What Next?

With very little stitching left on the new quilt, which is being photographed Monday (that’s one in January, one in February people…don’t expect that level of crazy to continue), I’m already looking forward to the next quilt. Except it’s supposed to relate to a larger piece of mine. And I’m sure some of the artists, maybe the painters, can do two pieces in a month, but I can’t, certainly not while teaching at the same time. Then the show is about feminism, or at least the things listed on the prospectus, which leaves it pretty wide open: sexism, body image, class, race, family, gender politics, biology, history, etc. But I have a ton of my newer quilts out traveling or already promised to shows. Or they’ve been entered in shows and I won’t hear until too late if they got in or not. So I can’t base a new small quilt on a piece that might not be here for the exhibit.

So I started making a list of what was available. Like Tsunami…

I do love this quilt, but it’s more of an Earth Mother quilt. I have lots of those. And I don’t know if that’s got anything to do with feminism, except that we have a history of earth as mother, which probably leads into the female as caretaker…not just of the world, but of children and husbands and houses and food. But I think I’m pushing it with that. And I’m not getting a hit for a smaller quilt that goes with that idea.

Then there’s Spread Out on the Pavement…

Made it into Quilt National. Funny I really don’t like this quilt. Seriously. I originally drew the body, head and part of the car back in 2002, as my marriage was dissolving. Then I pulled it out 10 years later, finally able to process it, and added the rest of the truck (now it was a truck) and the eyeball tree. It has all the things that are supposed to make you feel better: meds, chicken soup. It’s not a happy quilt. Which isn’t the problem. It’s about a failed relationship. I have lots of quilts about that shit and I don’t really want to dwell on it right now. And I guess it’s gender politics, but it’s not speaking to me.

Then there’s this one…One of My Kind…

I love this quilt. This is four generations of women in my family (plus the boychild, who loves that his naked ass is up there). This is all the connections and history of being a single mom, my mom holding all the things she taught me, my grandmother, long dead, her bones still in me, still part of me. Not all good, of course…she had some crazy ideas about race and my daughter’s name that kind of drove me nuts, but isn’t that how you decide who and how to be? Based on not only the good stuff you saw growing up in your family, but also the bad stuff. Stuff to avoid. My daughter mentioned something about how I had reacted to something my parents had pushed when I was younger, how they dealt with my college choices versus how I dealt with my own children’s choices. We learn from the shit we don’t like as much as from the shit we do like.

It’s a powerful quilt…that’s never gotten into any show but the one it’s in now, the one I put it in. Totally feminist. No problem. Easily could do a smaller quilt related to this. But it’s HUGE. And if there are going to be lots of other people in this show, I don’t know if I can get away with such a large piece. I’m debating emailing the curators about it. Because there are other choices. The other issue is that a lot of the people in this group have already seen the piece in the Grossmont show. In fact, about three of the pieces I thought about for this exhibit are hanging in Grossmont right now, so maybe they should just be out of play.

This is Here…it’s actually the first one I thought of…

But I have shitty pictures of it. Wonder if I should rephotograph. This one is old. It’s about being female, but mostly about breast cancer. A friend was dealing with treatments and this came out of me. I already have an idea for a smaller version of this, and it does apply to body image and biology, so it’s an easy fit. It’s also a smaller quilt. So…we’ll see.

I also considered this one, So Deep, So Wide…

But the feminist link is sketchy. And there are other reasons I don’t want to use it.

And this one, Held Hostage…which needs new photography.

And is all about the biology but doesn’t even have a uterus.

And High Tide…about being a single mom…

But not really what I want.

So I’m down to two possibilities. Emailing the curators now. That might just make the decision for me.

Then I can draw. But I need to do a bunch of schoolwork first. Heinously behind in grading. It’s a gorgeous day. Gonna sit inside and stare at a computer screen. Not by choice. It just has to be done. But at least I’ve worked my brain around this new quilt a little bit.

