Some People Call Me Maurice*

Well, luckily I’m not one of those people who looks at what happens the first day of the year and decides that’s how the whole year is gonna play out. Sigh. I’m definitely in a mood though. Late start on this today…had to get up and buy cake mix to make a birthday cake for the kid who is camping in the middle of nowhere to avoid a birthday dinner. Whatever. And my grandma died yesterday. I knew it was coming…but that never really makes it easier.

Grandma would have been 108 this month…I know she was depressed and tired of her existence, but she was still active up until a few months ago. This is one of my favorite pictures of her. She was beautiful, sassy, and funny. I was supposed to go visit her last week or this week, but couldn’t get anyone to go with me. I knew she wouldn’t recognize me, so I didn’t really want to go alone. But it’s probably better to remember her like this anyway.

Sad.

The boychild was supposed to check in with me. The girlchild finally texted him. I guess unless the bunnies learned how to use the phone, this is proof he was alive.

Although this morning, he sent me this…so at least we know he’s seeing cool stuff.

Girlchild and I took the dogs on a long walk…

More for us than them, I think. Lots of people out on the trail on the first day of the new year.

Although not a lot on this portion…

I felt a need to hike all the way out to this thing. They REALLY don’t want us on there. It’s so tempting because of that.

More weird landscapes in the wildlife reserve…

The weather was nice, not too warm. The dogs were fine, although Simba had to sniff everything.

Here he is conked out on the girlchild. He’s getting supremely spoiled.

I finished grading the big school assignment and input all the grades so far. I have two assignments left, one of which I’m leaving for my TA. Then there are 70 emails with makeup work. I don’t have to finish those this week. I could. But I don’t have to. Tomorrow, I have two hours of professional development as well. Whoopee. Hopefully it will be useful. I did get to choose what I wanted to develop…although honestly, as an introvert, I’d rather stay home and do it. Just give me the damn slides with links and let me do it by myself.

I’m still pushing thread through glue on this. A sharp needle helps. I’m amused by the spacing at the end. I’ve only done the lighter purple letters. I’m debating using orange or lime green on the dark purple letters. Then I have two more blocks to finish. I’m not particularly fast at this.

I’m doing that in the evening instead of the stitch a day…I’m not doing that again. It was cool, but I’m done.

Then I sorted all the pieces for the little quilt that’s in process.

I’m going to work on that a bit today, then do some drawing, maybe try to grade the one last assignment, and go to the gym. Finish my book. Put all the wrapping accoutrement (no, WordPress, you don’t know how to spell that) away. I’m making a cake. Mail my holiday cards. That’s about it. I’m sad…about grandma, about the boychild being gone on his birthday. This is the first birthday I’ve missed with him. 2017 was the first birthday I missed with the girlchild. I guess that’s when they’re really grown up, eh? Or antisocial.

I will try to work through the sad today and turn it into some sort of artistic achievement day. Because. That’s best.

*The Steve Miller Band, The Joker

Walking Dogs

Hello 2018! I’m already 17 pages into a (it was blank) notebook for the new year…trying to be organized and mindful and all that stuff that we always start with and lose track of about 30 days in. Seriously. I’m not doing the dishes today because I cooked the last two meals. I’ll be walking the dogs later because dogs. Yeah. The boychild left this morning to camp in the middle of nowhere by himself, because he’d rather do that than go out to dinner for his birthday. Well. OK. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but he must have needed it. Hopefully he is safe and relatively warm. I will worry about him the whole time, because I gave birth to him and so I have a permanent umbilical cord attached to him (oh crap, a drawing idea just popped into my head). Both of them really. Plus he has my car. He goes back to college in a few weeks and then graduates and moves back home to do who-knows-what and the girlchild is off to Madagascar in three weeks, where I will alternately worry my ass off about her and be completely and totally jealous. Yeah. Well.

In totally awesome news, I’m starting a commissioned piece today and am really looking forward to trying to make something cool for her. I have two weeks to come up with a drawing…there’s stuff floating around inside my head that needs to coalesce and flow down through the pen onto paper. I’ve pushed off a lot of the other deadlines I might look at right now because last year was SO MUCH deadlining that I can’t handle that any more. This is good though…there’s a few things that need to go in the drawing, but they’re easy. I’m excited to finally start this!

