Making a Gift

I occasionally make quilts as gifts…I sometimes get hints from people that they’d like a quilt, but often that’s just not an option for me…whether I don’t have an idea for them or because my larger quilts are pretty significantly time-consuming. You’ve got to be a fairly important person in my life to have one of those, and it might be even more difficult now, because I did give one of my big ones away and now I wish I hadn’t. It’s hard to think about one of my babies out there where I don’t think they deserve to be…but that’s life. I don’t mind selling them…that’s a fulfilling transaction. But if I give you a $2000 quilt, hell, you better deserve it. That’s months of work.

Anyway, so I made one gift quilt this year. I was making those cats and realized someone I cared about would probably like a quilt of his cat…so I took some pictures of Satchemo’s squished little face…

He has a tiny nose and kind of a grumpy cat facial structure. These pictures were dark too, and I realized I had no full-body pictures, so I trolled Facebook to find this one…

Perfect for his body coloring and how he curls up. Then I spent about an hour trying to draw him…the first few weren’t quite right, but then I got his face right, traced it, and added it to a better body shape.

So if you’re wondering if I could make a quilt of your cat…well, probably. Because if you had a perfect picture, that would be awesome, but obviously I can take one cool picture (the sink one) and mess with it to make a straight-on quilt. Although maybe I should have done the sink too. Except then there was no way I would have finished it in time.

Tracing the Wonder Under…

That’s all of it…

And then cutting it out…

Satch has 40 pieces, so more than most of the small cat quilts I did earlier this year. Some stages of the quilt took longer than with other quilts, because I wanted to make sure the quilt looked like its namesake. So color choice and drawing were kind of time-consuming. I’ve found that people like the quilts to be in the $100 range, but with the style of quilt I make, that’s really difficult. That’s about 3-4 hours of work, not counting materials, and I make these in more like 5 or 6 hours. And yes, I know people who would work on something for 10 hours and charge $100. I won’t. I work hard to put my kids through school and keep my head above water (most of the time). I’m not working for $10/hour, because my 25 years of quilting experience has to pay better than that.

I had the sink photo up for the body fabrics on my iPad. The face photo was up earlier. The grays are always a challenge.

Here they are all ironed down. I thought his back end was too dark until I saw him sitting there again. He really is darker in back.

It didn’t take long to trim the pieces…although now I’ve lost my little scissors. No idea where they went…and that’s the second pair gone missing. I need to do a deep clean. There’s gotta be 50 pairs of scissors in this house.

Ironing is the next step…I did the head separate to make sure it all went together well…

Before I put it on the body. Faces are important. If it’s human, I iron the eyes together separately and then put them on the face, to make sure they’re not horrendously crooked.

Then to pick a background…can’t be too dark, because of the dark parts. Can’t be too gray or too light, because the lights won’t show. Has to be a color and pattern that isn’t too busy.

I finally found one…mostly blue with some green in it. Then I stitched it down and pinbasted it. Starting quilting with a dark thread around the cat itself.

DSCN2752 small

Then found the thread for the background, except it wasn’t anywhere near a full spool. Oh well. It’s a small quilt, right?

Oh yeah, I ran out. Oh well. I did a fairly good job of quilting evenly around it before that happened.

It does change colors in different light.

Then yesterday, in between cookie-baking, I trimmed and bound it…

Finishing the hand-sewing about 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave to meet the recipient (it’s OK, I had a backup plan).

I forgot to measure it though. I can do that later. But here’s the finished piece.

