A Lot of Philosophy for a Wednesday Morning

Sigh. All the feels. Hormones abound. Frustration at work. I do well when I’m distracted from all that, when I can push all the detritus from work and life and house and taxes and work, did I mention work? Push it all into a pile of unfolded laundry in the dark dank corner of my brain where it deserves to live. I’ll fold it later. I’ll handle each piece later, pull it out, dust it off, fold it up, put it in the cupboard where it belongs. Apparently my version of mindfulness equates to doing the laundry. It’s not a bad metaphor. Clean it, wash it, dry it, put it away. Takes a while to do it properly, but the clothes are warm at the end and you don’t mind handling them as much as when they were smelly and dirty.

That’s a lot of philosophy for a Wednesday morning. But if my brain is going to force me to remake my existence every time the kids come home and leave again, every time there’s shit at school (thanks for the observation yesterday, dear principal…hope you understand Punnett squares now), every time my personal life isn’t going the way I want it to, well then…I’m going to have to control it somehow…and maybe visualizing laundry is the best way for now. It’s something we do all the time…every week, things need washing. It’s a lifetime of laundry. Sometimes it’s only your laundry and sometimes you’re doing everyone else’s while you’re in there.

Yeah. I know. Rambling on. But my brain is a mess and I don’t know if it’s all the emotional stuff or perimenopausal brain. I knew I had bought more cheese last night and I was ransacking the fridge for it, blaming the boychild, maybe he ate it all (it was a lot of cheese…seems unlikely), maybe he took it to his dad’s, maybe I never bought it, maybe I threw it out. I was tossing shit out of the fridge because it was all the stuff from when the kids were here and it hadn’t been fully cleaned out and I was getting really frustrated and had found a cheese alternative (just another kind of cheese, nothing drastic) and then I looked in the fridge and there it was. Big. Orange. Just sitting there. Right in full sight. Like what the fuck is that matter with my brain that it couldn’t see that? I know I looked right there about 10 times. What the fuck?

It’s really…what’s the right word? Not annoying, more than that. Not frightening, well, maybe a little, because where is my brain? Disheartening? Depressing? I don’t know. I need my brain to work well. And it’s not.

So that’s where I was last night when I started ironing. Not necessarily in a particularly good place, but knowing that spending some time ironing would make me feel better. Because it always does. And that’s why I do it. I don’t need meds…I need to commune with fabric.

I worked for about an hour…got the heart and all the arteries done, did a tree with some stuff on it, teeth! I did teeth! Little bits and pieces of stuff. All the detritus (there’s that word again) of the body and the stuff in the air around her. A cloud. Some thunderbolts. A yin/yang sign. Nipples. Just one little piece at a time. Stare at it, figure out what it is, what color it should be. Put Netflix on to calm the part of my brain that’s still trying to figure out how the cheese disappeared and reappeared right before my eyes without my noticing.

Here’s the pile of fabric now. It’s a bit messy.

I didn’t feel like straightening it up. Here’s what’s left to iron…not much. Hair, some lungs, an iPhone. The normal shit.

And the pile that needs to be cut out. Hopefully by Saturday.

I can lose myself in all that and be OK. At least there’s that. The rest will come.

All the Things…

Aaargh. Grades are (almost) done. They will be done after I go to school, deal with a parent meeting, go on duty (I should get a pass…I’m the only teacher who showed up in my section yesterday morning), deal with a fire drill in my homeroom, take attendance, and prep for the rest of the day. THEN I can finish grades. And maybe pee. Fuck you, world.

Boychild apparently made it to school, although he forgot to tell his mom he’d actually arrived, so of course, in true momma fashion, I worried. Woke up at 5 AM and texted him again. Doofus.

I’m in a mood. Hopefully I’ll fall out of it. I barely ironed anything last night…like maybe 20 pieces…

I was tired. It was 11:30 by then and I was just doing it because I wanted to say I’d done some of it. Tonight I can do more. I wrote two tests last night and I finished grades and I don’t even remember…oh yeah I do! The dog. So the dog has been on her normal travel schedule with the kids home, but yesterday, my ex had said he didn’t think she could escape where he did all the work, so I should leave her in the yard. And I worried about her getting out all day, which was legit, because I got home, and a muddy, tangled, matted Golden Retriever was lying in front of the garage, waiting for me.