Bound…

So two days in a row this week that I’ve worked on art for more than 5 hours…and neither of them was a weekend or holiday. Now how much work have I gotten done? Yeah. Don’t ask that. Is the house clean? Don’t ask that either. Last night, I managed to kamikaze out of school, pick up the dog, who went right in the pool for her daily wade (she won’t swim), then cleaned the entryway floor enough so I could trim the quilt. On Wednesday, I had bought two possible binding fabrics because I couldn’t decide…I picked the green one…

Which is funny, because there isn’t a ton of green in the quilt, but it works. The other one works too, but it detracted more from the image, and there isn’t a lot of room between image and edge, so it was too much.

What’s funny is that I miscut one strip and I had already cut both sleeves, and I had only bought a yard, so there wasn’t enough for the last strip. So I cut it out of a sleeve and just barely had enough of the background color, which I used for the backing as well, to cut another sleeve. So not a whole lot is leftover of either fabric, which is too bad, because they are both lovely batiks. That said, I really don’t need more fabric. Well. I do. I always do. I’m always missing that one color that would transition between this or that, or the turquoises are out of fashion or the purples aren’t quite right. Seriously. I do always have this issue.

So the top fabric below was the other binding contender. The two blues are because I haven’t seen good ones in a while. The rest were from an attempt to replace a really good pale gray/white I had for the last 5 or so years, plus they were having a sale on batiks and those spoke to me.

There is a whole shitload of batik fabric in my stash. That and Kaffe Fassett. And random black and white stuff. And skulls. Anyway, so I had quilt class last night and the kamikaze binding event was so I could get the machine stuff done at home so I wouldn’t have to lug everything with me and I could just hand sew the rest at the meeting. And I was rocking that until the girlchild called, which was FINE. I love to hear from her, but not when she missed her stop and is randomly crying and standing in the freezing dark 3000 miles away, waiting for an Uber with a strange man driving, so I’m gonna just keep talking until she gets back to the dorm.

Which I did. It slowed me down a bit, but that was fine. It was nice to hear her voice, but then I get sad because they’re gone. Ugh.

I made it to class about 10 minutes late, which didn’t really matter because I’m always late anyway. Really. And then I did handsewing for quite a while. Came home. Made 48 mini cornbread muffins (like you do) for today’s chili cookoff thing at school WHILE making dinner and trying to edit something and send out a bid on something else and manage a third thing. Oh yeah. Shipping a quilt for a show. Not a bad thing. Sort of half-assed lesson-planned, because I do need to have stuff done for next week and the rest of the unit (ha!). Then kept stitching.

Naw. She’s not done. I have one more sleeve to stitch down. That was at 12:30. Ugh. And then I didn’t fall asleep until after 1 and some animal…OK, definitely a skunk based on the odor this morning…was barreling around outside my window at 2:19. Scared the crap out of me. The dog rolled over and sighed, but Kitten, my attack cat, leapt out of bed to her observation post at the door, where she’s pushed the slats of the blinds to the right enough that she can see out. Good to know someone’s ready to take care of intruders, because the Golden Retriever didn’t even whine or bark. Eventually my adrenaline levels returned to normal and Kitten came back to bed, my erstwhile companion in sleep, and I got a few more hours in, but I’m feeling it this morning.

Almost done with this one though, and a week early. I haven’t totaled up the hours yet. And I started looking at stuff for the next one. It’s supposed to be a smaller quilt of a particular size that relates to a larger one that has something to do with women or feminism or gender or whatever. And yeah, a lot of my recent work does that, but sometimes it’s harder for me to see that in the earlier work. And most of the current work is out traveling or has been entered in a show, so I can’t use it for this one. But I think I picked one. And now all I have to do is draw the smaller one…without 700 tiny pieces. Ha! No problem. There’s already a picture in my head. I just need time to put it on paper. And sleep. I’m gonna need some sleep.