And then I have three smaller quilts I want to make sometime this year, drawings I did last year that really speak to me. Plus there are two shows coming up in the fall that I want to make work for, but that’s a long way out and I don’t need to worry about it right now. So I guess that’s my plan for the year…simple, right? Ha! You know as well as I do that a whole bunch of new stuff will try to insert itself into that plan. It’s OK…I’m used to that.

I do like to do a little picture of all the quilts from the just-finished year, so here’s that…

Eight quilts this year…from top left to right: I Can’t Be Your Superwoman, Some Like It Hot, MomSleep (revised from 2016), We Won’t Go Back, You Pollute Me, Rooted in America, The Government Made Me Do It, and last, but not least, Not Less Than. May there be an equivalent number in 2018.

If you’re waiting on my holiday cards, they’re going out tomorrow. I had to print more and the ink is being cranky about drying.

So here’s the boychild testing out Grandpa’s tent in my living room. He doesn’t usually use a tent, but he also usually doesn’t have a car…so he took firewood and a cookstove and an ice chest even. Very exciting for him, I think. It’s almost glamping compared to what he normally does.

I’ll go buy cake supplies and make him a birthday cake, even though he won’t be here for the day. The kid likes cake. If he’d given me any warning that he was gonna do this, I would’ve made cupcakes and sent some with him. I had no warning…literally the afternoon before he left, he posited that he would do this and he would need my car and would I let him steal it. And sure, I could have said no, but I don’t actually need it until Wednesday (we have a spare car here that I can arm wrestle the girlchild for), and he is obviously trying to separate from the family unit…which must be hard when you know you have few documented job skills and very little money. I was lucky not to have to move back home (much) after college. It’ll take him a while to get out, I think.

Meanwhile, the girlchild is still recovering from the last semester and detoxing from caffeine overload.

This requires a lot of sleeping and quinoa. And videos of dogs.

I finished the 365th day on this. Done. It was an interesting experiment. I think I’m going to go ahead and piece it into a small crazy quilt and then work on that this year, but I have a couple other things that need to happen first…

All black fabrics, I’m thinking…and then a bunch of embroidery. But less than in the center. Maybe really small blocks? Maybe small crazy-pieced blocks with narrow bits and a larger center bit for a motif. I’m freaking out because I’m totally seeing a face on the right side…with that wave curve as the nose. There are three eyeballs in this thing. And a hand. It’s not the most normal thing in the world. Shockingly.

Then I finished cutting out the little quilt that’s been in process since June. I’m probably going to try to iron it together over the next couple of days. It’s easy enough to do.

When I look at what uses up the most brainpower when I’m making art, it’s the drawing and the choosing of fabrics that’s the hardest…this is just putting together what already came together in my head. So I’ll draw, sure, but I’ll do this in the moments in between. Because I go back to school in a week. And I should have some artmaking time in there. It’s harder to do once I go back. Vacation should have the stuff you really like to do. It’s true that Winter and Spring breaks rarely have much of that, but that’s just because being a teacher takes up too much life time in the beginning. I can say all I like that I’m going to balance it all better, but if I put off something for school, it all starts to pile up, and then I find myself buried again.

Let’s not think about that today, the first day of the new year. Let’s go walk some dogs and draw some stuff and iron something together and maybe watch some bad television while grading the last of that hellish project. Yup. Gonna do that.

All That

Ah, December 31, the last day of the year, the day you evaluate everything that happened in the last 365 days (hint: you only remember the super ups and downs mostly) and try to make resolutions for the next 365 days. Is it a leap year? Nope. Then I don’t have to come up with a plan for one more day. Oh good.