So I bathed her last night. The water was dark brown the first run through. It was loads of fun. I don’t recommend it. So then I had to partially clean the bathroom. And do laundry. Like 6 towels.

I also finished quilting this and trimmed it. She goes out on leave today and I wanted it done so she could take it, but then I looked at the binding fabric I’d picked…

And it doesn’t work. I then went searching through my stash, and I didn’t have enough of anything that would work, so I need binding fabric. I don’t suppose I could persuade her to stay one more day? Yeah. I didn’t think so. It’s OK. It’s not like she’s going anywhere.

Shitty day. Shitty mood. More art tonight. Less work. Less bullshit. Less worry. Less moodiness. All the things.

Probably Not Today…

Well the boychild finally made it out of here…knock on wood, because his plane hasn’t left yet. I’m gonna miss him and his sister. But they both made Dean’s List…so I’m proud of them. And I will figure my shit out and find a mental balance with them gone. Probably not today though. Today, honestly, I’m just gonna hold it together long enough to get through the school day. Which I am officially NOT doing right now. Holding it together that is. I do have a job that distracts me from emotional crap, so that should help.

Saturday…it was a challenge. But I finished grading the assignment from hell…and have a post-it reminding me never ever to assign that again. It’s not worth my sanity and the kids don’t take it seriously. So I’m kind of in this Fuck ‘Em mode…which may be the most healthy thing I’ve thought about school for the last two months. Grades are due tomorrow. I haven’t even started them. It’s OK. It won’t take long.

When I finished grading, I ran a million errands, and then walked in here…

This is where I wanted to be all day long. Notice it’s dark. Yeah. It was like 6 PM. I was pretty crankballs by then. Yeah. It’s a mess. I might clean it up when I finish this quilt. Depends.

I knew with the figure being most of this quilt, and with 10 arms that sit behind each other, I was going to need a larger range than normal. So I sat on the ground with the pink bins and my phone flashlight (it’s dark down there…need to install fairy lights or something) and picked a run of 13…plus lip colors off to the right and finger- and toenail color above.

I didn’t use all of them in the end. I used 11. And I added two purples. So it took me 2 hours and 40 minutes just to find each flesh piece and decide what fabric it was supposed to be. And I tried to match pairs of arms on each side, but I don’t know if I was successful.

The flesh pieces ranged from the 0-100 box to the 900 box. So I went through all of them. As I did that, I set aside the non-flesh pieces…the heart, veins, lungs, rocket ship, hair, eyebrows, etc. Two uteri even. Lots of eyeballs. So this below is what I still have left to do.

Then I started ironing all those pieces down to the fabric I’d chosen…here’s number 5 in the range.

Yup. That’s a lot of pieces. Some arms, some fingers and toes, and ribcage parts. That funny bone that sticks out on your foot that probably has a name. I went and looked it up. It’s complicated. You can Google it yourself.

Ironing it all took my Saturday art time to 4 hours plus. Ahhhh. You could hear my brain sigh from there, couldn’t you? Because I was in a dark and angry place over school. And art saved the day. Put my brain back in a decent place.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far.

And I tried to get them to fit in the box once I’d ironed them, but the flesh pieces were too big to fold into there.

I have no idea how many pieces are left. I think I’ve got 6 1/2 hours in, so maybe another 3 or 4? Just a guess really.

I was at a meeting yesterday and started cutting stuff out. It’s only an hour so far.

But it’s a start. And it’s something to do this week…less than 5 weeks to finish this quilt. Finish ironing pieces by tomorrow night? I have a baby quilt to finish tonight if I can pull it off, plus grades. I tried to finish the baby quilt last night and got everything quilted except the border. I started that and the thread kept getting caught on the spool and doing stupid things, so I quit. I’ll try again tonight. Maybe it will behave better. And if I can be a good girl and get a bunch of the grades done at school today, then I’ll be ironing later? Maybe. Maybe not. Then trim them all by the weekend? It would be nice if I could start ironing it together Saturday, because I actually have time.

