to the gym, damn. Life just ups in your face sometimes. It’s August and officially I can think about school now. Like I haven’t been thinking about school all summer. I fucking sucked at removing school from my brain this summer. Oh well…on to managing all the things. Oh yeah, supposed to think positively…I AM THOUGH. I finished a task. A BIG TASK. Done. Awesome. On to the next.

Instead I Pour the Milk*

Still no sleep. It doesn’t help that I don’t think about solutions to not sleeping until 1:23 AM. Honestly, I should have just gotten back out of bed and gone and meditated and then come back. Worst case it wouldn’t have shut the brain up and I still would’ve been awake around 3. It’s only around 3 that I remember all the things that help. If I’d done them earlier. So hiking 3 miles at 3 AM is not a plan. Although it would be cooler out.

No. I’m not done ironing. What happened? Ugh. The day happened.

I’m so freakin’ close! Actually should have just stayed up last night and ironed until I was done…except I was tired. Not good to choose fabrics when you’re tired.

So one thing I did yesterday was this flyer…

I’m doing GISH again, the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt. My whole team is not in San Diego…and only one of them is not a newbie. We will not win. I don’t care. I drew the flyer, posted it on Insta (which is why I think it’s OK to post it here…I can’t post the other stuff until the thing is fully judged, which is ages away). It’s basically a week of doing weird things. My goal is one a day. I drew this two days ago, and then posted it in a nearby Starbucks, and then went and found 3 other flyers and pulled tabs to prove I’d completed the task. Then last night, I drew my Mind Palace. Piece of cake. You’ll have to wait to see it.

I did other things, including cooking, but then I finally ironed a bit. Not a lot. The heat is hard. This is the last female figure though…the darks are not up against the background, but I realized her hair will have to be. So I’m considering another cloud to make that work.

Last-minute clouds.

Kitten slept through the whole mess.

So at 12:30 AM, this is what was left. It doesn’t look like much (it’s not), but mentally it was more than I could handle. Lungs, heart, hair, cat, dick pic.

I have this pile of stuff I’ve been using…

Plus all these…

And here’s the box, oh so full. I should be cutting out sometime today.

Really, there’s so few pieces left. Oh damn…another set of leaves…forgot about them.

I’m at 25 hours, so I wasn’t that far off in my estimate. I have no jury duty today, but I have to call again tonight. Sigh.

Before I can iron, I need to go to the chiropractor (ah yes) and get my blood tested. Pretty sure it’s too early in the new diabetes medicine for anything to have changed. So she’s gonna wanna see me again relatively soon. Sigh. Everything has taken so long this summer, and tomorrow is when I start worrying about school officially. Although we did a lot of it already. I just need to rework my warmup process. That’s a big thing. Plus I really need to copyedit this thing I’ve got. And trim the damn bougainvillea. Boychild and I have a plan for that, but it can only happen in the late afternoon. I can’t deal with the heat. Stupid Northern Euro biology. Heat kills us.

Progress though. It’s all about progress.

*Suzanne Vega, Tom’s Diner

It’s No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry*

This summer, the heat is really getting to me. I don’t have a lot of extra money in general…even less so during the summer…but I’m sort of currently obsessed with installing A/C in my office for NEXT summer…and maybe the bedroom as well. Although I think my lack of sleep is more about noise (of the ceiling fan) and my brain not shutting down properly than about temperature…so A/C in there won’t help. It’s hard to say. I’m currently fighting heat rash on the inside of my elbows from ironing…I think if I could get my sliding glass door to open in here, that would help at night. I’m ironing more at night because (in general) it’s cooler. It’s at least dark. Sometimes there’s a breeze. So today, my plan is to get the sliding door to open and to finish the ironing. Then I go on to cutting things out…and YES, I’m a good three days behind where I wanted to be, but that’s reality, so you just suck it up and move on. I have no jury duty today, but there’s no guarantees on the rest of the week, and after this week, things get hinky. Sigh.

Anyway, I did manage just about 7 hours of ironing over the weekend…not great, but progress. My total is currently almost 22 hours, so maybe I will finish at about 25 hours. Hard to say at this point.