Satchemo took about 6 1/2 hours to make, not counting drawing time…in a commission, I would count that…legitimately. I think he looks like his namesake. That cat spends a lot of time on my lap, clawing the crap out of my thighs and/or boobs, so I’m prettty familiar with his face. And he was the 25th quilt I finished in 2015. I’m unlikely to finish another one by January 1, so I guess he’s the last quilt in 2015. Not bad. Now on to the next one…

Hiking for the Holidays…

Officially Christmas Eve here. Still got lots to do, although got through a bunch of cookie making yesterday. Just a little bit left for today, plus a breakfast casserole, but after two grocery stores last night, we’re still short a couple of ingredients. I’ll be leaving here in a bit on a search for those. We also did a 6-mile hike yesterday…with a late start, so a late finish…but Iron Mountain was conquered. I haven’t been hiking much…haven’t been able to find the time and energy, so it was not an easy hike for me, but I did it. Slowly. My fastest time up the mountain was 50 minutes, and it took 70 yesterday, but I did it…with the kids. Boychild out in front, long legs and all.

It was a bit chilly, although I did wear shorts (it’s San Diego in December after all) and stayed warm enough. It had rained the whole day before, so there was mud and water…even streams, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen on this hike.

Girlchild claimed this as her favorite pile of rocks…

The rocks and mud change colors as you move around the mountain. Plenty of puddles to miss…

Lots of long-range views, even with the clouds…this is to the east.

With the west looking much more ominous.

No more rain for a while though, apparently.

No pictures of artmaking. Maybe tomorrow. I have stuff I’m working on…it’s just not in pictures yet. Have to deal with all the family and holiday stuff first. I was actually worried yesterday that this was somehow a strange year, not getting anything done, but then I looked back at previous years (I do this a lot…my blog actually helps me remember that it’s ALWAYS like this) and realized the days between the end of school and Christmas Eve are notoriously bad for artmaking or anything but chaos, so I should stop beating myself up about it. I do often get a lot done on Christmas Eve and Day, though, once everything else is out of the way.

I really just want some quiet time, I think. Ironic since that’s what I hate most of the rest of the year! Ah well. Live and learn. Gonna get my act together and try to survive today. Best wishes to all of you doing the same.

Not Relaxing Yet…

At some point in all this holiday crap, you run out of time to do anything else, so you can relax. I haven’t hit that yet! Whoops. Waiting on a grocery list for the holiday meals, plus still have some wrapping to do (did a lot of it yesterday), and the tree’s not even decorated really (may give up on that), plus at least one gift in progress…maybe two.

I keep seeing all these teacher articles about burn-out and exhaustion and how we have to let ourselves forget about work for a week or so or we won’t have the emotional energy to go back. I suspect there are other jobs like that out there too. So I’m not stressing too much about the work pile over THERE (which is actually mostly on a computer, so it’s much easier to ignore).

I am almost done cutting these out…

Really couldn’t persuade myself to stay up any later to finish those. I’ve been really tired the last week or so. Trying to sleep through the night is an issue at the moment. Not sure why. So I saved those for today, I guess. Hoping to start ironing tonight, but we’ll see. I do have some other stuff I need to get done.

I went shopping for baby quilt fabric…got these (not for the baby quilt)…

I’m not sure where big raccoon eyes will be appropriate, but I got them anyway.

Here’s the baby stuff…

Not my normal color range. The darkest pink is for the binding, and I may rethink that when I get there. These were their color choices. Yup. It’s a girl.

I was cleaning stuff up in the living room and putting things away. Now that the shelves are installed, I’ll be able to put books and stuff back up there, which means opening boxes that haven’t been opened in 18 months. I found these in a bin…

I took a class from…ugh…I just had to search through all my likes on Facebook…Jude Hill! I took the class a long time ago and never got past this part, but wanted to…just don’t have time for all the things I want to do. She does beautiful work. I often wish I could just sit with bits of fabric and thread and create things like she does, but either my life or my personality don’t work that way. I want to be more spontaneous and slow about working, but if I do that, I never get anything done. The reason I can get so much work out there is because I plan for it and create in a very specific way. I’m not saying one way is better than the other, because obviously I still crave the time for the other way of doing it, but in reality, I work a million hours a week and I don’t have time to sit and stitch like that. I think. Sigh. Right now I don’t feel like I have time for it anyway. Too many deadlines I’m looking at, both art ones and life ones. Maybe when I am old and retired, I will create like this. Or maybe I just can’t because it’s not how my brain works.