Shit. I might actually finish it in time. Don’t hold your breath though.

Post-It Note

Well hello there Saturday. You’re finally here. Yesterday I determined there was a full moon coming, which might have explained my students’ behavior. Or not. It was a rough week at school. Too much administrative crap. And grades are due Tuesday. And I’m not done. Or ready. Today I am working all day on school and fabric. Seriously, I have about 2 errands to run and I have to cook/prep some stuff for tomorrow, but otherwise, I’m just working until my brain shuts down. It’ll be OK. I’ll feel better afterwards because I can cross some shit off the lists that are taking over my brain. Just in the last 24 hours, I’ve crossed off a million things, like rescheduling the boychild’s flight to school because of Snowzilla or whatever they’re calling the blizzard back East. Now he’s flying Monday. Better than Thursday, which was the other offer (school starts Wednesday). I managed about 17 online issues last night and this morning, but the post-it note for this weekend still has 7 things on it. I’m really liking this method of writing it so I can see it (don’t think about the fact that last weekend’s post-it still has stuff on it that you haven’t crossed off). OK. I put two things from last week’s post-it onto today’s. Even though they won’t happen. Not sure that’s logical, but I did it anyway. I am nothing if not logical. By that I mean I’m not logical at all.

I did not do art last night. I barely did it the night before. Last night turned into a giant mess because of the flights and the girlchild’s phone and a bunch of other stuff, so after dinner, I tried to get caught up on grading and I ended up not getting it all done and just getting frustrated and then I was too tired to do anything else, so I went to bed. Sometimes that’s all you can do. I expect more today though.

I did recently put some new stuff on Etsy, if by NEW I mean stuff that hasn’t been there before, because it’s journal quilts from 2005 I think. I was part of the Journal Quilt Project that traveled to International Quilt Festival that year, and I still have the little quilts. Although there’s one I can’t find, so I haven’t put it up yet. Wait. I just found it. Dammit. Have to write something else on the post-it note.

Because honestly, I don’t remember to do stuff except go to work and make art unless my phone calendar tells me or it’s written on a post-it note. Sad but true.

So these are about 8 1/2″ w x 11″ h and I did one every other month for the year 2005. This one normally hangs on my wall…

This one is a little strange. Couldn’t tell you what I was dealing with…postdivorce?

Another one. The relationship I was in was all phone-based due to distance and it was difficult.

Another bird from last year that never sold…one of the few.

And this one! Ha. I’m not putting this on Etsy. And it has a big sister that’s never been quilted…for those who flipped out over the vulva in One Paycheck, this would give them paroxysms.

Eh. Whatever. There’s another one of the journal quilts, but it’s not up yet. My Etsy site is easy…it’s just my name. Or the link is over there to the right on the sidebar. I don’t know if my stuff belongs on Etsy or not, but I figured it was a good place to stash the less artsy quilts, the smaller ones, in case someone wanted a bird or a cat. I will probably put the birds up there as custom orders at some point. It does take time to post stuff, and I don’t have any of that at the moment. In fact, I’m done here as well. Gonna go grade (torture myself) for a while and then do fabric I think. I might have to grocery shop first. But there’s a plan to make art today, and that’s all I care about. It will motivate me to speed through the rest of it. Damn post-it note.

Less Molasses and More Lightning…

Oh My Lord the molassesness of it all. I have this to-do list that is miles long and I’m trying to get through all the things on it, one at a time, and then other crap inserts itself into that, like writing teacher recommendations with 6 essay questions that I can’t answer without interviewing the child sometimes and that means I have to find time during teaching to do that and THEN write the rec as well and administrative crap is burying me and everything takes so LOOONNNGGG. Girlchild’s phone has worked fine for months and now that she’s back in Boston, NOW it’s acting up again. Not even sure if I can handle that thing, because she might have to take the phone in (it’s an AT&T insurance thing now). Plus grades and college money and writing a new genetics test because the other one won’t work and managing science stuff in general and don’t even throw my family into that mix or the boychild who will probably have his flight cancelled tomorrow morning. Hopefully before we have to get up at an ungodly hour. And taxes and FAFSA and financial aid are all hanging over me as well, because it’s almost the end of the month.

