Words First

Mondays are hard, even when you’re supposedly on vacation. Maybe it’s because the weekend brings all this hope of getting stuff done AND enjoying yourself and Mondays just feel like the day you have to work. And I do! I usually am copyediting on Mondays because I took the weekend off. So maybe that Monday feeling is my fault. I need to do the words first because they actually take more mental energy. Then I can do the art.

I redid the calendar on the fridge yesterday and realized that school is only four weeks away, but also, the girlchild is leaving before I even start school. And the boychild leaves less than a week after that. It’s certainly easier with other people in the house. Plus they entertain the puppy. I’m not looking forward to the exodus.

I ironed most of Saturday, over 4 hours…so I’m at 13 hours and 40 minutes so far. My sewing machine goes into the shop today, pick up on Wednesday…I don’t know if I’ll be done with the ironing Wednesday, because I have to copyedit today, plus we’re gonna hike. So those are kind of time sucks.

I started Saturday morning with the giraffe on the right…I think he started out in the 400s.

IMG_7432 small

I finished the giraffe and went on to do grapes and grape leaves…it’s fussy in here, because the ribs go over some stuff and under some stuff. Which is my own crazy.

IMG_7433 small

When I’m drawing, I don’t think about HOW it will get made, whether it will be a pain or not. When I was drawing all this earth-related stuff, I drew a homeless woman in there. Because she seemed like something an Earth Mother should be paying attention to…carrying close to her.

IMG_7434 small

She’s tiny, but she’s in there. With her shopping cart. The homeless population in San Diego and El Cajon has always been there…but lately it seems like we aren’t really helping them. Can we house all of them? I’d like to think we could house those who wanted it. I know a few don’t, but most of them do. But instead we do sweeps and tear their camps down, and we put up sharp rocks so they can’t sleep there or even sit there, and we carry all this fear about them. I’m sure they carry fear too.

IMG_7435 small

Then Saturday night, I went to the Visions opening and to watch a band in Pacific Beach…I got to see the sun go down at the pier.

IMG_7437 small

It was quite pretty out there, which makes up for the fact that most of PB smells like vomit and pee.

IMG_7439 small

Sunday was busy…Calli got to run after the ball a lot, which made her hot.

IMG_7462 small

Grandpa got gnawed on by Simba.

IMG_7466 small

And then I kept ironing…butterflies, cocoons, and poppies…

IMG_7467 small

A gecko…he was fun.

IMG_7469 small

And sometime after midnight, this happened. Because playing with the puppy after midnight means he might sleep through the night. Maybe. Actually, he was asleep, but we were trying to deal with a giant fur matt in his nether regions, and he woke up vicious and bitey. Both kids are involved…you just can’t see the boychild except in the shadow. If you throw balls down the hallway long enough, puppies get tired.

IMG_7470 small

While all that was going on, I was finishing the left side, ironing passionflowers, like you do.

IMG_7471 small

Luckily that whole piece ironed easily onto the flesh background, so that’s the lower torso done. Next is the arm that bisects that…and I’m now in the 900s. Still not halfway, sadly. Close! But not quite.

IMG_7472 small

Here’s a closeup of what I was doing most of Saturday and Sunday.

IMG_7474 small

It’s really not a huge area of the quilt, but there are a lot of pieces and details.

In the last Earth Mother, I wasn’t allowed to do any nudity or politics. I’ve obviously blown that off this time. Although the nudity isn’t really a huge deal. Someone asked me what this one was FOR. It’s for…well…I just needed to do it. So I did.

Anyway, I probably won’t get to iron more until tonight, and I’ll be tired from hiking. Oh well.

Kitten is still living under the ironing board, playing with the strings…

IMG_7430 small

It’s been hot, so that fur-free belly is probably a good thing. OK. Back to work with words. Then maybe I’ll get to the fabric.