So they are back in a pile. And I’m not entirely sure what the one in the top left was supposed to be or even the box-like one. There’s two obvious cats and a butterfly, and I think the column-like ones were the lion-type creatures she makes, except I don’t want to make Jude Hill work. I want to make my own. And maybe that’s why I stopped there. I learned how she put stuff together and then I stopped. I don’t remember. Because at some point, you have to make it yours…

In case you’re interested, it was her Patchwork Beasts class, which she’s now put online here, but please donate if you use it. Artists should always get paid for their efforts.

I’ve been working on other things, but you will have to wait to see them. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to have kids here and we’re supposed to be hiking like now, and then grocery shopping (hell!), but there’s no sign of them. It’s still chilly and looks like rain, although that’s supposed to have stopped until tomorrow night. I’ve declined a copyediting job because I know nothing about Blender. I need more work, dammit. I’m going to be short money for college at some point in the next few months. Maybe I’ll stress over that for a while before the kids show up. It’s on my to-do list, and then I can hike off all that stress. Good plan.

If I Feel Like It…

Rain makes it all slow down, the crazy. It’s too wet to go out, to brave the crowds, the traffic. Although I am going to the gym. And the grocery store. But my Christmas shopping appears to be done…just waiting on things to be delivered (yes, Amazon, I heard your truck banging around out there at 7:22 AM…yes, many people are awake at that hour, but I am on my 4th day of vacation and have yet to experience a full night’s rest where I wake up…well…rested. The animals are needy, the kids are semi-noisy or just late and I’m a light sleeper. Seems funny to look forward to Christmas Eve for the sleep potential…no one in the house but me and the two cats…if I put tuna out, maybe they will fall into sleep comas and I will have peace until I have to be at the ex’s house for present exchange. Of course, it’s probably going to be pretty hard to exchange gifts if I don’t start wrapping some of them, eh? It’s on my list for today, along with make more cookies (or dough, as it were), finish cutting stuff out, do some ironing. Might want to finish decorating the tree even. Or call it a day. It has ornaments on it. My rule of “you can’t leave the house until you hang 10 ornaments” is not working. They just ignore me.

I was cutting stuff out for a couple of hours last night…the empty space on the couch is mine. Calli kept shifting one way and another…

On the other side of me is a cat, sometimes two (one above, one below) and the other box of stuff to be cut out.

I’m almost done…

Maybe another hour? My hand definitely is sore today. But there’s progress. The box on the right is what’s left.

I have two other things I’m working on…this tiny thing…

And then a baby quilt that is just a pile of recently washed fabrics in my dryer. Maybe you’ll see those tomorrow. The raccoon fabric did not make it in the quilt. The color choices on that were challenging for me, but the nice lady in the quilt shop said I did well. I need a traditional quilter to look sometimes and make sure I didn’t wander too far out of the realm of normalcy.

Have I drawn yet? Nope. Still not mentally there. Drawings screaming at the enclosure of my brain, begging to be let out, to be started, finished, made into quilts. Demanding little buggers. Instead I read and clean and cook and run errands. Most schools don’t give three weeks for Winter Break, but I’ve found two weeks (like I have at Spring Break) is never enough. The first week is always recovery from the last weeks of school, and in the case of Winter Break, it’s the Christmas stuff kicking your butt as well, because you didn’t get enough done over the last three weeks. Then the week in between Christmas and New Year’s, that’s recovery as well, and the last week is when I actually get refreshed and caught up on errands and grading and house-cleaning for the next round of school.

But that week for me will be spent prepping quilts for the Grossmont exhibit coming up. It’s called Contemporary Crafts and it’s just me and James E. Watts, a very cool sculptor and painter.