So let’s walk through the weekend. I entered another show on Saturday morning and did some techy stuff to help with that group. Kitten helped.

Calli also helped. She’s especially helpful when I’m trying to walk across this small room to get to the drawers of blue fabrics. Usually she leaves after I do that a few times.

More sleepy Kitten. She’ll be 10 in two weeks.

So the first thing I needed to do was pick the fabrics for the hill behind everything. I did finally decide on greens (no florals though)…and I dumped the last one…the lightest one…because it was too busy. I found another interim one and bumped the second-to-last one down.

I really like that fabric, but busy isn’t good for backgrounds…usually.

This is a lot of fabrics for what was two tiny figures on the hill.

I’m having to pull a different flesh run for every body…in this case, only a hand. It means I’m using a lot more fabrics than usual.

This was the pile before we left on Saturday for the man’s show…

And this is the to-be-cut pile. Growing growing growing.

Interesting wall near the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. I really like this wall…wish I could afford to put one in my yard.

So we had to be up there early so the band could set up, but I wasn’t allowed in (no problem)…so I found a coffee shop and drew. I have a piece that needs to be done by the end of October.

This drawing is pretty close actually. There’s some things I would change.

I ate and read my book and then walked back to the show…this wall was on the way.

No doubt about that.

Announcement board…

Here’s that drawing so far. Tree needs stuff. I think the whole thing needs more space. Not sure about the bottom leg.

In the Belly Up, we had an hour wait for the opening act…so I drew some more.

And another one…

The show was great…they did well. Hopefully it will turn into more shows for them. I don’t get to see all of the shows…the next two are high school reunions, so those are harder for me to get into (I do crash some things). I guess that means more artmaking time. On a Saturday night. Ugh. I do like to make myself get out of the house and do stuff, but sometimes, making art is easier.

So I started ironing late on Sunday. Got up late, did a bunch of stuff, groceries and all. This is the run for the next human…a light one.

I had to move 3 of the now 5 boxes of fabrics being used in this quilt so I had enough room on the ironing board…it’s the three smaller boxes on top of the grays. I’m still pulling from those boxes.

One of the fabrics I picked had a piece ironed to it…from I DON’T KNOW WHAT. Seriously. I obviously forgot about it, and probably had to cut it from something, but it’s a very low number. Strange. Maybe that small quilt with the hand?

Kitten is still holding down the fort. She likes to be near me, but isn’t keen on being out in the living room. This feels safer for her.

At some point, I looked at the clock and went Huh. OK. Well past bedtime. Wide awake, brain racing along, but I knew I’d have to pee both dogs and I’d be woken up at 6 AM and you’d think I could fall asleep that late, but no…my brain was going overtime on the next figure and how to make it stand out from the background. Sigh. I need to get the brain under control before school starts.

So the pile grows.

More today. I think I’m in the 1400s at the moment. I lied. I’m in the 1500s…about halfway through, but a huge chunk of that is leaves, so they’re all chunked together and will get ironed in one fell swoop. So I have about 350 pieces left. Easy peasy.

I did some Palestrina knots on the hippo last night at the parentals…

Almost done. OK, need a shower, some food, finish ironing, do some GISH stuff (google it), wash a sleeping bag, try to clean a tent that was immersed in Madagascar mud (yup, it’s been a while), and maybe check some other stuff off the to-do list. Running out of days. I start looking at school stuff August 1. I need to put my classroom back together too. Ugh. Don’t wanna.

*a-ha, Take on Me

I Know You Can Make It Good*

Hey world. It’s a Saturday morning. Looks a lot like all the other mornings except one of the household is still asleep. What have I done so far today? Perused the GISH list (google it…too late to enter) and decided on a few things I might be able to do today, transferred money so my mortgage payment won’t bounce (ah, the month with no paycheck), balanced the kid money output, and ordered about 250 folders for school…which will show up just in time and end up on the NEXT credit card bill, which I might actually be able to pay, because I will have a paycheck. Oh wait, I did get paid for that one day of jury duty…not covering the mortgage or the folder order. I’m not off the hook for jury duty either…I don’t have any duty Monday, but they didn’t release me from the whole week this time, so who knows. I’m hoping it’s a no go next week, because I don’t have time for it, but I don’t get to decide those things.