I Really Want Waffles

Summer quiet. Birds singing. Mornings need caffeine, sure, and nights are getting warmer, but there’s still a breeze. The days aren’t unbearably hot yet (give it time…this isn’t really our summer).

What did I get done yesterday? Not much. Honestly. I’m not sure why. Well, that’s not entirely true. I shipped a quilt, which meant going to get a box and then coming back and making a label and packing it up and then driving back to the place where I got the box and shipping it. So that was about 2 hours. I always forget how long simple tasks like that take. And I finished a book. And I gamed in the evening, and that went longer than usual. But I was not my usual efficient self. I find summer does that to me. My brain remembers what it’s like to be a normal human, instead of a teacher on work overload, and it tries to make me act that way…like a normal human. No, you should flail a bit and lie around on a couch or maybe read some stupid articles about whatever. Stop doing all the works!

I finished Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and all I could think was that question was not answered by the book. And it’s different than the movie Bladerunner. Which is fine…I don’t mind that part, but damn. I still want to know if they dream. And I’m glad I didn’t remember the Bladerunner connection while I was reading it, because I made my own pictures in my head instead.

do-androids-2

I was looking for cool covers and found these. And I’m still disturbed by the androids’ behavior with the spider. I guess I was raised on Star Trek androids. Data had a significant influence on how I view them. And Battlestar Galactica as well. But the later series.

Anyway. I’m reading a lot. This is not a bad thing.

I didn’t iron until late. You hear that a lot. Because it’s true. Today I plan to iron all day.

I did the daisies in the top left, and now that side is done all the way up to the arm that bisects the body.

IMG_7424 wmall

And then I started on the right side…

IMG_7425 small

Today I’ll be ironing a million spots on a giraffe. And a uterus…see that blank spot in the middle? Easy to figure out what that will be.

IMG_7426 small

We have renamed Puppy by the way (not really). Nugget of Idiocy. It’s a great name for a puppy. Seriously though…the first owner called him Fluffy Teddy (godawful name), then the second called him Simba. We call him a variety of things, including Asshole and You Little Fucker and Vladimir and Fanny, none of which he answers to…Nugget it is. Last night’s conversation revolved around how sweet he is when he’s tired and what a jerk he can be when he’s hyper. Plus all the moods in the middle. He’s not a bad dog…he is learning to behave. He’s just a puppy. Puppies are jerks sometimes.

OK. Ironing. I really want waffles though.

It’s Coming Along

‘Twas a busy day where some things got accomplished. I’m settling into summer. A bit. Funny, because I go back to school in exactly a month. Sometimes a month sounds like a long time, like “there’s a month of school left,” but sometimes it’s way too short, like “there’s a month of vacation left.” Perceptions…

A couple of my co-teachers are pinning educational stuff on Pinterest (I have to admit to some of that…it’s an easy place to keep stuff so I don’t have to remember it) and some are actually going into their classrooms and doing stuff (oh heck no). And some are doing everything in their power to have a non-school existence for a while, because it encompasses everything when you go back.

I got a great rejection letter yesterday, with a handwritten note to try again next year. Funny…at first, I just assume that she wrote it on everyone’s letter (and maybe she did), but it’s nicer to hope that it was just a few. I wasn’t expecting to get in…it’s “real art” and I work in fabric, dontcha know. It’s like craft. I do it with macaroni and a glue gun. I’m not really trained at all. (all lies. Although I do own macaroni and a glue gun.)

I cut out all the Wonder Under for the commissioned owl yesterday at my sewing meeting. Now I am getting closer to deciding what he should look like too…because I ironed the real one (well, the first one) together yesterday…

IMG_7415 small

I have to admit that the ironing is going slowly. Too many other things going on, I guess. But I got that part done before I went to the sewing meeting. I think the striped fabric worked out on the wings. There will be stitching that delineates between each feather a little better in the long run, but I think it works.

Kitten has taken to lying under the ironing board and playing with the strings that keep the cover on.