Put the opening on your calendar…come by. Should be cool. No, I haven’t decided (besides the two that are on the card) what to show yet. That’s for the week after New Year’s! I need to plan out my overwhelming stressful activities. Let’s not think about when the quilt I’m working on needs to be done either, OK? Or everything else that’s going on in January? It’s still December…for another 10 days. I can do this. No, I didn’t grade very much yesterday. Shut up.

Starting with the gym today (I can actually grade on the bike and the elliptical if I feel like it). Maybe that should be my mantra for Winter Break…If I feel like it.

It Will All Work Out…

Hello vacation. Why are you so stressful? Ah yes, the holiday season. Always kind of a press for time. Too much to do, entirely too much cooking, and so little time to just sit and relax…read a book even. I have been trying to do that. And the kids and I are planning a hike on Wednesday. I’m not done with Christmas shopping yet though, and I haven’t sent the cards out because I’m waiting on the girlchild, and nothing is wrapped, and the tree’s not done. I told everyone they can’t leave the house without putting 10 ornaments on the tree.

That said, although I am grading stuff, I’m not at school and dealing with kids, so that’s a break. I did some art stuff yesterday…but one is a gift, so I can’t show it, because apparently everyone in the world reads this blog. I know, I put it out there, so I can’t complain, right? But honestly, I just don’t even THINK about people reading it…I just spill it all out on the screen so it will get out of my head.

Speaking of getting it out of my head…three drawings in there at the moment, and I just need to feel like I’m enough ahead to sit down and draw. I don’t think that will happen today…but maybe I’m wrong. I did cut out more pieces last night…

I’m actually pretty close to done, probably less than two hours. Maybe today? Maybe. I have stuff in the morning and stuff in the afternoon, and technically about three errands in between, which might just take up all that time, and I’m still not wearing pants. I think they’re in the dryer. There’s a definite pants shortage going on here, but since all I really feel like wearing is pajama pants, that would be fine if I didn’t have to venture out into the real world. Yes, I know some people wear pajama pants out into the real world, but I don’t want to be associated with those people. I’d like to think I can at least get dressed in the morning. I don’t have some major health issue that keeps me from putting pants on. That’s how I measure my sanity apparently, by whether or not I make it into pants during the day. Or a skirt, but it’s way too cold for that.

Here’s the other thing I’m working on.

Some people might be able to figure out what it was from that pile of Wonder Under, but they should be QUIET about it. Shh. Don’t tell. Secret.

I thought I only had 6 assignments to grade over break, but I had forgotten about one…so that’s 7 dammit. And I haven’t finished a single one. I’ll get one done today. Maybe one tomorrow. I don’t want them hanging over me all of break. I’ve got enough crap hanging over me.

Kids are home. The house is noisier. There is happy in that. I really don’t like an empty house. It sucks. Really. It does. That said, girlchild still doesn’t know how to throw anything out or put stuff away, and boychild is still eating all the food I leave in the fridge. So there we are. Some things never change. Like the chaos here, like the stress of having too much on your plate, like the money worries.

Whatever. It’s the holidays. Enjoy. Read a book for a while. Make some art. Bake cookies. It will all work out somehow.

It Was a Lot of Art in One Night…

So first day of my Winter Break starts with a 6 AM wake up call. Apparently no one has explained to the dog’s bladder that I’m on break. OK. I can handle this. 6:02 AM finds me with my head leaning on the door, waiting for the dog to come back from outside, my eyes closed. I know she’ll whine to come back in, and she does. But it’s OK, because I have a lot of days to sleep in. Twenty three of them, I think. Well, I have training one day and will have to be up early for that unfortunately, but otherwise, I sleep. Sleep is good.

Yesterday both kids came back. I missed their noise and presence. Girlchild went right back to leaving dishes and trash on the counter though. Sigh. Boychild make himself an egg and turkey tortilla hash for breakfast. Useful skill. They both cook better than I did at that age. I hang out with them in the morning, because I can. And then I go off and run holiday errands, because I have to. I have three drawings looming in my head at the moment. I need the time and mental space to get them out. Maybe this weekend? Maybe not.