I know, really, all I’m doing is running errands, planning for school, and MAKING ART. Not really civic duty. Should be ready to serve. Blah. Pros: doing my duty. Air conditioned. Cons: the rest of it.

Tonight I’ll be watching the man at his first ever show at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach…he’s very excited. I think it’s cool, having seen a lot of amazing music there. I do have to be there 2 hours before the doors open, though, so you can find me in a local bar with my sketchbook, trying to draw the next piece and finish some GISH stuff if my brain can get there. I should find some food while I’m doing that. My requirements for a drawing bar? Food, wine (not just beer or cocktails), and a big enough table that I can draw on, or prop the sketchbook on, without people staring too rabidly at me (well, that’s a thing). So I have a couple of choices…none of their Yelp reviews tell me if I will get what I want, although I already pulled two off the list for no seats or not enough space. We’ll see.

Ironing yesterday was a total fail. By the time I cleaned up and ate and bought cat food, I only got in about 3 hours before I had to leave for gaming…I did stitch at gaming though…

I got the sun done and started working on the hippo. Almost done with this month…this month being July 2015, just to be clear.

It’s taking forever though. But gaming ran late. I thought I might be able to get in an hour or two, but was too tired and went to bed. Today is also going to be a little like that…oh well. Goals shattered. What’s new?

Here’s the heart of one of the female figures.

And I took this picture of the piles before I left for gaming, sure I would come back and straighten them up for the next batch of pieces (I didn’t).

And the box so far. Yesterday, I ironed graffiti, two walls, some bits and pieces on one woman…and that’s it. I’m just under 1100 pieces done. So almost 800 to go. Sigh. I wanted to be further along by now.

Oh well. Today? More pieces. Goal? I have to leave in 6 hours. I need to shower and eat at least twice in that time period…so that’s a lost hour, plus pack up stuff. It would be realistic to say I could get 4 hours done today. I won’t be done…but I’ll be more done than I was yesterday.

All the animals today…Kitten in her safe spot (she leaves this spot when I’m gone…).

Satchemo trying out the sink. Kitten does it, so why shouldn’t he?

Simba with his sad face on.

Calli after her first dunk in the pool (she had two)…

Poor old lady. The dog, not me. My feet hurt and my hips were bugging me last night (just a sign I need to walk more often). I couldn’t fall asleep last night…I remember 3 AM. I’m a little groggy this morning, but that’s why I drink tea. Got more milk yesterday so I can keep doing that. Looking forward to some drawing time tonight, some significant ironing progress today, and watching the band play. Sounds like a good Saturday.

*Peter Gabriel, Don’t Give Up

Sat by the River and It Made Me Complete*

So I just realized it’s Friday. And I go back to school in 3 weeks. I’m not ready. I never am. It’s not that I don’t like my job…I actually do like my job. I’d rather do my job than a million other jobs. It’s the time commitment. Every summer, I read a hundred articles about how to be a more efficient teacher, to spend less time grading and more time connecting. Last year sucked for that. I need to do better at that this year. It’s not the kids who are amazing or even not so amazing but will actually respond when you work with them…it’s the ones that refuse to do anything even after you’ve used everything in your teacher toolbox to entice them to actually turn something in. Those are the ones who suck it out of me. I spend so much mental energy on them. There were a lot of those last year. After 15 years of teaching, I still don’t have the magic solution to those kids. Frustrating.

But I have three weeks before I have to start dealing with all that. Three weeks when there is no way in hell I won’t know what day it is. So I should use that time wisely. Making art, really. OK, I have a copyediting job too and a bunch of house and yard stuff I haven’t even touched. As always. I still have one more week of jury duty call-in. I don’t think I’ll get called, but you never know.