IMG_7414 small

So then I went to another meeting, an art meeting, and came home with this idea for our feminist coloring book…well, honestly, it would probably make a cool quilt too, but I’d have to significantly enlarge it. Right now, it’s about 8″ square.

IMG_7417 small

The original idea I had a while ago involved a ruler and a protractor, but this was not so well-divided and organized, and I like it better. I had to figure out how to balance the piece, despite the disparate sizes of the women, and I like how it turned out.

So that was about 2 hours of time when I should have been ironing, but I think it was well spent.

So then I made it back in here for ironing…finished the owl’s wing and another violet, and then moved on to the belly space. I ironed the trees separately, because I can’t see the lines through the background fabric…

IMG_7419 small

And then I put them where they belong.

IMG_7420 small

This stuff is pretty time-consuming. I’m almost all the through the 300s. Only. I’m planning on a few hours today as well, although I have some stuff I have to do first. It’s coming along. I never thought it would be quick.

Kitten moved to the other chair…her shaved bits clearly apparent. She’s so much happier now without the cone and the stitches.

IMG_7416 small

And I’m happy she’s still here too.

Tiny Ironing

Late start this morning, not because I woke up late (ha!), but because we walked the dogs early to beat the heat. I usually like evening hikes better, because morning should be sleep time, but my nights have been booked this week.

Yesterday, I managed to finish the chapter I was working on, go to the gym, and then iron stuff…although I don’t feel like I got a lot done. Sigh. Everything takes so LONG! Tiny little pieces.

Well, first I started with the big pieces…and did the mountains and a volcano. A lot of the lighter fabrics will be easier to see once the stitching is in.

IMG_7404 small

I finished the world all the way across, and then pulled it off the ironing sheet, rolled it up, and put it aside for when I iron the whole thing down.

IMG_7407 small

Then I started on the Earth Mother portion, which has a lot of tiny little details…on the right are all the pieces for the next violet.

IMG_7410 small

And at the end of the evening, I have leaves and a raccoon and an ovary (it fit in the hole)…one more violet to do there, and then the owl. I’m gonna be ironing tiny for a good long time…

IMG_7411 small

So I’m in the 200s, but barely. With about 3 hours of ironing done, I think. It’s gonna take a while. And I’m gone most of today, so I probably won’t get a ton of ironing done, but I’m going to do a little now and then more tonight.

The dogs were tired last night…sometimes they do get played out.

IMG_7402 small

I think they’re in the same position right now, post walk…except I need to wash the little dog. Whoever thought furry butt hair on a dog was a good thing should come bathe this little beast. I’m gonna shave his butt for him.

Ironing the World

It’s so delightfully peaceful this morning. There’s no hammering or machine noises. Just birds and a puppy running around and yeah someone probably needs to pull pine needles out of the pool motor, but otherwise, it’s quite wonderful. And I got to sleep in for once, because the puppy wasn’t here in the early AM…the kids took him with them to their dad’s last night, because I was going to be in Oceanside for hours.

Yesterday I was amazingly efficient and finished a few rounds through the copyediting, so I’ll finish that today and then have a few days off again. Which is good, because I finished sorting all those tiny little pieces last night…

IMG_7396 small

I pile them up in my hand by 100s…and then put them in the correct bin. It took a little over 2 hours to sort them all. Here’s all the bins, each with 100 pieces…

IMG_7397 small

Someone asked how I find the piece I need…well, this is how. Each bin is numbered and has all the pieces from that batch of 100…

Then I lay them out on my table in the studio by 10s…so this is the 50s, 60s, etc.

IMG_7398 small

It’s pretty damn organized and fairly anal. Some people are much more organic in their process, but I was organic in the drawing and the fabric choosing. At this point, I want it to get done as easily as possible. So this works. Because I want it to look like my drawing too.