Lemonade Afternoon

You know that quote, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” Well yesterday I had CPR/First Aid training. And it was boring. It could have been worse, but I’m easily amused by bad video. Like when the worker goes “Hi, little buddy” to the small furry animal you can’t see and gets bit. I laugh. Because my lord. Seriously. The trainer promises there will be a better set of videos in two years when we have to take this again.

The plus was that we were so quiet and asked so few questions that we got out way early. And I came home and quilted. When life gives you a free afternoon because you did CPR training so you could take your students on a field trip next month, use it to make art. I should have graded all afternoon, and to my credit, I did try to grade at the gym, but first the wifi wasn’t working and then the damn app wasn’t functioning correctly. So I gave up. And then came home and kept quilting. Because I have a deadline and my photographer is flexible, but hell, I have to get started on the next quilt too.

And grading. Sucks. Yeah. I did monitor my students on their computers all day. That was fun. We can see what tabs they have open and send them messages, like “Get off Facebook and get to work.” A couple kids just didn’t get it. I kept shutting them down and finally shut down every tab they had open as soon as they opened it. It didn’t take more than about 5 minutes of monitoring per class before they were all in the folder they were supposed to be in. Ha! Bastards. Big Teacher is watching you. My co-teacher in crime (also in CPR) was doing the same thing, so I think by the end of the day, the kids all knew they had two teachers watching everything they were doing. Sometimes being a teacher means being an evil villain character.

So I quilted for 5 hours yesterday. I know. Wow. Cool.

There’s lots of eyeballs in this quilt. Twelve to be exact. Well. There’s two on the cat, but they’re closed. And the little figures, there’s four there too. So 18 eyes. No snake on this quilt though. My imagery is shifting maybe? No Christmas lights, no bird…no bird is weird. Most of my quilts have a bird.

Anyway, I think it’s turning out well…

And at some point in the afternoon yesterday, I went and got two possible binding fabrics for it. Not sure which one is best. I was in a hurry. They’re in the dryer and when I get home from school tonight, I’m going to try to get the binding on, because I have quilt class tonight and I can do the hand-sewing there. I don’t want to lug the machine along and do the whole thing there though, so I have to quick! Come home, iron it, trim it, and bind it! No problem.

The animals were confused by my presence all afternoon…

I have five blurry-faced photos of the cat. She wouldn’t stay put. Same with the dog. Ten hours almost total quilting. Half of what I had estimated…although I knew my estimate was too high.

I feel much better about things today. I got taxes and FAFSA started, I got the quilting done, I got a quilt packed up and ready to ship. I still have a ton of stuff to get done, but it’s less looming and more manageable-looking. I will be so glad when the kids are done with college and I don’t have to deal with all the financial aid hoops any more. They are really stressful. Especially in a divorce situation. I’m really worried about how I’m going to pay for any of it next year. I don’t have any more cushions, no more college accounts to cover my portion of the fees. It’s scary.

But I’m going to try not to think about that right now. Because I’m finishing a quilt, and that’s a cool thing (although now she needs a name…aack!). And I can start thinking about the next one, which will be smallish. In fact, a difficult size for me…not super small, like 8-12″ squares really challenge me, but at least they don’t take long, but this is a size I never do…16×24 I think. Totally off for me. Remember not to do a lot of tiny pieces! Yeah. Like I listen to myself. Oh well…at least it will be a challenge.

Responsible Adult…

Adjustments made. Taxes started instead of quilting all night like I wanted. Have to be a responsible adult, dontcha know? Up early today to retrain on CPR and that heart device that I will hopefully never have to use. I had two students one year where we had to drag that thing with us on every field trip. I don’t envy my sub today…my kids are getting increasingly antsy and boisterous. We have one teacher out and the guest teacher is…eh. She’s eh. Four and a 1/2 more weeks until Spring Break. Then the math teacher will come back. I hopefully won’t kill them all in 4 1/2 weeks. Definitely in burnout. But it’s not just school. Life itself is wearing on me. Too many tasks. Want to run free in a meadow or something. But that would probably cost money I don’t have.