On my mind today? The over 700 kids who couldn’t be reunited with their families…due to some mealy-mouthed crap from the government that really didn’t plan this shit out in the first place. So some of these kids have now experienced significant trauma that might continue for the rest of their lives. Thanks Repubs. Appreciated. You know they train teachers in trauma now? How to deal with trauma, shooters, abuse…fun stuff. Is it the government’s place to cause more trauma? I would hope we would be on the side of alleviating it instead of creating it.

So my original goal this week was to iron 6-8 hours a day and hopefully be done today. Ha! OK, so not going to be done today. Maybe tomorrow? But doubtful. I did iron almost 7 hours yesterday…I have almost 13 hours in…so about halfway in the guesstimated time, but no way am I halfway through the pieces. I’m in the 800s, but there are a bunch that aren’t ironed from the last woman.

I totally forget to photograph stuff while I’m ironing to fabrics…it’s just piles of stuff. Oh yeah, I walked the dog when it got cooler too. The other dog went with the boychild to his dad’s house. But this one needed exercise and I keep forgetting to do it.

It’s good for me too. Although my foot is really sore this morning. Damn foot.

Here’s the run for the third woman I ironed last night.

Usually there’s maybe 2 humans in a quilt…this one has 9 I think. Not counting the baby. The mermaid earth mother was purple and green. Then two shadow women were gray. One has a baby, also gray. Then the woman in the water, sort of pinky purple, black hair, green eyes. I looked at the other people and tried to decide how I would do each of them. I didn’t draw them originally with particular races or genetic traits in mind…well, except for one of them. I just want a range of womanity. So the next woman I ironed is the browns on the left of the picture below. I kept them out, because the hill behind her was going to be brown as well, but I have just now, right this second, questioned that. Why brown? Why not green and florals? Seriously? Some of what goes on in my head is contrast…how to make the figures pop. But this is a really busy quilt and maybe it’s less about the figures popping on what’s behind them and more about the overall look? I’m not sure. I color these in my head as I pick stuff…so it’s recoloring right now as I type this. I think it’ll be a while (hours?) before I get to the hill behind her, so maybe I’ll change my mind. Or not.

I’m going to have an issue with one of the women on the top of the hill, to make sure she shows up on the background. We’ll see. That’s 900 pieces away, I think.

This is all the fabrics I’ve used so far…plus the box of all the ironed pieces.

That is not a small number of pieces. This thing is big.

Not thinking about school. I’ll get some official email next week about school stuff. Even then, I planned ahead. I do have to put my classroom back together, but I’m pretty sure it’s not done yet (the floors need 6 coats). So I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do that. August 10th? Maybe. Hopefully.

Today? I’m not going to get 7 hours of ironing in. But maybe 5? That’ll be my goal. Another 5 tomorrow? I still don’t think that will be enough. Hmmm. Well, I’m progressing, so that’s good.

*Keane, Somewhere Only We Know

Working on It…

Ah, my head is filled with things. I have to admit to being a hermit when I’m head down, making a piece. I don’t watch the news, I rarely read it, I barely surface for meals, I don’t leave the house if I can help it. Sometimes bits and pieces of it surface when the people around me say something, and then I fall down a Google rabbit hole. I heard about Nia Wilson a few days ago, but didn’t follow up until this morning. Young woman of color, killed randomly (or not? probably not.). Shit. This world sucks for women in general, but add color to the mix and it explodes in their faces. Imagine as a mom…I worry about my kids all the time, but they’re white. It’s a million times safer to send them out into the world than if they were of color. It’s interesting (or telling, maybe) that so many times, we hear that the white murderer has mental issues…does this make it OK? Sure, the US does not manage psych issues well…there are very few ways to get some people help, but still…WHY did he murder a young black girl and try to kill her sister? Sigh. There is so much violence. None of it is OK, but it’s hard to believe racism wasn’t part of this death. If you raise your children to be blind to racism (and perhaps I didn’t do enough there…I constantly check myself in the classroom, with race, culture, religion, and gender…did I do enough?), then you are part of the problem. It isn’t enough to treat all races, cultures, religions, and genders the same (is equality enough? No, equity is the aim…make up for the privilege)…you have to acknowledge that there are stereotypes and incorrect beliefs in play. Constantly. I know this is something I try to do All the Time in my classroom. Do I do it everywhere else? Nope. I’m sure I don’t. Working on it.