Then I started ironing…this is the world at the bottom of the piece…and it’s huge. It doesn’t have a ton of pieces in it though…

IMG_7399 small

So although it’s larger than the ironing board, it only had about 50 pieces in it. It was after midnight at that point, and I was tired. Driving in traffic to Oceanside was tiring.

I never really know what the piece will look like until I start ironing. I don’t color in my drawings…I just sort of imagine it in my head and start picking. So I really like this…especially how the blues flow around the world. I didn’t plan that. It’s just fabric magic.

The talk went well…not a lot of people, but honestly, it was kind of cool to hear the artists talk, because we don’t often hear how our own people in the group work. I enjoyed that.

And I’m going to enjoy the ironing process from here on out, even though it means standing for hours, because this is the part where the image starts to appear. This is the exciting part. So I’m really looking forward to that. But first I have to finish the lesson I’m copyediting, and then go to the gym, and then I might have time in the afternoon. I’m hoping. Definitely tonight. I need to finish ironing the world so I can move on to the minutiae of the Earth Mother.

Cutting through the Noise

I think this is the noisiest summer ever. Or maybe I don’t usually notice it. We have relatively new neighbors above us, and they’re doing work on the yard (the jackhammering), and then at the bottom of our road, they’re building a new behemoth on a small piece of property that’s been empty there for years. When I was still married, we joked about annexing it for my art studio. I could just wander down there and work. Yeah well, I’m actually much better off having it all in the house, now that the kids are grown and I usually live here by myself (well…as By Myself as I can get with all these furry beasts). So hammering and banging and sawing and big trucks backing up have all been part of my summer as well. I guess I can’t expect them all to be on my sleep schedule. But then puppy has been a barker the last few nights, keeping all three of us up. We’re not sure what the issue is (marauding mountain lions, ninja hordes about to break into the house, or a possum on the roof), but it’s certainly almost impossible to sleep through. And no, that damn mockingbird has not left the area. He’s still there and he has friends. So I sleep with a pillow on my head, what little I sleep.

But sleep is why I didn’t get as far as I wanted to last night. I’m still really having issues getting artwork done during the day too, so that’s not helping. I blew off copyediting yesterday (I don’t have a deadline for the chapter I have, and it’s short…don’t panic. I’m working on it today), but mostly ran errands and cleaned under the boychild’s direction. He likes things to be put away and not cluttered, so his sister and I drive him nuts. Oh well. The entryway is now spotless. Well, except for the three piles that need to go to specific people, plus two new bags for the thrift store. That was not on my list, but I went along with it.

I did eventually get around to cutting things out, with pure determination to finish yesterday. And I did! I know, it’s a miracle. There’s all of it…24 hours worth of trimming pieces.

IMG_7346 small

And the last bit of trimming trash. That little bit that was left the night before? It took two hours to cut out.

IMG_7347 small

I do bag up all the trash until the quilt is done, because I often lose small pieces, and it’s easier to cut new ones from this stash than to pull from the bins. Although I don’t put anything away until the quilt is completely ironed down for that reason. Just in case.

IMG_7348 small

It was still early (well it was 11 PM anyway), so I found 19 bins…no, 20 bins…and laid them out for sorting…and I started.

IMG_7349 small

I gave up around 12:30 though, because I was tired…and this was how much was left to be sorted. It may not look like much, but those tiny pieces take forever.

IMG_7353 small

So I’ll do that later today or tonight. I had to stack up all the bins, though, because Midnight likes to sleep in them. As you can see…

IMG_7350 small

She was already lurking around them this morning, ready to deposit black fur everywhere and stick little pieces of fabric to her butt. Foiled her!

Kitten got her stitches out (happily!) yesterday. It was quick and apparently painless, and she has been joyously cleaning herself since them.

IMG_7345 small

Seriously. Like nonstop.

OK, I need to do some copyediting, and I will be at the Oceanside Museum of Art tonight, assuming I can handle the traffic. And then I can finish sorting after that and see if I have the energy for ironing. But progress! Based on the last big one, I’ll be ironing down for 27 hours or so. Seems about right. Especially with all those tiny pieces.