Really I’d be happy if I could remember to find the time to fold the towels and put them away. Plus whatever else has been living in that laundry basket for the last two months.

Quilting is so peaceful, so meditative, while I’m actually in front of the machine.

I don’t think about school or stress about people or money or college or taxes. I just quilt. Move the sandwich around and around. Listen to the music or the thing on Netflix. Don’t think too hard about it. Just draw the line, careful around the teeth and the eyes, draw around the tiny little words, thread breaks, tie it off, start up again. Bobbin runs out, fill it up. So simple. So linear. So peaceful. Don’t watch the clock. Don’t stop until you’re ready. Just go.

Sometimes I think I should just do this stuff every night and not be a grownup. But then reality kicks in. I graded. I did taxes. All very grownup. No one told me how much shit would end up on my plate though. I teach 12-year-olds. I spend all school year with kids who mostly have no idea how much work it is to be a grownup. They’re testing the boundaries of being a kid, growing up into teenagers, but not quite ready to take on the world. Last year’s failures just got lectured about not graduating. Some of them come to me and talk about their grades improving, but there they are, on the failing list. Some are just still failing, almost proud about it, beating their chests like it’s a plus.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the parent yesterday who said there were no consequences at home if he fails. None. No one taught her how to raise her child. He doesn’t have to be awesome. He just needs parents who give a shit about his future. Then he can too.

I think I need more walks on the beach and in the mountains. I need more hours on the elliptical. I need more time with my sketchbook. I need more time with needle and thread, fabric too. Having the kids gone gives me very little room for moods and stress. There’s nothing for them to bounce off of…they just reverberate in my own head.

Sigh. Off to learn how to save the world. Again. Damn hormones. They really fuck with you.

Burnout and Screaming Feminism

Yeah. I had a 3-day weekend. But the list of things to do was too long and frustrating. I kept staring at it and picking up this or that, staring at things, trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic really. And finally, instead of being responsible and checking off one of the more onerous tasks on my list, I quilted last night. Seriously. I know I have some stuff I need to get under control here, lots of stuff on the list, but I couldn’t get my head around any of it last night, so…well…I didn’t. I played hooky. Except I still did stuff. Quilting is on my list.

I’m about 4 hours into the quilting and I’ve finished most of the torso and all but one hand/arm. Then all that’s left are the heads and the background. It’s quilting pretty fast.

While I was doing the actual quilting, it didn’t seem fast though. Lots of tiny little details that took forever. Except not forever, because 4 hours isn’t very long for quilting. Not that I’m done yet. But the outline quilting will take the most time on this quilt I think. I quilted for almost 3 hours last night. I kept trying to find a good place to quit, and finally the clock made me quit. I look at it and think about having to work the next day, and I already knew today would be frustrating because kids didn’t turn in their assignments and I needed those assignments last night so I could make folders last night, and now I can’t. In fact, in one class, I have no idea what they’re doing today because the kids all blew off the assignment. Well, two out of ten groups didn’t. Sigh. Giant sigh. Sigh so big a blue whale could fall into it.

I am bordering on work burnout. I know that. I’m trying to manage it best I can.

I guess we’ll know in a few days how much quilting is left. Meanwhile, I have a quilt to ship to a show this week, plus I need to draw the next small one, which has to relate to a big one that already exists and is available to show in May. No small feat there. Plus Spring Break is coming and I like to have a big quilt to do over break, but I’m thinking I will just have this smallish one and one other not-so-big one I want to do, and THEN I will think about something crazy big. Maybe. I can’t even think that far out at the moment.