I will get through. I went to the gym yesterday and worked out and it was glorious. Plus I got to read my book. Which was also glorious. More of that please.

Girlchild owes me $20 for making me sign her back up for the gym for a month and then never going. But the guy there saved me an additional $5 a month by changing my membership from family to single until she gets back. How am I going to spent that $5 a month? Oh joy, I do not know. Who can I hire to help me at $5/month?

I graded last night. I also spent time on the phone dealing with family stuff. So I didn’t get as much ironing done as I wanted, but honestly, I would have had to stop there anyway…I did all the stuff on the rug…a mug, a cat, and a book…

I had done the rug the night before. So at this point, I think I was up into the 50s. Pitiful amount of time for that many pieces really. I’m moving like molasses. Too tired? I don’t know. Too stressed maybe.

There’s the not-very impressive pile.

The reason I had to stop there is because the next batch of pieces is the human figure itself, which honestly is most of the quilt. I need to pick all the flesh colors at the same time so I don’t forget what I’m doing…which basically means picking about a run of 10 fabrics on this quilt from light to dark and then going through each bin and pulling all the flesh pieces, because they’re spread out from piece 60-something to 900-something. Yeah. That’s gonna be a bitch. I’m going to start tonight and finish who-the-fuck-knows-when. If I knew I didn’t have to deal with grades or flights or baby quilts or other shit in the next few days, that would be awesome, but I know none of that. Or I could come home tonight and grade for hours and be done with it (I’m never actually done with it) and then pick fabrics tomorrow. I may decide to do that. Sunday is already a goner, so I’m wiping it off the list of available days. I don’t think I can get all the fabric ironed this week. Realistically it’s not gonna happen. Not even this weekend.

Sigh. I’m aiming for Monday night done now. If I can get all the fleshy bits picked and ironed by the end of Saturday, then maybe I can pull it off. There’s a lot of non-flesh bits in there (hearts, hair, rockets and the like), but I don’t think they’ll take me long if the flesh is done. I just need to be moving faster than I am. Less molasses and more lightning.

So I was looking at this mug that’s on the quilt and thinking to myself, I drew a pizza slice on the mug. I often draw things on the mugs, although usually rainbows…very 80s. I don’t actually own a rainbow mug. I mostly use mugs I painted myself, although I’m down to one. Which sucks. I have others people have given me that fill in, although I usually drink milk out of them instead of tea (don’t ask…it’s just what I prefer). But there’s a pizza slice on that mug.

Pepperoni. I drew this on New Year’s Eve while watching sci fi. I was thinking (yet again) about being a woman, a mom, a teacher, trying to do everything and be everything to everyone because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and then I remembered last Friday, after my first week back to school, and I tell the boychild I’m ordering pizza because I can’t handle dinner and he says “I figured.” Because I’ve been his mom forever and a teacher for as long as he can remember (he was maybe 7 when I started teaching…or 6? Can’t remember.) and the first Friday back to school after a break is almost always pizza delivery. So it makes total sense that the pizza slice is on the mug. Sign of a busy mom.

It’s all gonna work out. Some things won’t get done or will get done late. And that’s how it always is. I should probably find time for meditation though. Because not doing that is kicking my butt. Gonna calendar it now.

Back to the Fabric

OK, some nights I totally rock it. I come home, I don’t space out or veg out, I get everything going like the Energizer bunny. Probably that makes up for the nights when I space out. Veg out. Collapse. I usually do work on art every day though. Yesterday was a little delayed by the fact that the boychild is supposed to fly back to school Saturday morning through blizzard conditions and even his airline is suspecting cancellations, so a brief look at whether he could get out tonight (insert hysterical laughter here) followed by a phone call from my SIL who had just cancelled her flight back east for the weekend…it may be that he’s hanging out with us for a few extra days. Can’t complain. He does his dishes and entertains animals and is occasionally sociable. Plus he could remember all the background info for The 100, which is good, because I was totally mixing it up with The Expanse and couldn’t figure out where the hell they were. Is this Earth? Sheeit. Too much sci fi rambling together in my brain.