We Need the Good Crazy

I think the cutting may never end. I really really really wanted to be done last night, and surely it is partially my fault, because I didn’t start earlier, and instead I drew for about two hours. However, based on how my hand feels this morning, I don’t think I had two more hours of cutting IN me, and I don’t even know if it would have been enough.

Let’s start with the drawing though. Actually, let’s go Way Back. OK. Not Way Back. Only a little over two years ago, when I got an email from another quilter I’d never met (there are a bunch of those, and I’m OK with that) talking about my process and the size of the work I make etc. and I answered her…no, I don’t remember what I said, but probably something along the lines of yes, I’m crazy, but you can be crazy too. Start small. And she answered back, and WordPress always gives me their email address, but if they have a blog, it gives me that address, and I usually go read their About page and maybe one of their posts, and I have to be honest, I don’t keep reading most blogs. I already have over 800 blogs on Feedly, and I don’t keep up with those well at all, but occasionally I find someone who writes about stuff I think is interesting. And this quilter was interesting. Her name was Lisa and she was missing a kidney due to kidney cancer (her blog is here). She was a little younger than me and so were her kids, and although she was a fairly basic quilter, she loved color and wrote well, and those are pluses in my mind. So I followed her blog. And then she found me on Instagram and Facebook, and we were sort of online acquaintances. I have lots of those.

Time goes on. She writes about her illness, her family, fabric…and she’s very real about the illness…about cancer…fuck cancer (well yeah, wouldn’t we all like to be able to do that?), but I’m impressed by her persistence, her downright stubbornness, her will to continue to live her life even as her body was giving up. And last Saturday, she died.

I never met her (although I was in the same area as her once), and I feel for her family, especially her kids and her husband. And for some reason her death is particularly disturbing…maybe it’s because I’ve been hearing her voice in my head for so long as I read her posts, saw her photos, saw her on Facebook, but I drew. Because that’s what I do when stuff bugs me. I draw. And the thing is, I was already in a bad place because of all the gun violence and racism and just stupid things that spout out of people’s mouths these days, and that sure did show up in the drawing. That yeah, Lisa had died, but at least she didn’t see all that stupidity happening any more. And fighting her own body’s weaknesses, well that was over. There was no happy ending, because for a while with people with cancer, there is a chance, sometimes quite a good one, that they will fight it and be successful, and many people do. For some reason, having kids still in school when they die, well that makes it worse. In my head. I don’t know why.

Lisa had such a great attitude. The planet needed her.

And it’s funny, people want to give me condolences, but I don’t really feel like I deserve them. Or necessarily need them. I was once upset by a friend’s miscarriage. I didn’t need support; I just felt enough pain for her that I needed to draw, so I did. Some of my quilts aren’t about me.

So on the right, is the smaller drawing I did Saturday night, which showed up on Instagram and Facebook…because she was floating above all the shit and didn’t have to deal with any of it any more.

And then Sunday, I thought…you know? I want to develop this a bit further (because I don’t have 17 thousand deadlines here that have nothing to do with this right now)…so I started a larger redraw in the bigger sketchbook on the left.

IMG_7339 small

I’m not done, but it’s more carefully drawn than the other. And I will finish it, maybe today.

IMG_7340 small

It’s sad that to escape the crazy in this world, we either have to die or be completely ignorant. I don’t want to do either. On the other hand, I can visualize worse shit in the future if this election goes badly.

I wish the best for Lisa’s family. I wish I could make it easier, but I can’t. They should just know that her attitude was inspiring.

Sigh. So while I was drawing, someone was very tired and wanted to sleep right next to me.

IMG_7329 small

He is a sweet baby, even if he can be an asshole on a regular basis.