Speaking of trying to manage my burnout, I finally saw the new Star Wars movie yesterday. It had some plot issues, but I liked it. After hearing all the hype for months, I really liked that Leia had aged appropriately and wasn’t still a hot chick. It made sense. I thought Carrie Fisher looked great…as great as her male counterparts. And leaving Rey out of the merchandise? Y’all are assholes. She’s by far the main character in the episode, a great strong female who overcomes shit left and right, is smart and creative and a wonderful role model for girls, unlike what all we 40-year-olds had growing up in the sci fi movies. Early Star Trek and Star Wars didn’t give us women a lot of good characters to hold on to, and Rey is awesome. Although whoever designed her first desert costume…it certainly wasn’t made for running at top speed to get away from the bad guys. Normal people woulda tripped over all that long stuff. I noticed at the end she had dumped the scarf-like thing and went for a much more simple, non-run-impeding vest. Anyway. Kudos to the Star Wars writers for making Rey awesome…major face slaps to the merchandisers for leaving her out without fans having to yell. My nephews need to see strong women who matter in the stuff they watch…so does my niece. When are the dumbasses gonna realize that?

No idea. Why do women need to be screaming feminists these days? Because no one is listening and if we stop yelling, the dumbasses will put everything back the way it was in the Dark Ages. See Trump and Cruz for more information.

All right. Back to our regularly scheduled work day.

The Doing Is Where the Joy Is…

Busy weekend. Lots to do and see. Managed to finish stitching down the quilt on Saturday…not early, because apparently I needed sleep and lots of it. But it only took about 5 hours to stitch her down total.

Midnight was not at all helpful. She never really is. Mostly just tries to sleep on things and vomit up hairballs. This is why when I leave my machine for more than 5 minutes, I wrap the quilt around the machine. She can’t sit on it, she can’t eat the thread, and she’d be hard-pressed to vomit on it.

I only had about an hour left to do on Saturday. Yes, I spent all weekend trying to recharge, so I have not gotten as much done as I’d like.

It was necessary. Here’s what the back looks like. I look at the back to see if I missed anything major.

The batting was washed and dried, there was enough of the fabric I’d picked for the front to do the back as well AND have a little leftover for other quilts, so that was good.

This isn’t actually a huge quilt. There was a size restriction for this show.

Pinbasted in under 30 minutes.

No cats were involved in the pinbasting, unlike normally, when Kitten goes barreling through and skids through the backing.

Then I interrupted artmaking with art, food, more food, work, errands, more food, and work. In that order. Wait. I think sleep was in there. Not sure.

Then last night, I started quilting.

Late. I started late. Shocking really. But I got the legs and the lower torso done in about an hour and a half. Just have 10 arms, 3 heads, and the background left. No biggie…

That’s for later today I think. And tomorrow. And I don’t know how many days. I don’t think it will take me 20 hours, but what do I know? This is smaller than the quilt I’m comparing it to, which has a similar number of pieces. This one also has less background, but it’s the fussy outlining that takes a long time. So it’s really hard for me to say how long. I do know my plan is to get the binding on next weekend. Because I’m emailing the photographer. Yup. There’s a deadline for you. Anyway. It’s a plan.

Meanwhile, let’s go back to the art. There were a few openings I wanted to go to on Saturday…all in Barrio Logan, the new arts center of San Diego. One was at the Glashaus, but really I liked these pieces marked MANU…

I don’t think this gallery/office space had been open before when I’ve been here…

But it had a few of his pieces…

I love the blue line through the face…looked everywhere for his card. Not to be found.

Also revisited my favorite wire artist…Spenser Little…

His work is fascinating.

I have video of one of his lamps too, but haven’t pulled it off the phone yet.