I even managed to start picking fabrics last night for the new quilt, although it was a pretty pitiful start…that’s it. All of it. In the box.

Mostly because I had to put away all the fabrics from the LAST quilt. I leave them out in boxes until I’ve finished the quilt, in case I need a piece to fill in or cover somewhere or something gets damaged. It’s easier to find them if they’re still in the boxes than if I’ve re-filed all of them into their color bins. So I cleaned up first and then started picking at around 11 PM I think. Yup. So the people who always ask me how I hold down a full-time-plus (because teaching is PLUS) job AND make art, the answer is that when you are warm and snuggled in bed, I’m being antisocial in my office with my fabric. Well, not particularly antisocial since no one lives with me fulltime but animals, and they’re always in there. Right now, 7:30 AM, I have a dog lying on the floor behind my chair and a cat in the shoebox behind the sewing machine. The other cat is sleeping on my bed. She’ll stay there until I get home probably. Last night, while I was ironing, she mostly sat here…in front of the screen where I was trying to watch what was happening to the ark.

Only somewhat annoying. I had all three in here at one point.

Notice when I said “clean up,” I didn’t mean all the stuff on the desk.

I sorted the first 100 pieces…

And then Midnight tried to stand on them. I only picked fabrics for the first 13 pieces. Yup. Big progress last night. Thirteen whole pieces. But it’s a start. I guessed 10 hours. I hoped I’d be done by the weekend, maybe even Saturday. That’s starting to look problematic. But then I always have to adjust.

I did also sandwich and pinbaste the baby quilt…

It’s very light and pretty and unlike what I usually do, but that’s OK…it’s not for me. I’m hoping to get it quilted by Monday, but Tuesday at the latest. So that has to fit into the next few days, along with grades and all the other normal life things like my job. And maybe sleep. Eh.

Moving to the Next Step…

The next project is already moving…good thing, because I only have a short period of time if I’m going to get it done. Five and a half weeks, to be specific. It might not be possible. But so far, I’m doing OK. I finished cutting out Wonder Under last night, with just over 5 hours into that. Trash on the left, pieces on the right.

It was still early when I finished, so I sorted them…missing the two boxes on the right in this picture.

Apparently I have the brain power to sort pieces late at night but not the brain power to take a decent photo of them. They’re in boxes by 100s, so there are 10 boxes total. Well, that’s not true. Here’s box 11.

The Wonder Under is separating again. Sigh. It’s OK. As I iron, I go through this box and find the piece of fusible web that’s the same size as the paper piece. Or retrace. Whichever is easier. And that one piece is missing a number. I don’t usually do that…forget to write the number down. But it does happen.

I’ve been using WU for so many years and been through so many chemical compositions for this material…this last one has been the best. It releases well, but usually only when it’s supposed to. I do keep it “sealed” (not really sealed) in a bag when I’m not using it, which is supposed to help. Oh well. It makes my life a little more complicated, but it’s not a lot of pieces that released.

The next step is to pick fabrics…AND to quilt the baby quilt. I have a mostly free day on Saturday I think, but grades are due as well, so I need to deal with that. Too many things. I did not do any schoolwork last night (well, not true…I emailed myself some stuff and answered some email), because I spent all day helping kids call home about missing work. And that’s frustrating. Tiring. Even annoying. Plus watching kids do the interactive stuff on the website and then yell out, “I’m done!” Done with what? Playing around? Awesome. Go back and answer the questions and write the paragraph. What paragraph? The one I told you about in the beginning of class. But I already did the whole thing? No you didn’t. You did the playing. Now do the work.

SIGH. We have two parent meetings set up already, working on the third. A fourth is coming in with a possible meeting time today. I hate parent meetings…hate scheduling them…hate having them because 80% of the time, maybe more, nothing changes after the meeting. The kid continues whatever they were doing before and if I call the parent NOW, they get all irritated because Insert Reason Here. They’ve already come to the meeting. Why am I still bugging them?

I really need to walk away from the school stress…hence the art when I get home. The most I can…because I do have to grade things…but try to come home and be a real human instead of a teacher.