As a teacher, I usually make my resolutions in June (I am NEVER doing that again, stuff like that) or August (That would be a GREAT idea, but if it’s not, then it just quietly slides back into the mud or I angst about it for a while before it slides). I resolve to keep trying to make art every day, to keep trying to balance my job and my personal life, to keep the house less chaotic. I will fail horrifically at the last two and soldier on with the first. So there we are. I’d like to try to meditate every day again, but I made that resolution back in August and have sucked mightily at it every day since then. I would also like to exercise more…more dog walks, more hikes, and more gym visits. Maybe that’s the only thing I need to keep in my head…it is probably the most important at the moment.

I’m going to make a list of stuff that needs doing around the house…then maybe some of them will happen. My house is seriously in need of repair, after 15 years post-divorce with no spare cash to fix stuff, let alone remodel. I made it through the living room area, but there are other spaces that need help, and maybe this is the year we start that. I guess last year’s great accomplishment was cleaning out the garage…that was 20 years of accumulation. Thanks to the boychild for that assist. Maybe I should aim for this summer being the great studio/office redo…pull the wallpaper and the peeling flooring, which means pulling My Fabric Stash outta here, and then redoing all of it. New window would be nice. Certainly a cleaner space. Not sure it’s doable, but it’s certainly something I can put on the list, maybe price out what flooring would cost for one of the smallest rooms in the house. Next on the list? A bathroom. Or three. A kitchen. See, those are all big expenditures. Not happening with college still on the to-pay list.

But the brain, it thinks about things to change. Actually making change is hardest. As always.

Some things never change. Dog hugs.

Yesterday, we went to a basic falconry class that was a Christmas present…it was very cool, not just to see the birds up close, but to learn about how they’re trained…and that they can fly away at any time when hunting.

Beautiful birds…the one above is a falcon; below is a Harris hawk.

It was a beautiful day, nice location. I’ll hopefully have photos of my experience sometime soon.

Afterward, there was food and drink…this ice pattern was the closest we got to winter here in sunny Southern California. Where climate change continues to affect us, right?

I came home and had some time before the next event…realized I was 4 days behind on this and did some filling in at the top to make it less bumpy.

Tonight will be the last stitch on it.

Then out to see the band, at a campground on the bay. Strange venue, with the band inside this building with the ice cream store, but all the chairs outside. So I sat out there and listened and drew…not surprising to see this after watching them up close.

I’ve always drawn birds, but rarely look at photos of them. They’re all fantasy birds. These guys had such long feathered legs and a square stance. I put him in this drawing…

And then drew this after a long, drawn-out and semi-torturous text thread with the kids about dinner tonight, which the parental units rejected in the end. Whatever…

I’m kind of annoyed with the whole world at the moment. Probably need to get out and about and get some shit done for that to change.

I came home to a cat who wanted to be up close and personal. Not a lap cat. A chest cat. My chin resting on you cat.

Too close. Can’t stitch. Pushed him off and worked on the blocks from the Social Justice Sewing Academy. Sewing through glue sucks. But I got more done. So that’s a plus.

I’m not ready to look 2018 in the eye yet. I’m having a hard time getting too excited about it. Maybe that’s why people make resolutions? I don’t know. Like close out the year and write it off, have gratitude for the good things, resolve to change the bad things. Then it’s a tool for change. OK. Well. I’m still gonna have an idiot as President. I’m still gonna be making art about it. I’m working on some other stuff, positive stuff. I made some changes in 2017…I’ll make some changes in 2018. You’ll see them here. Have a good New Year’s Eve tonight…stay safe and warm as needed. Think I’m gonna read my book and go for a walk and stitch some. Cross some shit off a list. Pet some animals. Maybe play a game. Drink some tea. Eat a decent meal or two. Maybe draw. That. All that.

Things Will Happen Today

My feet are cold. It’s going to be in the 80s again today, but my feet get cold and I have to wear shorts and big fluffy socks all at the same time. This weirdo winter weather in Southern California…40s at night and 80s during the day. I know, I could be back East and freezing all my parts and not just my feet. I got that. Some rain would be nice here.