No artist info on this cool metal sculpture…

Then we walked over to Gallery D, which is where my art group will have a show later this year. And guess who we found…

Yup. That’s Manu again…

But this time, we have artists’ names. I was there for Anna, who’s a member of the art group I’m in. But here’s the website for Manu…still unclear on whether it’s one person or a few…

Here’s Anna Zappoli, who I came to see…

And her original small drawing for her mural…

A view down one wall…

And another…

I liked this piece by Esther Gamez Rubio…

And the other wall from the other side…

Then we wandered around the back and finally found the Low Gallery (we’ve looked for it before…it’s in a dark alley). They were showing prints done by K-2nd graders at St. Therese’s School in Wilcannia, NSW, 98% aboriginal students. I’m a fan of kid art…how they view the world intrigues me…

These are from about 10 years ago, which I didn’t know when I was at the show…

So these kids are all now teens. Figure the one below out…they’re cutting trees down, it’s raining, and then there’s a rocket in the sky? I think?

Anyway, it was a good night for art and food and the like. Sometimes you just have to walk away from real life so you can go back to it later and not flip out. Try to remember why it is that you work…it’s not just to pay the bills. It’s to do the stuff you like to do. Make art, see art, occasionally buy art. Hang out and eat good food and talk. All good stuff. Certainly, when you’re having a conversation with a muralist who spent hours making a painting that will be covered up by the next show, never to be seen again…the making is very important. But you’re not going to be able to sell that painting. Hard to understand sometimes…but the doing is where the joy is…

A Wash…

So Friday was a wash for artwork. See! I do take days off. But it was sort of a mental day off. I spent all day with kids working on group assignments and me laughing at their arguments. The table that voted for the background color…democracy in action! The table with the bossy Arabic boy who when the other two wouldn’t listen to him, he just deleted everything they typed while they yelled at him. The two high-level girls who stated loudly that they couldn’t work with these people. I just about lost it. The two tables who sat there and stared at each other, waiting for someone else to do all the work. It was like a tiny little microcosm of all the work situations I’ve ever been in during my entire life. The table where one girl took over, designed the whole thing, and pointed at the other kids: You do this, you do that. She had already made the boxes with the titles in them. And then she critiqued their font choices because they didn’t “go” with the rest of the doc. The table where one kid was reading the text aloud while another kid typed. And the one kid who has been begging for groupwork? He’s absent. Of course. The 6 kids who were absent on a Friday before a three-day weekend? We emailed them their assignment. The one who was on his Chromebook but not in my classroom because a parent signed him out early? Sent him a message on our system. Why aren’t you here? Here’s your assignment. Yeah, I can see what he’s working on even though he’s not here. Creepy stalker, eh?

But I walked away from it in a fairly good mood, because I dumped everything on them. You deal. This is your team. You have to work with them. Think about how you’re behaving. Why are they mad at you? Why do you think you get to choose who’s on your team? Fun stuff. Plus everyone in the class is dependent on your information to do well on the test. So get on with it. That’s real world right there. Ask me about it next year when we’re trying to design science curriculum from scratch because California doesn’t have any. Why pay for that shit when you can make your teachers do it for free?

Wish I could walk out every day with that much lightness in my head. So it was OK to go out and have fun instead of coming home to work. Even artmaking needs to take a break, although I did go shopping after work. I needed batting and thread.

In fact, right now, the batting is soaking in hot water so I can sandwich later today. Same bathtub my Christmas card photo came from. Still dirty. Might be permanently dirty.

Couldn’t turn down a twofer on scissors for $7. Plus 20% off the whole ticket.

And there she sits…waiting for me. In a minute sweetie. Getting there…

Forgot to put in the link for the article about my show…in case you aren’t on Facebook with me…

Quilt Artist Depicts Stories of Women’s Bodies and Lives

It’s our local paper, which I don’t actually get in real life. No mention of my grandmother, so that’s a good thing. The writer did interview me and read most of my blog, I think, so she did a good job.

OK, so I need to get on with it and do quilt stuff and other stuff and making art stuff (holy crap, I need another new piece by the end of March. Yikes!). Plus art openings tonight. So that’s cool.