Kitten agrees. Apparently I finished that other traditional quilt so she and Midnight could fight over who lies on it every night…

The other thing I’m doing tonight is tossing some other small quilts I found up on Etsy.

Not that anything’s happening there, but it’s a place to stash the smaller things. They might sell eventually.

Ah yes, and then there’s the unnamed quilt…

It’s actually Bathtub 5, but it will need a real name…and it’s number 5 because I numbered the drawings, not the quilts. The first one is Bathtub 2. Confusing? Only to you. I know exactly what I’m doing…

She dyes her hair by the way, like the majority of women my age. The next one will have white hair. Here’s where the second owl came from…

I’m also really happy with the wine glass, although it was a heinous pain in the ass.

And those toes. Love them.

Oh look, there’s the glass. I love my photographer. It’s like he’s psychic.

And the sewing stuff. Because I sew in the bath. Don’t you? I would sew in the bath.

Maybe. Anyway. It needs a title in the next week. No, I’m not asking for help with that. It’s in my head and percolating. First quilt of 2016 though. Should redo all the pages so Recent Work is recent. Later. Not now. Now I have to go teach Punnett Squares. Then I get to move to the next step…art…not science.

I Am Installed…

OK. Deep breaths because the installation is done. It wasn’t even too painful. The pieces I really wanted to be in there are up…I had way too many quilts, but it was good, because it gave us choices. The boychild assisted in hanging stuff and was generally very helpful, even editing artist statements, which takes special skill.

And there’s Brandon, the gallery guy, helping as well. I’m not posting pictures of the full exhibit yet because I want you to come to the opening! My work plays well with James Watts’ sculptures…similar bright colors and even noses…

I brought an iron just in case…didn’t need it. You can see it in this artsy photo of a ladder.

We had hung most of the quilts by the time sculptures started arriving.

It was a little chaotic for a while until heads started being placed where they belonged.

We finished up the last wall. It’s a wide range of years for my work. A lot of the most recent stuff is traveling or can’t be shown because of rules for other shows or has to be shipped before this show closes, but I think it works well. The earliest piece is from 2003…the latest from 2014? I think?

What I notice is that I used to make much simpler quilts, but they still have presence in the room.

I was pretty emotional about this yesterday…I’m 48 years old and having my first 2-person show that I didn’t put together. I’ve been quilting for 25 years, making art quilts seriously for about 17 years. When I think about my students giving up on stuff after just 10 minutes or so, I guess I’m a little more persistent than that. I appreciate Prudence, the curator, for thinking of my work with James’…but it’s those weird little opportunities that make things happen. I don’t think I’m going to get a solo show somewhere standard, because so much of my work is challenging. Which is too bad. And no, I’m not giving up on that…I’m just waiting for the right opportunity I guess. My work’s out there. Someone needs to offer me the space.

Anyway, make me happy (if you can) and come to the opening. It’s Tuesday, February 2, from 5-7 PM at the Hyde Art Gallery, Grossmont College, San Diego, CA. It’s a college campus, so there’s no alcohol, but there are cookies! And lemonade! Or whatever they serve.

It is a relief to have that off my shoulders though. And then I came home and collapsed a little before I started putting the baby quilt together. She’s due in less than two weeks now. Had to put the dogs out to lay out the blocks and mess with them.

But I got them all together and borders on them.

Hopefully I can get it sandwiched this week when the dogs are gone and start quilting.

I also wanted to finish cutting these out.

This batch of Wonder Under is cranky…it’s separating from the backing. I thought they had solved that problem, but apparently not.

And the half page that was left took two hours. I guess the other page I did was all bigger pieces and these were tiny. I have a little more than half a page left…maybe an hour or two. Tonight? Perhaps. If I feel up to it.

I’m still fighting off this cold. It hasn’t quite taken hold, but it’s enough to slow me down a bit. Plus I’m tired from all the physical work and stress this weekend. Not very relaxing. I did finally get pictures of the newest quilt, but I’m going to hold off on posting them until the quilt names itself. Better be soon…it needs to be entered into a show.

Not a Diptych…

Long weekends should be relaxing. But they so rarely are. And now I’m sick. Oh well. Get through it. I spent a lot of time ironing yesterday and trying to organize for the show installation today. I’m a little wigged out at the moment, but it will all be better by the end of the day. Well, it will be installed anyway.