I didn’t get a whole lot of useful stuff done yesterday, except for some minor purging on the kitchen counters, which is a good thing (boychild is useful for that stuff). We threw out a bunch of old pens that were dead and bagged up the rest of the pens and pencils for school. Found the address I’d been looking for and had finally emailed someone to get. Of course. Organized the boxes of sundry kitchen items that pile up because I forget I’ve already bought them. Put all my Christmas gifts away. Today I will put away Christmas stuff, I think. Maybe. In between a raptor thing (cool!) and watching that band play (another episode of Draws in Bars! By the beach! But it will be cold, because it will be dark. So I will wear socks.). I wrote a commission contract and asked my dad to look at it, because I am not a lawyer and he is.

Artwise, I didn’t do much either. I did get my slowly flattening tire fixed, but not the tire sensor. It’s annoying that they are so expensive. Obviously the tire place has not seen the last two Visa bills. They are heart-stoppening. Not a word, I know.

Walked the dogs…a good solid three miles in the full heat of the afternoon. It felt hot but good.

The dogs were tired.

I needed to get out and walk off some of the irritation building up. I’m kind of irritated by all these studies going on in the wildlife preserve, but if I hike far enough out, they’re gone.

So I do that.

Tired dogs…I said that. But they were.

We had gaming at night. My character didn’t do much. Moved from one side of the temple to another. Dodged a flaming thing. Or a horror. Not sure which.

Block 20 is almost done…just need to finish the sheep.

Exciting stuff. Came home and cut out pieces. When boychild wants to go to bed, he brings me the puppy, who is fast asleep. Snuggles him up against me, where he continues to sleep.

I cut out a bunch, but there’s a shitload of tiny little pieces in there…overlapping tree parts. This crazy thing I drew. So I’m not done. But there’s not much left to do…

Next week starts to be full of school stuff. No, I still haven’t finished grading that thing. Ugh. I piled it up on the couch and I look at it and feel guilty. Too many little details of shit to get done in the next week. I guess it’s good I took some brainless days in there.

I finished another book, A Closed and Common Orbit, the second in a series by Becky Chambers. The first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, was good, but I thought this one was even better…all about AI trying to exist in our world when they aren’t allowed to do certain things. Very cool story. You don’t have to read the first one to get the second one…they are the same world. It would help with understanding, but it’s not crucial to the story. There’s a third book coming out in April.

Calli is better at brainless than I am. I was trying to get her off the couch to come to bed.

It took some persuading. OK. Gotta get ready to go falconing. Or something. I’m gonna need sunscreen…in December. I got sunburned yesterday. Duh. I never remember in the winter. Anyway, things will happen today. Not much will get done, I predict, but things will happen. Typical Saturday.

Wheels under $100

Well I’m currently sitting in a tire store, waiting on that slow leak finally getting fixed, listening to two evangelists explaining bitcoin to each other. Not by choice. I’m looking at just one more week off of school and a ton of stuff that needs to get done. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment…had a brief panicked moment on the way over here. There are a lot of people living in my house at the moment and it’s causing some tension…I could do with less of that I guess. I love having my kids home, but there is an adjustment period.

Yesterday was the doc for malaria and typhoid (girl child, not me), then to pick up my quilt and photos. This is Not Less Than…probably the last quilt of 2017.

She’s 64″w x 74″h…made for a group of fiber artists who have chosen things that matter to them, with the hope of exhibiting all the pieces together at some point. I chose women’s rights as being my thing that mattered. It’s obviously not the only thing I think matters, but my head keeps going back there, especially this year.

Those are the women we all carry in our heads, ancestors, descendants, all throwing out their wants, desires, concerns, what they fought for, what they expect: the right to vote, equal rights, the right to choose, respect for our abilities, our brains, fewer expectations based on our biological parts. So many things.

This year has been so frustrating politically. I can’t just sit here and ignore warning bells and red flags. I guess this is how I yell at the bullshit.

So that’s where I’m at with that one.

I did cut some more pieces out on this one. Maybe I’ll finish that today. After I finish all the other crap on the list.

Sleepy kitty. The dogs are gone more with the kids home. I miss them.

I finished quilting the one on the right…they’re both ready for trimming. I could do that today as well.

And grade stuff and put stuff away and finish the holiday cards and and and sheesh. Walk the dogs. That last one is probably a good thing for where my irritable brain is sitting. That one.