So that’s in my head as I’m starting to pick out fabrics for this new quilt, which is hard to explain in terms of theme, but has more distinct human figures in it than any quilt I’ve ever made (they’re all female…which is another issue I keep going over in my head…the thought of gender and how it determines what we are, or not, and how to portray alternate gender issues from my perspective, which seems woefully incomplete). In my last multiple-women quilt, I had a long moment where I was troubled by my own whitewashing of experience. So much of my work is interior, based on my experience, not quite autobiographical, but mostly…yeah…me. So self-centered, white, but we do what we know? I can’t speak for others. But this quilt is about a wider experience of female, about viewpoints and issues and saving the Earth…really, it’s my brain on the news, a small portion of the news. Not all the women in the quilt are meant to be white. More of a universal womanscape…so my brain is percolating over whether it’s even OK for me to talk about immigration when it doesn’t affect me directly, unless you consider my students who are affected by it. But I won’t be deported. I won’t be torn away from my children (this pains me so greatly, those parents who were sent back without their children…WTF are the people in charge thinking, and if you say to me that those parents DESERVE that because they brought their kids up here, I will let loose in a rant about safety and asylum so verbose that the words might bury you). But there is immigration in the quilt. And pollution. And birth. And loss. And abortion. And breastfeeding in public. And the male gaze. Dick pics. Geez. And how to portray women of color in a way that doesn’t perpetuate racism or stereotypes or assumptions. I’m working on it.

It’s not pretty. It probably won’t get into the show for which I’m making it. That’s OK. I think sometimes I have to make these just to get some of this shit out of my head. Although getting this…Nia?…out of my head? Not happening. Love to her family. May she receive justice, although I don’t think that ever makes up for a death. If John Cowell is really mentally ill, maybe he will get the help he needs, but that will never make up for killing an 18-year-old woman.

We have to speak up. Us white folks, we have to hold the world accountable, best we can. Better than we can.

With all that in my head, here’s a rattlesnake skin picked up on the last hike…

Yeah, I just left it on the hat rack. Like you do.

I started ironing yesterday with the oil slicks. I got fabric for that.

Hell, I’ve got fabric for everything. Who am I kidding?

Then all the water…this took a while, both to pick and to iron.

I took a break. Satchemo enjoying the breeze with the second tower of Wonder Under pieces. Hopefully he won’t knock that over.

Boychild made dinner. This incorporation of three people into meal choices can be difficult.

‘Twas tasty.

Then I saw this message in multiple places explaining the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo’s official reason for removing the Threads of Resistance exhibit from their last two shows…

Um. Yeah. Right. (cough…bullshit). Hey, I don’t have a problem with your pulling it because your sponsors and vendors objected and threatened to pull out…but be honest about it, please? Sure, your vendors and sponsors don’t want to be called out, but hell, this world would be a better place with some sincere honesty. Then I can look at the sponsors and decide if that’s where I need to focus my efforts next (there are three sponsors listed whose products I use all the time…). I find that often the negative comments are so loud that vendors and organizers can’t hear the positive comments. Maybe they need to hear those. Louder. Like, I made my Threads of Resistance quilts USING YOUR PRODUCTS. I have a Viking sewing machine. I use Sulky threads. I use Wonder Under. I buy fabric from just about ALL the companies. My batting is Warm and Natural. There. Those guys. (By the way, none of them have given me anything for free…)

I’m back to this, although having a wool quilt on your lap in summer is still an issue. I haven’t been working on it at all.

Time to get the balls done. Seriously.

Then back to ironing. I set a goal for yesterday of 6-8 hours of ironing…I made 6. Every time I took a rest (from standing and the heat in here of ironing under bright lights with little air flow), I would let myself sit for a bit and then I would say, I need to go back to ironing. It worked.

Here’s the mermaid earth mother…all in greens and purples.