I even worked on the other quilt…basically blowing off grading completely yesterday. I did send out the team email, so I didn’t blow everything off.

My couchmate waiting for me…I will have to move the boxes of Wonder Under to sit next to her.

Then she snuggles with her head on my leg. Sweet. Slightly annoying. But she doesn’t usually complain if I move around. She’s not a good replacement for a human though. The next kid leaves Saturday…Calli has big shoes to fill.

I actually got more than half of it cut out in a really short period of time. I think that’s because so many of the pieces are the same color, so I lumped them together, and they only get cut out once at this stage. Once they’re ironed to fabric, it will take longer because I’ll have to cut them each separately.

So I might even (hopefully) finish cutting them out tonight. Although if we get done with the installation early enough and I don’t feel like shit (had to take a nap yesterday because I felt like shit), then I’m putting that damn baby quilt together. THEN cutting out Wonder Under. Then maybe torturing myself with grades.

Hopefully I can get to ironing Wonder Under to fabric tonight or tomorrow (shit, I don’t think I have a background…of course I have a background. I must have a background. Huh.). With 980 pieces, picking fabrics is at least 10 hours. So plan to be done Saturday, with trimming starting Sunday? I have a meeting Sunday. I can trim there. Grades are also due, but they’re only progress reports, so I don’t have to kill myself to get everything in. There’s one thing I want to finish and another I should do, but might not get to, so there we are.

I might get this quilt done in time. Just might.

So this morning, I rolled up all the quilts by semi-size (not really, but didn’t want them all in one roll). These are the medium-sized ones.

Up on the bookshelf are the small ones…with the large ones on the coffee table.

Finally installing. For this, by the way…

Yup. There it is. My first show that isn’t just one or two pieces with a bunch of other people. I’m sure there’s a better name than “two-person show”…like a diptych but not…a dipexhibit maybe. Except apparently the “p” belongs with the “tych”, so that’s diexhibit, which has the word “die” in it. Whatever. Taking my sore throat and my spacey head and my cranky boychild (I meant to remind him of the time last night, but I was a mopey mess) and my cold feet and going to hang a shitload of quilts. Wish me luck.

So Obviously a Dream…

I’m typing this while gulping down my first cup of tea for the day, the one that makes me legal to drive and interact with humans. I’m putting food in me as well, because it’s a day of moving and lifting, helping someone out. I’m tired, but I’m not exhausted any more. Last night I got a burst of energy and ironed about 5 quilts, cutting slats etc, and then bullied through the rest of the tracing of the Wonder Under…

Honestly, for a quilt with almost a thousand pieces, I didn’t use that much Wonder Under…two full sheets and about 2/3 of another. Of course, that’s because all the pieces are fucking tiny. It took a little over 9 hours to trace, with over 2 hours of it last night. I did exactly what I said I would…spent a little time vegging out, then packed up the girlchild’s Box of Forgotten Things (more like things that wouldn’t fit in her luggage) to ship to her, ironed some stuff, ordered pizza for dinner (had a coupon), and then traced until I was done. I even graded a few things last night, though it was nothing major.

I can start cutting all that Wonder Under apart on Sunday, once I have all the quilts ready to go (kind of a scary thought in itself). I don’t think the cutting will take long, because I clumped similar pieces together (all the fingernails on one hand, every other tooth…that kind of crazy thing). Less cutting until the very end, when I iron them down.

My parents’ dog Katie is back to visit. If by visit, I mean sort of stalk cats and roll over for a belly rub every time someone walks by. It’s actually really hard to get a good picture of her, because despite her roly poly affect, she’s a hyper little sausage beast. I call this “Katie with Red Toy.”

But this is really mostly what I get…

Spaz. I’m off now to make the second cup of tea for the day, the one that makes me not only legal, but somewhat competent, although arguably so. I dreamt last night of sitting on a couch in the evening, no pressure from work or kidlets or anything else, just drawing. Happily drawing. Uh huh. Oh yeah, and I was well-rested. So obviously a dream.