I did cut things out last night. They went to bed before me, both still on Eastern time. I didn’t get very far…

I was very very tired. Still am.

The tree is slowly getting decorated. I need to be home to do that shit.

Maybe later this weekend.

I have 6 assignments to grade over break. I have an art quilt to finish, a baby quilt to make, one quilt to make as a gift, and another art quilt to start. I need to clean house and organize shit. I need to finish Christmas shopping and wrap everything. I need to ship a box to my brother’s family.

That’s it. That’s all. And enjoy the kids for the short time they’re home and other people too and oh yeah, make a plan for the exhibition in February that gets installed in January. What’s going there and do I have hanging stuff for all of them (of course I don’t). Not a lot. Right? I know the art will rule…I’ll spend more time making art than doing other stuff. That’s OK. Right the balance a bit maybe.

Here’s some more pictures from that Star Wars exhibit from last weekend…woodburning tool used on this one, by Jorge Piña…

Some attitude in Star Wars Kids, by David Russell Talbott…

Quilling at its best in Quilled Storm Trooper, by Iwatsumi.

Raz Holly‘s piece…

Gmonik‘s Rebel Alliance on the left and Ashley Gallagher’s Rebel Princess on the right…one of my favorites.

Although I also love this one by Keith Greene, Rebels, Blast Them!

Then I headed over to a mentorship show in the area at Gallery D in Barrio Logan. The show is called It Takes an Artist: A Show about Mentorship. I’m not entirely sure who did what pieces, because I think students did some of them, and there were numbers on the walls, but the book with all the information in it was in someone else’s hands…so here are some things I liked from the show…I didn’t photograph everything I liked because people were in the way! I know.

There were many of these small origami frames with photos inside…

Then I went next door to my friends’ studio…here’s a wall of Anna Stump’s current work on animals and bones in terrariums…

And a few of Daphne Hill’s pieces about STDs and the like.

Then I went across the street to the Glashaus to see Dripping Glitter by ManRabbit…

Kind of glitzy and decorative…

ManRabbit is two artists who work together.

Anyway. It was a lot of art in one night, but enjoyable enough. I like nights where I’m bombarded with art.

I Can Do a Day…

I’m sitting here at night (last night), on chat hold with AT&T because the upgrade for he-who-shall-not-be-named wouldn’t go through, and I really want to tell the sweet woman named Maria who is helping me that she typed a run-on sentence (because I NEVER do that), but she spelled bear correctly in the phrase bear with me, so I guess she gets brownie points for that. But as I’ve been hammering my students to capitalize I and put spaces after periods, I’m realizing this is the type of job they might do. I did it for Turbo Tax in the old days. It was a sucky job, but I was a temp in those days, and being a temp made me realize I did not want to be a temp, just like being a secretary made me realize I did not want to do that either. Please don’t ask me to make a judgement on my current job, middle-school science teacher, today…with one day left before vacation…because I might feel somewhat negative about the job at the moment. But no matter the job, y’all need to be able to spell. And use capitals. And periods. Seriously. And don’t fucking hang up on me because you cold-called me about doing work on my house and I don’t have the money for it. You’re an asshole.

There has been good news, but I also blew a fuse on the Christmas tree lights and then destroyed the fuse inside because it wouldn’t pop out like it was supposed to, plus I couldn’t find replacements for the lights that weren’t all white, and I wanted old school, but even Amazon Prime couldn’t save me tonight, let alone Target a week before Christmas. Should have shopped back in November, right? So some significant frustration, plus black enamel paint all over my hand, don’t even ask how I did that. And the boychild’s flight got canceled, but he’ll be here today…soon enough. Poor kid. Too many hours to get home. It’s morning now and I know he made it to Chicago and is on the plane to San Diego. Good stuff.