So I really wanted to be done cutting. I think I said that. I was sure I WOULD be done cutting, but NOOOO. Fuck me. I cut for over 3 1/2 hours last night…

IMG_7341 small

And I still have these fuckers to go. I wish I could say, hey! That looks like about 2 hours of cutting, but that’s what I thought when I started cutting last night, and I was obviously completely out of my head wrong.

IMG_7342 small

Here’s the pile of trash. I’m over 22 hours in. And not fucking done.

IMG_7343 small

ALMOST THERE. Sigh. At some point, we were all waiting for the girlchild to come back from a social thang. Dogs everywhere. Calli jealous that Simba fits on laps and she doesn’t.

IMG_7335 small

Actually, before the boychild came in, this is what it looked like. Me cutting, and all three of the furry beasts asleep nearby.

IMG_7338 small

And when I went to bed, there was number 4…Kitten with her floppy cone.

IMG_7344 small

She gets her stitches out today. I’m sure she’ll be quite pleased to finally get her tongue on that incision.

So to sum up, I’ll be working on that drawing soon, probably today. My tribute to Lisa. My way to work out the crap in my head. And hopefully I’ll finish cutting those damn pieces out as well. Plus a trip to the vet. And maybe a little less crazy in the world. The bad crazy. I think we need the good crazy.

I Need to Know the Why

Well I worked a good chunk of yesterday, but the world is still a mess today. You’d think if enough people yelled Stop It that someone might hear. I don’t understand why they don’t. I need to know why.

I am closer to done on the cutting…even though I didn’t get much of a chance to work on it yesterday…I cut out lots of crane feathers while watching videos about atoms and electrons.

IMG_7298 small

I’m still taking two chemistry classes online, even though it’s been hard to find the time. I have to say that it helps to have two different types of teachers explaining the stuff, but Rice University’s course is currently easier for me to understand. He actually explained where we came up with all the ideas we have about the atom and its structure. I like to know the why. I always need to know the why. Don’t just tell me This is the way it is. Explain to me how we got there. What we still don’t know. What we did to figure it out.

Here’s the current pile of stuff that is cut out…

IMG_7299 small

And only this is left. I might work on that today, although there are other things I need to do as well. But I want to be done with this stage so I can move on to the ironing-stuff-together part, which is always more fun for me, and probably for my readers. Days and days of pictures of piles of pieces…ugh. Although at least these are color and pattern, unlike the days and days of Wonder Under cutting.

I know many people ask me why I make quilts like this. Some even try to tell me how to do it differently, but this is what works for me. I came up with this crazy process over a long period of experimentation…to get to a place where I could make what I saw in my head. So yeah…it’s time-consuming. But the product is good. So shake your head at my crazy, but it works for me. I’m OK with being the crazy one.

IMG_7304 small

Kitten is fine, recovering well. Some people asked. Every morning, when I wake up to her trying to clean herself through the cone (which she kinda wears as a collar), I tell her how many more days of wearing it, and we check out her stitches. They’re healing well. She’s acting pretty normal now…the first few days were a little rough, but she’s definitely herself now.

IMG_7303 small

Apparently though it will take 4-6 months for the hair to grow back, so I kinda feel sorry for her, but they are the hottest months of the year, so maybe it will feel nice. Hard to say, since she can’t use words to tell me. She does boisterously clean me, though, especially when I scratch all the parts she can’t reach right now. That said, I just came back in here and she had managed to push the cone out of the way enough to reach the bottom stitches. Sigh. While sitting in the chair I only barely vacated. And is now beating me with her tail in retribution. So yeah. She’s back to normal, despite the Frankenscar on her belly.

I keep saying I’m going to draw and then I don’t. And this week is kind of a bitch for getting stuff done. Lots of stuff at night. Which reminds me, I’ll be doing the artist talk at the Oceanside Museum of Art on Tuesday, from 6:30-8. I can put people on a guest list so you can get in free; otherwise, I think it’s $10. I don’t know what I’m going to say yet, but I’m supposed to practice it so it’s not more than 5 minutes. I’m a teacher. We talk fast. And I guess in true Kathy brain-style, I will tell why I made the quilt. I need to know the why. Ironically, I can’t always explain the why in my own work. But this one I can.