Break the Silence*

Who am I kidding? There’s no silence. My head is full of noise. I’m really not focusing at all. It’s OK. I went through the pile of stuff I have in my office/studio (really, it’s both) and found some stuff to work on. I’m not sure why some things just get put aside…I have drawings that are enlarged AND numbered, totally ready to become quilts. Put aside. I have drawings that are enlarged and taped, but need more drawing to bring them to completion. Put aside. Sometimes that’s a lack of further vision. I think it’s more commonly a lack of time. Some other deadline is more “important” for whatever reason. I have quilt tops that are pinbasted, waiting to be quilted for YEARS sometimes. Again, no urgency. I even have a few that are ready for binding…there was one that needed the quilting done, so I had started that a couple years ago after putting it aside for YEARS, because there was a place for it in a show, and then they pulled it. So I never finished…again. It’s kind of a weird quilt anyway…weird for me even. It’s probably OK if I don’t finish it.

So I went through that pile yesterday. Found this. I found this last January too, I think. I even started quilting it, and then I stopped for some reason. Not last January. Might have been when my machine died, whenever that was. Summer 2016? Honestly, it’s all a blur. This thing is old, let’s put it that way. Like early 2000s old. It really was just meant to be a vehicle for hand embroidery, so I’m gonna continue with that thought.

It was freehand cut with Wonder-Undered fabric. So I haven’t done that in ages. Anyway, there wasn’t much quilting left to do…

So I did it. Now I should trim it and bind it and then start the hand stitching. I guess technically it could get done in 2017, although that seems unlikely.

Girlchild has been working on our holiday “letter”, which is now a webpage. It was something else, but this makes more sense. It’s not done.

I need to do my part, and I think she has to finish her part.

Then I found this one, which I’ve dated to about 2007 (wait, I just found a post from December 23, 2007, where I had ironed this one down…obviously this purpose of this blog is to take the place of my brain, since it works haphazardly), based on the other bird-related quilts I did that go with it. It was the last one and obviously never got finished. There’s BirdHead, BirdSick, BirdWatch, and this is BirdLeg. I guess. Something like that.

Outline quilting first…

And then background quilting. I didn’t quite finish that before I had to feed every living creature in the house. But one.

Kitten moved around the office based on sunlight. And how annoying she could be by sitting on or in front of things.

I finally found a campsite I had been researching for about 2 days. That was good. Then we had game night…there’s nothing that brings people together like Cards Against Humanity.

Puppy sucked at it.

Then I found Yet Another quilt in progress. This one is from June. Of THIS YEAR. I had some time in between things, so I drew and numbered and Wonder-Undered back in June. And then sometime in the fall, I ironed to fabric. It’s a small quilt (for me), so it didn’t take long. I think it only has about 370 pieces in it. I started cutting them out yesterday, a chilly Satchemo curled up by my hip.

He’s actually quite warm. I didn’t finish. That’s OK too. So if I were focused, today I would finish the quilting on the foot. That’s what it’s called! BirdFoot…not leg. Damn. My memory is such a faulty hard drive. Then trim the two I finished quilting and find some binding in the stash for them. Bind them. Finish cutting this other one out. Start ironing it together. Grade that pile of stuff I moved onto the couch. Finish the holiday card and address labels. Check my to-do list. I hate that thing. Seriously. Although it keeps me on task. Aargh. If only I could focus. College payments done. Picking up quilt today from photographer, so I can enter the show it was made for…still waiting to hear on another one. Hopefully they will give enough time to ship. Plus I need to email about another one going into two shows. Ah, so busy. I want to draw, but can’t get the brain on task. I’ve spent 50+ years trying to get control of my brain. Ha! Still a work in progress.

*Depeche Mode, Enjoy the Silence

We’ve No Time for Later*

It’s interesting…when I don’t have a specific project to work on (yet), my brain just fails to work properly. Maybe that’s being on vacation too. I did work (on grading) for a good huge chunk yesterday and will probably do that again today, if just to finish this stupid grading assignment. That will take me down to just a couple, plus checking all the desperate emails that came in after kids realized I had posted their progress report grades but there was nothing they could do about them. I don’t really understand that logic, but I’m not 12.