I need cookies dammit.

Nah. Gonna pour a glass of freezing wine and cut out bits of fabric for a bit and try to remember where I hid those presents. I did consider microwaving the wine last night. It’s not mulled; it’s microwaved.

One day of school before I get three weeks off. I have 7 assignments to grade. It could be worse. I got almost all the way through one assignment yesterday. I will try to do the same today. And then the girlchild comes home tonight, so it will be chaos here for a bit as we try to get Christmas handled. Ha! I am so far behind.

I did cut things out last night eventually, although only for a little over an hour. Here’s where the boxes stand at the moment…

Pretty exciting stuff. Still not halfway. OK, I just went back and looked at the other Bathtub piece, and it had 200 fewer pieces and actually took 7 1/2 hours to trim fabrics for, so I’m not feeling so bad now. I just really wanted to be further along. I need to do some serious drawing in the next week. Sit down with some Netflix and just draw for a day. I think that’s allowed. Maybe.

I just left the room to heat up my tea and worried about 17 things that need to be done. My brain is in overload. And I’m supposed to wear a Santa hat and an ugly Christmas sweater today. I own the first, but not the other.

OK. Anyway. It’s a day. I can do a day. And then I can relax a bit. You too. You should relax a bit as well. Because I said so.

There’s a Line

So apparently I was done with school last night, because I came home and made art for three hours instead of working. It’s unfortunate that I have to go back for two more days, but whatever. Certainly the headache that started yesterday morning is notice that I need some time off. Or it’s the weather. Or that crick in my neck. My chiropractor says I should get regular massages. Um. OK. But those cost money. It sounds lovely and all, but…I can pay for college or pay for massages. Suspect my kids would prefer the former. Speaking of kids, both bedrooms are clean and vacuumed and one kid comes home late tonight and the other, the girl, tomorrow. Her roomies will miss her greatly of course, because they will only be able to read her mom’s blog and not have the fun of harassing her. I’m being stalked by her roomies…it’s OK, I stalk them on Facebook and Instagram…and as soon as they send me photos, I’d be glad to make a giant-ass nude quilt of them, a la Botticelli? The Three Graces?

Or if they’ve been eating too much junk food, it might be a la Rubens? A sign of wealth, all that chub…

Or my favorite for simplicity (aka fewer drapey lacy fabric bits), Raphael’s Three Graces. The girlchild gets the butt view…y’all can fight over left or right.

Actually. That would be a cool idea. I did Crone/Mother/Maiden already. The apple thing is stupid though…are those even apples? They should be brains or heads or eyeballs. Seriously ladies, I think I’m doing this drawing. Good thing I have your photos off the web.

OK, enough crazy. I finished the fucking wine glass…it only took 11 fabrics. Here I was trying to decide about the color of wine. Red is often easier to do in fabric, but the glass is right next to the heart and I didn’t want to compete with that.

Now I don’t remember what color the wine bottle was. Oh well. The quilt doesn’t have to pass a logic test. Certainly I’ve put screwier mess-ups in my quilts before.

I used a whopping 102 fabrics…for a quilt this size, that’s a lot. Don’t know what to say about it, except that’s what happened. Some of it is because I took so long to work on it, I think…

The more stretched out the time in between picking stuff, the more I forget about what’s actually in there. When I was sorting the fabrics out by color for that photo, there were a couple that I didn’t remember using. I also had some fussy moments with the blues in the end because stuff I thought matched before didn’t seem to match now. OK then. Eleven hours and 24 minutes of ironing for only 770-some pieces. I started Dec 6 and finished on the 16. Not super fast. Eight days of actual working on it…most less than 2 hours at a time.

Bathtub 2 only took 4 hours to trim the fabrics. I’m already 4 hours into this one. I started on the 10th, but haven’t been doing it regularly.