I still need to do her internal organs and her hair. I quit just after midnight. I was tired.

So I’m in the 400s, but there are some of the 300s that aren’t ironed yet. The pile of stuff to be cut out and the pile of fabrics used so far.

Based on yesterday, it’s going to take more than 25 hours, but not much more. Today’s goal? Another 6-8 hours…hopefully on the longer end of it, because I’m starting earlier. Although I might need to leave the house. I can’t handle anything else when I’m in this space, in this head space. Careful introspection of how to depict women of color in this quilt. Sometimes I just want to make them all rainbows, but that’s a cop out too. Working on it.

Is It Because It’s True*

I have no idea what I thought I would get done yesterday. I know I did some stuff, but it never feels like enough…although I’m sitting in my studio at the moment and it’s almost sort of clean. And I know I should go to the gym today, but honestly, I just wanna iron. Even though it’s hot today and the gym is air-conditioned, I want to get going on this quilt. I parsed out the time in my head last night that this quilt needs while trying to fall asleep (this is probably partially why I can’t sleep at the moment), and it’s going to be tight. I have people visiting and things I can’t take with me on trips and school starting and people gone and it just is too much. Plus art exhibits that need entering all over the freakin’ place. Deep breaths. It’s summer. Yeah? It is. Relax. Ha! Don’t know how.

No more political stuff today, no more worrying about censorship today…just going to make the art I make and then I’ll get irritated with the universe again when there’s time and space for it. Not today.

So after all the chaos with the portable air conditioner and trying to make space for it in here and justify the expense, and not falling asleep (again) because my brain was trying to debate its usefulness and what else I could do in here when it’s really only a problem maybe 10-20 days a year, a REAL problem. So it’s gone. We returned it. I say we, because it weighed like 70 pounds, so even moving it was a problem. Boychild is useful. Sigh. In the long term, it probably makes sense to put in a wall A/C unit in the space where the never-used TV is (I watch the computer now). But not in summer…in winter, when they’ll charge me less. So today we sweat. And you’ll remind me in the next few months, as this hellacious summer continues through October, that I decided against A/C in here. It’s supposed to be 106 degrees today. In July. It’s never this hot in July. Makes me afraid of August and September, when we get our worst heat.

Anyway, once the sun got full overhead, I went out and sorted Wonder Under in the other (much hotter) room…although there is more light in there now too, with the trees trimmed…we still need to go whack the shit out of the bougainvillea that went up into the tree, but that will require a chainsaw. And a cooler day.

Strangely, the guy hasn’t shown up for payment yet. I’m sure he will. I’m so glad he didn’t make lollipops out of my trees.

Properly laced, those are. Hallelujah. Now to save up for the next two.

So it took about 2 hours to sort all 1900 or so pieces.

With two fans blowing on me. Luckily, they are low enough that they don’t blow pieces out of the boxes once they’re in there, although I did have to chase after a couple that got blown out of my hand while placing them.

Time-consuming, but necessary in the long run.

Then after dinner, I headed in here to try to straighten it up for ironing. It looks packed because it is. But I put away all the fabric from the last quilt, plus straightened up in general after trying to fit the air conditioning unit in here. Really, this room needs a major remodel and culling. I do a little every once in a while, but it’s not enough. I have drawers of fabric I can’t even access at the moment, which is silly. But it’s worked for a long time…I just need more logical storage.

The drawing is hung. I’m almost ready to iron.

I sorted the first 100 pieces, but then I was too damn tired to start ironing. So that’s today.

Kitty standoff.

So I figure the ironing will take about 25 hours. My left foot is still bugging me, so I’m going to STRETCH like a good girl and wear my Crocs because they are squishy and not as hard as a concrete floor and I’m going to take breaks, but I want to be done with ironing by Saturday when I leave for the man’s show. Can I do that? I can. It won’t be easy. But I can. Honestly, I should be able to do it in three days, but we have gaming Friday night…so I’m giving myself that extra time. A plan! I have a plan! Which I will inevitably screw up, but that’s OK…that’s life. I find I do much better if I try to make a plan.

*Jem, They