Don’t get me wrong, I have 17 thousand things I could be working on. I have three (count them!) THREE pinbasted quilts, one art one and two not-art ones, that I could work on. I have one art quilt that is at the fabric-trimming stage, and if I got my act together, I could probably finish it this week. I really should do that. It would be a good use of my time. I’m kinda rebelling against “good use of my time” at the moment. I have about 4 blocks-of-the-month in various stages of completion (and I did work on one of those for a while, both on Christmas Day and yesterday). I could be drawing every day, all day. I haven’t drawn at all. I did finish a book, The Power, by Naomi Alderman.

Interesting take on the possible reversal of power if women were in charge instead of men. Apparently testosterone is not the problem…it’s just power in general. She may be right. It’s an interesting story nonetheless.

The girlchild gave me all the ingredients for a Moscow mule (or 17). I love the owl cups and will use them for milk and cookies as well.

My ~~main~~ only squeeze gave me a drawing by one of my favorite mural artists, Gloria Muriel…this is Lilith…

Christmas dinner was tasty, although I only managed to photograph the cheese plate. I loved that bean dip…gonna make more…

Simba was spoiled for attention…

Calli was patiently waiting for ball-throwing activities…of which there were few.

See Simba? Asleep now. My parents petted him to sleep.

I cannot explain this picture…

Girlchild cooked it all…

See the damn puppy again?

I came home and did some sewing to fill in spaces on the left again…trying to sort of flatten out some of the edges, so I can use it as a centerpiece for a crazy quilt maybe.

Still debating that. Meanwhile, I pinned 96 spots on this Sue Spargo quilt from 2013…which has been pieced for over a year. It took me that long to put the green border stem on and deal with the spots.

There are 5 colors…I started sewing on the darkest ones. I think there’s about 19 of each color, so I’m going to be doing this for a while. It’s very meditative. And then they need to be embellished.

Boychild gave me fabric for Christmas. Well. I dragged him to the quilt store and made him pick some fabrics out, because he drew my name for the Sunday night party. I picked the red and white one…he did the rest.

I like adding fabrics to my quilts that other people have picked. It widens my range. I’m sure I pick the same types of fabrics over and over.

Then I ironed and dehaired the big quilt for the photographer yesterday morning. It had a lot of hair on it. Damn cats. Really need to clean the floor in here before I start the next one.

Then I graded and went to the gym and graded some more and made my own dinner because everyone was gone and read my new book, which is also good, and then did more on the left side…

Satchemo not helping with photography.

And sewed on more dots. Yeah. Forever sewing on dots. Spots. Whatever.

I wish I could say I have a plan for today, but I do not. I’ve been trying to plan our Spring Break trip, which is a pain in the butt. I need to grade more of those projects, just to get them out of my hair. I need to finish the ~~Christmas~~ holiday cards and send them out. I need to find some focus, but honestly, I’m OK if that doesn’t happen until next week some time. I’m obviously in need of some down time.

*Frou Frou, Let Go

Worry About the Rest of It Tomorrow

Happy holidays y’all…I’m personally looking forward to a couple of quiet hours this afternoon with nothing to do but read or sew whatever I want…as I am not in charge of dinner and have already made the desserts for tonight, although they are Pinterest fails (best kind!). I think everyone is leaving soon except for the cats, at least for a few hours. I did all the food shopping and most of the present shopping, so I deserve some moments…someone else can Google how to cook a leg of lamb.

The animals are getting lots of love from everyone being home…

I stitched down bindings for about 3 hours on Saturday…with Satchemo as my trusty sidekick…

I didn’t put much on the tree this year…its branches are still a bit wispy…

So I made two desserts off of Pinterest, one from the girlchild and one other. This will taste fine, I think (I don’t eat chocolate), but that ganache decoration was a rancid pain in the ass, didn’t stick well (cutting these was fun), and kept bursting through the bag. It’s edible though.