Here was the pile I started with…

By the end of the evening, I was working slowly through it. There’s a few more hours of cutting there, to say the least.

Wish I could take it to school and just get it done, but I need to be grading stuff still. I have 8 assignments to grade, including the one due today and the three due tomorrow. Some are easier and less time-consuming than others. I’ll probably have to come by school on Sunday to clean my room up for the custodian and work crews, but also to pick up all of Unit 3. Ugh.

Looking forward to doing some drawing and ironing a quilt together, and even making a baby quilt, and a few things for Christmas, plus seeing my kids and not having to see the other kids (the ones I teach) for a while. Not looking forward to grading stuff and cleaning, which needs doing…my dad finally got the shelves up that have taken so much time and energy on all of our parts, thanking him for that, but now I have to get my act together and put stuff on them, which means going through stuff that’s been packed up for a year and a half. Obviously desperately important stuff. Not putting the CDs back up there.

I really do want to draw that three graces thing now. You can totally see me making that quilt, can’t you. Huh. Wonder what it will bump in line…because yeah, there’s a line.

Still Need to Iron Glass…

I thought I would be done with the ironing last night. I just had that relatively smallish pile of Wonder Under pieces. It looked like something I could bang out in an evening. Well, if I didn’t deal with grades first. I went through an entire assignment where fully half of the kids didn’t scroll down to the second page. It’s like not turning the page over and looking at the back. And I know I told them how many questions there were and to scroll down, but as you know, the words of adults somehow bounce around inside the brains of teenagers and fall back out without resonating.

I tried to order materials from Staples so I wouldn’t have to go in…didn’t have time, free shipping, blobbity blah, but it always took like a day to get stuff from them, until this order. It still hasn’t shown up from last Thursday, and when I track it, there seems to be no movement at all. Troublesome since I needed that stuff today…I have some I can use for the kids who are fast, but I may be at Staples tonight after all. So much for being reliable people. And now their website isn’t even coming up. Interesting.

Anyway, I did iron…I ironed hair and a heart and blood vessels and a clock and a uterus, but I forgot the ovaries (they’re there…I just need to pick a color). I used to always make uteri bright pinks with fish swimming through them, but as I age, my uteri age (the fabric ones and the one still inside me), so now they are grayed-out purples. Still pretty but not as alive, not so vibrant. The figures have cracks in them…have for a few years. Wonder where that came from. No I don’t…suspect I will carry the cracks until the end. They will get smaller and more filled in, but they’ll still be there. She’s still crying because I have to say that these perimenopausal hormones are fucking nuts. I cry at such stupid stuff…although the book I finished Monday night, it was a legit cry. The Man Called Ove…good book, by Fredrik Backman. But you will cry at the end.

Here’s the pile of stuff I still need to cut out…

It got bigger. Mostly because I didn’t cut any out recently and I keep ironing stuff.

I still need to do the ovaries, the eyes, the lungs, and that damn wineglass…this pile…

I’m over 10 hours in right now for less than 800 pieces. That’s a lot. Not sure what’s up with that. Slow ironing at the moment, I guess. The problem with the wineglass is that it’s transparent, but it fucks with what you see through it. And then the part with the wine in it, it fucks with it even more. But you can still see through it. The part with the wine is a little easier, because you pick your core wine color and then some shades past it, however many it might take, and you construct the section with the wine that way. The glass part is a little harder, because technically you know you should be able to see flesh colors etc through it, but then it gets harder to see the glass in the actual piece of art, so reality is that you have to fuck with what the eye perceives to make the glass obvious in the quilt. There are some amazing quilt artists out there who make quilts JUST of mostly transparent or reflective things, and they do a great job with it. I just have one glass here though. So it might not be amazing. I am totally leaving it to the end though, because I can’t be super tired when I do it, but basically I will be tired no matter what, because that’s the way this week is.