Art Routine

I seem to have the routine down this week. Work for hours on end, eventually come home, maybe even eat dinner (last night it was 10 PM…my fault…the chicken needed an hour), and then make art for two hours or so, talking to no one, but texting 2 or 3 people at the same time. There’s a dog on the floor behind me, sometimes a cat on a chair and a cat in a plastic shoe box (you know, like they do), but there’s not a lot of difference in the days otherwise. Sometimes what I do right after work is different: book club, counseling, gym, errands, library. Sheesh. I did three of those yesterday after work. Explains the late dinner and the late stitching start.

But that routine is what helps me get work done. Lots of work apparently. It never feels like a lot to me, but I guess it is. In the last week, I’ve worked on art for over 16 hours. Granted, there was a three-day weekend in there, so that helped. So when I tell people it’s my second job, I’m not kidding. On breaks, that goes to more like 40 hours a week or more. The routine gets it done though.

So after I iron all those pieces down, I have to stitch them down so they’ll stay. I know people who don’t, who either use all hand-dyed fabrics, which stick much better, or they stitch it all down in the quilting. I like my images to pop out from the background though, so I don’t want to quilt them down. I use the quilting stitch more as an outline, even a drawing line sometimes. So this stage, before I sandwich it, is to stitch every single piece down with a small zigzag using a clear thread. At the moment, I’m using Sulky 100% poly invisible thread. I use clear. I used to get a smoke version too, but like the clear better. It can withstand ironing heat, which is a good thing. There’s another one I use as well, Superior’s Mono Poly, same deal, but harder for me to find.

I’m just under 4 hours into the stitch down. I have one whole side of arms to do…well, I think I did 1 1/2 of them last night. I finished the entire torso except the very top inch or so, and I need to do all the heads. So actually not much is left.

I wanted to be done last night, but I went to the gym instead. Although this process is very meditative to DO, it’s not very exciting in the photographs. It’s more exciting to know that I can pinbaste it tomorrow. Assuming I have enough batting. Hmmn. I should check that before I leave for school. The place I get batting is closer to school than home. Plus I have to wash the batting, so I could do that tonight. See? I often think ahead. Plus I’m pretty sure I have nothing that is the right color to quilt this. It has a definite green tint to it, instead of the dark indigo and navy I usually go for. So thread and batting are now on my list. No problem.

As far as quilting it…it will probably take…um…the last big one was 20 hours. Yikes. That’s a lot. This is the part that’s gonna kick my butt. So I have a 3-day weekend, but already have like four things happening, plus I really do need to grade stuff. Always. Forever. Aacckkk. This is what drives me crazy. I need a social life, but I don’t have time for it. Anyway. So that’s where I stand. Hopefully I can get a good chunk of that done this weekend. A girl can dream.

Both kids were texting me yesterday about winter and cold. Funny since it’s been almost 90 here the last two days. Boychild is having a high of 1 degree on Saturday. I’m so glad I can’t even imagine how cold 1 is. Girlchild was outside on and off for two hours working some event…they were smart enough to only leave people out for 15 minutes, before letting them come inside and warm up. I don’t think she got frostbite.

I miss the little buggers, but at least they text me about stuff that makes me laugh. And when they need help. This week has been housing and Shakespeare. And direct deposit. I was useless on the last one. Hard to help with online stuff from so far away. And the girlchild has a blog. Let me know if you find it. She won’t tell me the name.

OK, work. The one where I manage headstrong psychotic kittens with bad breath and untrimmed claws. Yeah.

Drawing Should Fit in Somewhere

I should plan better. I should not stay up late the night before I’m doing a lab in class where I have to keep them from sucking chemicals into their mouths. And then go to a long union meeting. And then home for about 40 minutes, where I try to persuade a semi-depressed Golden Retriever to eat. She eats Just Fine at my ex’s house. It’s only here (same food) that she refuses to eat and stares up at me with those doleful eyes, making me feel like a heel for leaving again. To go to book club, where I’m only 23% into the book and I’ll probably finish it, but only because everyone is saying how wonderful it is and I totally should just bully through the first third to get to the good stuff. Um. OK. Another 10.3% is what you’re saying? Of an 800-page book. Whatever.