These lemon cheesecake cookies are supposed to be flat. They’re tasty though. Room temperature probably means when the heat is on (for the butter). Although we are in Southern California, not Boston…

I finished the binding and sleeves on Christmas Eve, just before the first of three gatherings. I still need to ink the quilt (doing that this afternoon), but she’s going to the photographer tomorrow. Finis!

First gathering included an art event. Put the plate on your head and attempt to draw a Christmas tree without looking. Girlchild won.

Impressive. Calli is also enjoying more people (=more pets).

I caught up last night, two night’s worth on the left side, still filling in black spots.

Girlchild spent some time this morning with the pups again…

My dad showed up to Christmas morning in shorts.

More dog attention. Seriously, they got the best of it. We ate and opened presents, had a brief conversation with my brother (there was drama)…

Calli got a new ball. She’s happy.

Simba, Grandma, and the boychild…trying to figure out a phone, I think.

Notice very little stitching. Yet. I have 4 hours before I need to be anywhere! And I’m done cooking! I have a book due back to the library tomorrow, about an hour of inking to do on the quilt, and a wide variety of stitching things I could work on while watching television with no apparent goals! That might be the best gift of all. I’ll worry about the rest of it tomorrow. Hope the rest of you do the same.

We’ve No Time for Later*

OK a bunch of stuff I was supposed to do yesterday didn’t happen, but it’ll happen today, and I went grocery shopping at 8 PM to avoid the crowds, so that was a thing, but I’ll have to go out today to get the 5 weird ingredients the girlchild wants, well, one was buttermilk but that was gone at my local shitty store, so I’ll have to figure that out. It means venturing out into the land of crazy holiday drivers and irritating people and oh man, I’d rather hermit here in the house all day. But no. I will be a good girl (ha!) and shower and get out of my pajamas and do all the things. Including the emails I need to send and the shopping and cooking and whatever other stuff. Oh yeah, finish cleaning the girlchild’s room. I had help yesterday to put the quilts away, but two hours later, I realized I put one away that needs to come back out for a show. Oh well. I’ll have help with that too. It’s nice to have help. Even if they’re all judgy about the boxes I need to deal with that are still in the girlchild’s room. Fabricky stuff with which I know not what to do. It’s unlikely I will solve THAT problem today. Odds are I will just shove the boxes into my room and ignore them for a while longer. No it is NOT OK to just throw that stuff out. That pink fabric with the skulls on it could be useful, crucial even, in a future quilt. You just never know.

Today I need to find fennel and pepitas and brown mustard seeds. Could be a challenge. Remind me next year to tell the girlchild she has to come home in time to do the shopping, because it sucks.

So yesterday morning, I faced the vast expanse of just dark blue that needed quilting. I thought it would be pretty quick because I got about halfway (what I thought was halfway) in an hour, but then I didn’t realize I had a big space on the other side that I had left unquilted. So it was more like 2 1/2 hours of the boychild standing over me, because I told him he had to go to the quilt store with me, because he’s supposed to buy me a gift for another family thing, and he couldn’t decide, so I suggested fabric. I actually really like it when other people pick fabric for me, because they pick stuff I might never buy. And then I have it and use it.

Sometimes life (and sentences) are too complicated. This is dog on the outside, cat on the inside.

I finished the quilting in just over 16 hours, so 4 fewer hours than I had predicted. I don’t remember what I predicted for the binding…

I did two nights’ worth on here, all on the left side, filling stuff in still. Looking for something finished-ish by the 31st. Such rules.

Then I trimmed this beast…she ended up being about 64″w x 74″h.

Easy to trim. She needs ink too though. Gotta remember that. Here’s the binding fabric and the quilt, all on top of the cat’s chair.

She does not care. Until I move the chair.

Binding on…lots of maneuvering of big quilt under machine. It took about 3 hours to trim, sew binding and sleeves on, and pin them down for the hand-sewing part. I finished after midnight…

That red and green fabric fucking vibrates man. Hurts to sew on it.

Binding pinned…

Calli lying on it while I’m trying to pin it totally doesn’t help.