I did vacuum the kids’ rooms yesterday and finished washing the girlchild’s bedding. I’m ready. Well, except there isn’t enough food in the house. Can’t do much about that right now. Apparently we’re driving through In ‘N Out on the way home from picking up the girlchild. Amusing since she would barely eat it when she was home. I guess the food at Brandeis really does suck…which is sad.

Anyway, with any luck I’ll be done ironing tonight and I’ll move on to the long period of cutting stuff out. I’m hoping to be ironing down by the weekend, but who knows. Maybe Monday…no school and all. Looking forward to that.

The Disk Shouldn’t Be Full

This time of year seems to force retrospection, looking back at previous holiday seasons, nearing the end of the year, where are you at and all that. Is it where you wanted to be? Well, if it isn’t, then here’s where you look forward and try to figure out how to get there. Again. Because life seems to be a constant rewriting of expectations. Some things are better, some are worse, and some just are. Personally I’d be much happier if I could figure out how to get the new Windows to backup disk space in a manner that made sense. Because I’m fairly sure that damn disk shouldn’t be full.

So my tree is up. No, I don’t have a picture of it. It’s still crooked and has nothing on it and is much bigger than I remember it. I got home and graded last night, because I’m back to that crazy (I only took two days off). Then I predictably headed in here to iron, but got sidetracked by the kids’ rooms. The boychild’s room is now clean. Needs vacuuming, but the bedding is on the bed and everything else is straightened up. The girlchild’s room is in process…needs a serious vacuuming (she didn’t do that before she went, and no, neither did I) and all her bedding is in the wash, because the cat keeps sleeping on it and depositing hair. Her dog was quite sure I was doing all that for her, so she wanted to climb into her mom’s bed, but I wouldn’t let her.

THEN I ironed. I did well, but I should have started earlier, because once you’ve started picking flesh fabrics, you can’t stop until you are done, and done means they are all ironed down. Yeah. So that was a couple of hours…and I started too late.

It took 15 minutes of rummaging through the flesh drawers to come up with this run…

And in the end, I replaced the last one with something darker. I wasn’t sure there would be enough of fabric 2, but in the end, it was fabric 3 that was the small one. I used about 2/3 of what I had on the pieces ironed on it. Fabric 2 had plenty. You can see them all laid out below…

So that was at about 11:45 PM, and I needed to iron them all down at that point. Eh. Who needs sleep? Especially when you get cranky with not enough sleep and you’re teaching 12-year-olds, and they make you cranky anyway. It’s all good. No one will know the difference.

I didn’t cut anymore out last night, but I’m getting close to the end of the ironing…that’s all that’s left…

Eyeballs and heart and lungs and weepy bits on the face. A uterus. It looks easy, and most of it is, except there’s a wineglass in there with stuff showing through it, and that’s just about 50 pieces of pain in the ass. So I have to think about how to iron that. Maybe tonight. Except I have to grade as well. Maybe I’ll get some grading done today at school. I got none done yesterday because I had to help students make phone calls home about the F assignments they needed to get signed and had forgotten. I got through 25 of them, but there still a few to go. They get all upset about calling, tell me that they’ll bring it tomorrow, beg me. I guess I’m pretty heartless, because I gave them all last week and they forgot all week, and I don’t have faith that all of a sudden they’ll remember, unless they feel the pit of fear in their belly about calling home. Tomorrow I send packets home with all failing kids. I’m pretty cranky about all that too, but not half so cranky as I am about personally counseling all these kids and then having them turn absolutely no late work in.

The art is what I want to spend brainpower on…not all this school and stressful stuff. And the work stuff starts to eat up all the spare time and mental space. There’s a moment of reflection for you. I don’t know how I did it the last two years, but I know I spent less time and energy on school. I think. It feels like I did. Speaking of which, somehow I got roped into a meeting this morning with a student I don’t even have (special ed meetings require a general ed teacher), plus a meeting with crazy tomorrow morning…so I have to leave early two mornings in a row. Ugh. Survival week. Seriously.