This Is Not My Beautiful World…

I am so disheartened by the country I live in at the moment. Although having lived elsewhere, I know that it probably doesn’t matter where you live…there will be things that humans do that I will just be entirely incapable of understanding. I hear anger toward other…but as a teacher, I have often had students who are other (insert group name here), and I know from experience and years of teaching biology that we are all the same, just a tiny tweak of DNA. It just makes me want to weep to think of one of my kids, my students (because they ARE our kids for some short period of time, and we always continue to think of them and wonder if they are OK), being hurt or killed because of this crazy stupidity we call Protection, Right to Bear Arms, Vengeance. Whatever. It’s anger. It’s fear. And it’s not necessary. We are no longer in a predator/prey relationship, trying to survive against nature. Now we apparently have to survive against ourselves, because other humans are out to kill us, harm us. Stop trying to find a scapegoat. If you have anger toward another group or people or gender or whatever, then it is you.

And I know that most who read my blog are not. And I don’t know how to get this idea across to the angermongers. I can’t even imagine if one of them is President. How that will roll. Art is supposed to help with this, but I know none of them will all of a sudden look at a piece of art and arrive at a revelation.

This world we live in. I just don’t get it. Why people think it’s OK to act that way. I just don’t get it.

I have to work this morning. I’m trying to find the right mindset. I object to having to push all this…sadness…away into a corner of my brain so I can continue to copyedit. But I have to…to survive. At least to pay the bills. And continue to ponder how to get across to the increasingly crazy killers that they need to stop. That it would be a better world if they did. David Byrne’s song…Once in a Lifetime (OK, it’s Talking Heads…not just David)…this is not my beautiful house…this is not the world I want to live in. Not my beautiful world. I hate not being able to visualize a solution…besides get rid of the damn guns. I wish we could just do that. A start. See where that takes us. Because this is just crazy.

Back to my regular blogpost…but know all that is still in my head…running circles around any attempts I make to live a normal life.

I had my monthly stitching meeting last night, and Julie brought a thread (OK, she brought bags of thread) that she thought might work for the flower stitching…

Because here’s what 13 of them look like on the left (OK, I didn’t really count, damn you)…half of them are that magenta color, and half are purple. Half have the silk velvet center and half have a cotton center that is a similar color. And I think there are two different colors in the body of the flower. But I had no more of the pink thread. As it was, I had to pick a near color for the flower and the center…so in the whole quilt? I don’t think anyone will notice…

And if they do, it was on purpose…to let the evil spirits out…right? Fact is I finished stitching everything and there was an empty space that bugged me. So I filled it.

Now I can back it and quilt it and bind it (well, except I have no working sewing machine, unless I go pull the old one out). And no time to quilt it. Minor issue. It’s still done. Ish.

Then I was working on the other birds, the last three, at the meeting…

IMG_7293 small

I had already finished all the background stitches in the beige/gray color, so I added feet and stitched around the eyeballs. I just found all the eye buttons when I was cleaning off the couch the other day. Who knows how long they’ve been there. Years. So all the decorative bird embroidery is left.

Meanwhile, I am still…STILL…cutting stuff out. I’m almost done, if by almost, I mean less than 10 hours. Because I did 3 hours last night, and there’s still a chunk left to do (14 hours in so far). Here’s the trash pile…a huge amount of fleshy bits.

IMG_7289 small

See…this is what’s left. Of course, you can’t see how big any of the pieces are that need cutting when they’re upside down…I do know that top two are all crane feathers, so not huge, but not tiny.

IMG_7290 small

This is everything that’s cut out…the box fills…slowly.

IMG_7291 small

Side by side…the to-be-cut on the left, the already-cut-out on the right…you can see progress.