Right now, I’m having a fight with the cat over the chair (she likes this one better…I literally walked away to let the dogs in, just over a minute, and she had hijacked it). I need to eat and shower and do the have-to’s on the list so I can sit on the couch and binge watch something while sewing the 400 linear inches of binding and sleeves down by hand. Before going to get the girlchild, who is finally coming home, and gearing up for two full days of holiday interactions that might just kill this hermity introvert, even if most of them are actually blood relatives. Or maybe because they are blood relatives. At least there will be good food and wine and perhaps some stitching time (easier to do with my own family than with others’ fams). I need to do some drawing too, but think I will let my head just sit with some calm for a while. I need to do that. Notice I didn’t put grading in there. I might grade the one easy assignment. Maybe. Or wait. I’m definitely going to read more of my book…

*Frou Frou, Let Go

I Hide in My Music, Forget the Day*

I only quilted 3 1/2 hours yesterday. I got tired. I got into the big blue expanse of the top of the quilt and quit. I need to finish it today and go buy the binding. Then hopefully trim it and sew the binding on…although I might not get through all of that tonight. Hopeful though. I get sidetracked. What threw me off yesterday? Not sure. I did some computer stuff in the morning, then finished the last of the Christmas stuff, hopefully on that too, then came back and printed cards (which no way in hell are getting out of here before Christmas…just so you realize)…

I was a printmaker before I ever was a quilter. I took a “class” Thanksgiving week (I say class because I already know how to do this, but this was an impetus to do it), carved this linoleum block, and printed some then…and more yesterday. Usually I do a letter as well, but I haven’t been able to deal with that…think I’m going to do something online instead, like a slide show or something.

But one kid still isn’t home. I’m trying to coordinate grocery lists via text between here and Dallas (don’t even ask), because I’m going to have to shop without her (that was bad planning) tomorrow. So it’s a little chaotic. I only put up a few ornaments and decorations, and I’ll need to clean up a little…well, unless I think about the girlchild’s bedroom. I might panic if I think about that.

So I quilted eventually last night…then ate some food…read my book (it’s a good one)…

Yeah, that fabric…it’s good that I used it up here…yes, it’s Christmas fabric. Why do you ask?

I’m trying to quilt big, because this thing is large. I did get all the way around it, except for, like I said, that vast blue expanse in the top section, above the banner. That’s what’s left. It really won’t take me long. I just couldn’t deal with it last night.

Last night, we stayed up (too) late and partially planned our Spring Break trip. Made one reservation, because I panicked. It’s funny, because so many people are talking about bullet journals at the moment. I use something like this plus an online system and a calendar on the fridge (I need visuals!). I even have a drawn plan of my neighbor’s houses and their names in one notebook, because I’m always forgetting that.

Sure, it would be better if I had an index so I could find shit, but I have done that before, numbering pages on sketchbooks and making an Excel spreadsheet with columns for whether they ever become quilts or not (most don’t). And when…interesting to see drawings come back 6 years later and become something new. But I’m usually not that organized, which is problematic with the two journals I’m currently running. I can never remember what’s in what. One started out for art and is more than half full. I was carrying one around for school, but I think art wormed its way into that one too. Yeah. It did. And there’s only a little school stuff in there. We live on post-it notes at school…we were on real ones (I still use those because I can put them ON my notebook or computer and SEE them), but then we migrated to Google Keep…which is helping. I think. Because we can share notes. It’s not easy to migrate stuff between post-its though…at least, I haven’t found an easy way to do that yet. Plain old cut and paste is how I’m doing it. I wish you could click on it and move it to another note. That would be cool.

So yeah, I’m still pretty old school on art stuff though. I have a white board thing on my door with upcoming deadlines, although I’m about to erase all of them. I have notebooks. I have Google docs with deadlines and entries. The show that was supposed to notify yesterday pulled that date from their online info…sigh. I guess I’m putting everything away in the girlchild’s room anyway. I would have liked to have know beforehand if I needed to pull one out for shipping. So a busy day…but in a good way, I think. I’m not a fan of cleaning, but finishing the quilting will be good. Satisfying. Always.

*Boston, More Than a Feeling