So tired was I last night that I sat on the couch, and then laid down on the couch, and then took a short nap. Not a long nap, because cat and Golden Retriever, but maybe 10 minutes at about 9 PM, which is earlier than I ever leave book club. I wasn’t in the mood. Usually I come out of there really up and excited and invigorated to be with my people, even though they’re all significantly younger than I am. They’re still geek girls. Just not in the mood.

That said, after the nap, I came in here and stared at the quilt top, which is looking pretty fine, and remembered I was missing a fingernail and a finger wrinkle…I thought. I made a new fingernail and then tried to find the missing finger wrinkle, but apparently I had already fixed that little problem. So I started to stitch it down…

Stitching it down is a very meditative process, because basically my brain is saying, “Stitch there, now don’t forget that piece, go back and stitch it down, and then to get to the next section, go that way, and then stitch there,” so there’s really no room for other crap, except when I was really depressed and the other crap was screaming at the top of its lungs. Now it’s more low level, so I just ignore it and let my brain move my hands move the fabric move the foot until I look up at the clock and go, oh shit, I can’t stay up super late again because I was tired. Wasn’t I tired? Well, I’m still tired, but not like I was on the couch.

I stitched all the legs and the rug and the beautiful twat (thanks Sion) and the lower torso. I somehow lost the bellybutton or maybe there never was one? That doesn’t make sense. There’s always a bellybutton. So it’s here on the floor somewhere, who knows where. I cut a new one. Maybe it’s not as fancy as the other one (one piece instead of two…yes, my bellybuttons are usually two pieces), but it will do. And then I headed down one of the arms and found I was missing another fingernail, but I think that’s another case of something falling off, unfortunately, which occasionally happens. I didn’t do the best damn job of ironing everything down at 1 AM on Tuesday night. Shockingly.

Two hours in…at least another two…maybe three…to go. Tonight hopefully. Still trying to stay on track.

I finished the baby quilt. At some point will get a picture of it. There was a joke going around that the baby couldn’t come until I was done, so Tuesday night, I texted the mom to say I had finished. An hour later, she texted that her water broke. Baby was born Wednesday morning. This is a superpower I don’t need, so don’t tell anyone.

All I really wanted to do last night was draw, though. I felt it on the way to work. While I was at lunch. During the lab, when I was very busy, I could hear art brain complaining. During the union meeting. On the way to book club. It had subsided by the time I got home, or I think I would have drawn instead of sewn. Sewing was easier. Fewer brain cells needed to be employed. But drawing should fit in somewhere. Sometime. Will have to think that through.

Up All Night…

So I stayed up too late. Not all night, but even this morning was just troubled sleep and I couldn’t fall asleep last night, despite the late hour. My brain’s in overtime. Overload. Overwhelmed. Just over. But I wanted to finish the ironing…I started with the eyeball tree growing out of her head…

And then the other two faces got done. That was it, really. A hundred pieces or so in that space.

Then I ironed her legs onto the torso…I’d kept them separate. At this point, I started pulling the arms and heads up off the teflon sheet.

Then I looked at the clock. It was that in-between time…in between when I might go to bed and when I should go to bed, and my brain just wanted to be done. So I grabbed one of the two fabrics I’d picked for this quilt and ironed her down…

That was fast. Well. 12 hours and 45 minutes total. Not uber fast really. I’m hoping to start stitching down tonight, but I have two meetings tonight, so that might be too much hoping. Finish stitch down tomorrow night, sandwich and pinbaste Friday night and start quilting. I think I might actually make this deadline. Which is good, because there’s another one right behind it. Aack. I did have something I wanted to do next, but it won’t work for this next exhibit. Luckily, it only needs to be mostly done by the end of March and there’s a Spring Break in there. I might go into overload schoolwise before I get there though. Speaking of. Need to go there and do stuff.