IMG_7292 small

So yeah. I have to work. And run some errands. Stuff that guarantees my paycheck. And let the part of my brain that is always trying to solve problems wander around up there and attempt to find peace. For all of us. Wish I could see that.

Head above Water

Yesterday. Was good. Although a little frustrating in the first half. Jackhammering continued (none this morning!), starting too early for me…and then, because editing was going so EASILY…the document turned into a Frankenbeast of formatting headaches. I made one change, moving something into a list that needed to be there, and it literally screwed up the formatting in the entire document. And I didn’t notice until I’d made another 50 corrections or so, so I couldn’t just undo without losing all of that. Aargh. I searched for ways to deal with bulleted lists, and got nothing relevant…probably because I didn’t know exactly what words to use. Formatting can be such a bitch. So I had to redo a chunk of it, which lost me time and money. Sigh. It happens.

After that, I managed to finish a book, hike 7.34 miles with the kids, make dinner from scratch, and cut stuff out. Yup. This is how I relax. Seriously. Look under the definition for workaholic and you find me.

OK. I never really relax like this…

IMG_7238 small

That puppy is spoiled.

So the hike…we did over 7 miles of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, leaving from the Black Mountain trailhead and hiking out to the waterfall in a roundabout way, trying to avoid trails with bikes on them (although the bikes appear to just ignore the signs that say stay off, because they’re assholes? Or illiterate? Or special? I’ve never understood that.). There was poison oak everywhere…the wonders of a high-water winter and spring in Southern California. This is cactus overrun by poison oak…which you can only find here.

IMG_7246 small

The weather was much better than last week, and honestly, this isn’t a hard hike. There’s no up and down…just long.

IMG_7250 small

We made it to the waterfall and hung out briefly.

IMG_7264 small

But we had to be out of the parking lot by 8, because they lock it, so we were motivated to keep moving.

IMG_7265 small

There’s a few river crossings…I think we did this one twice.

IMG_7269 small

And the oak groves are always my favorite.

IMG_7270 small

A grave of a former ranch cook…

IMG_7271 small

And this sign amused us…because really? The trail to the right was pretty poison-oaked as it was…

IMG_7272 small

But whatever. We just didn’t touch the stuff.

After dinner, I managed to cut for another couple of hours…wait, make that three hours. So I think I’m over 11 hours in right now.

IMG_7273 small

There were lots of little pieces last night…some I didn’t even try to cut out (you can see a few on the bottom left), because they’re too small and I’ll just lose them. I’ll cut them out as I iron.

This is all that’s left…

IMG_7274 small

It doesn’t look like much, until you see how many of the pieces are small. It took me about 30 minutes last night just to cut out the giraffe’s spots. All curvy and weird.

This was my scrap pile from last night…

IMG_7275 small

You can see the color changes below…four different scrap piles from four different nights.

I’m getting there…slowly. Too slowly, I think sometimes. But I’ll get there. I do have to copyedit again today…and tomorrow. But I’m hoping to leave the weekend free. That would be a plus. It’s hard knowing that what would really help me relax and be ready for the upcoming (stressful) school year is not having to work NOW…but also needing to work NOW because of college and cat payments etc.

A friend sent me a link to a gallery in New Orleans where she saw stuff she knew I’d like (and I did)…and I’ve been thinking of trying to do an actual vacation trip in the next 12 months, but the money is nonexistent, and then girlchild tried to guilt trip me about coming to visit my kids instead. Ah. OK. That was discussed at one point. So we’ll see. Price it out. Work some more hours. And I have a quilt going to Houston, but I won’t be there…which sucks, but again…money kicks me upside the head. Keep making art. Keep working. Head above water…

The book I finished (and I will be reading the next one, once I get through the three I have checked out from the library) was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch…very good, although in George R. R. Martin style, he likes to kill my favorite characters.

liesoflockelamora

I should make time to draw today I think. I believe I need to do that. I keep saying it and not doing it.