This Could Be the End of Everything*

Ugh. Get act together. Mornings are hard. Yeah, I know it’s not early. I haven’t been sitting around doing nothing. Straight up, I’m not entirely sure WHAT I’ve been doing, so don’t ask me. There were maps and trails and boychild took over the mousing, and the girlchild called briefly, and there were dogs and cats and all that. Sometimes I think time just does a slippy thing and wanders away from me. Like when I’m quilting and I look up at the clock and go Holy Fuck. Gotta go to bed. But then I lie there and can’t sleep. Welcome to my world. Maybe I should have just quilted all night.

No, you know how with daylight savings time, they always tell you to adjust slowly over the next week, getting up a little earlier every morning so the day of isn’t a shock to your system? Yeah, well, I always try to do that with school too. I don’t like mornings and I stay up way too late normally, and during summer break, I stay up even later, but Friday I have to be at school before 8 AM, which is earlier than we actually start, but they key everything into the elementary schools, which start earlier than the middle schools. And there’s gonna be massive parking issues, because our lot is closed and there isn’t enough parking, so I don’t even wanna deal with that…to the tune of my considering riding a bike or walking to school (OK, it would take close to an hour to do that). Blaargh.

Anyway. Mornings. Nonfunctional. Not efficient at all. Art brain is completely offline. Seriously, do you ever hear me talking about drawing in the morning or making anything useful but a cup of tea in the AM? Fuck no. All you perky morning people, please just stay away from me. Until cup of tea number 2.

I did a bunch of stuff yesterday. Some of it was final shit on the garage. I’m calling it done, even though there’s a file cabinet and some storage stuff that needs to be managed. Boychild and I made another trip to the parental dumpster (no, they really have a dumpster…I don’t just drop shit at their house), plus I sold another thing on Craigslist and then did some stuff, including school shopping and dog food and the library, because ALL the books you’ve had on hold for 17 months WILL SHOW UP THE WEEK BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS. It happens every year. I might have to give up on one of them. I’m desperately trying to read the book for tomorrow night’s book club. I don’t think there’s an Audible version of The Left Hand of Darkness. Oh god. There probably is. I don’t Audible though. I stop paying attention when someone is reading to me.

So dinner was late. Dinner is often late in these circumstances. There also were a lot of animals lying around pretending to be very hot and tired.

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That eyeball…

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I did quilt in the afternoon for a bit. Not much.

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I started legs and stuff…

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Garage before we started. That’s solid crap in the center section, taller than me. It’s been like that for years. The boychild has been complaining about it for years as well. It was just so incredibly overwhelming. I couldn’t even deal. So with his help, we did it.

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Now I should have taken one after this one…because the pile of storage stuff in the middle is piled up elsewhere, and the school stuff on the right and behind is all in my car, to be delivered to school this morning. So the whole center is pretty much empty. For now. There’s another shelf thing being delivered on Thursday from one of my parents’ rentals. There are a few empty shelves in there, but maybe not enough.

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I haven’t fully solved the art storage issue, but it’s all up off the ground and out of my closets. I was a screenprinter before I became a quilt artist. Much harder to store that stuff. And there’s so much of it…

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And that big table is available for screenprinting if I decide to go back to that. I might. I liked it.

No. I’m not putting a car in there. That’s just silly.

More little stitches, mostly French knots, in the feather stitching up top.

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Then back to the machine…cat giving me the Other Eye this time.

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And more quilting…

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It’s very meditative…even all the little windows…

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I got to the top of the rocky crotch. It was close to midnight thirty then, so I quit.

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I was wide awake, but see note above about trying to shift sleep cycle for school. Ha! So I did all the legs…I’m definitely past the midpoint on outlining…

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That was all after dinner. Of course, there’s all the background stuff, which will take some time. So I’m hoping to do another 3 or 4 hours today, but that means I need to get out of here and do the stuff that needs doing…delivery to school, plus thrift shop again and smog the car. Hopefully. I don’t FEEL like doing any of that. I don’t even want to go NEAR school, but I have to get this shit out of my car somehow. And please don’t ask me about the bedroom…I’m definitely stalled on that. The deadline for that is a little ways out (OK, really only about 2 weeks), so it’s easier to ignore it, I guess. I knew with the garage that once school started I might not go in there for a while, and I didn’t want the art down on the ground if rain started.

OK. Get it done. That’s my plan for the day.

*Keane, Somewhere Only We Know

To Sew This Hole Up That You Ripped in My Head*

Decision overload. I have a broken drawer of fabric. It’s been broken for three months. I can’t replace it exactly…those drawers are a good 20 years old. So either I replace one stack of them, which means everything on top will no longer fit, because the two stacks will be different heights, or I replace two stacks, which means less room than I have now, because the new ones are slightly smaller (but on sale right now). Or I have this new vision, might be a crazy one, of a shelf unit in that space that goes to the ceiling and holds smaller containers. Or even just shelves…the ones that slot in, a la Home Depot…because I could put more in and have more storage than I have now. But that sounds like a major time and work commitment, and now is not the time for that. Seriously. Four days before I go back to school? But I don’t have to DO it now. I just have to commit to a plan.

You know, sometimes people ask why I write this blog, and it really isn’t for you (sorry). It’s a brain dump, a motivational device for getting stuff done, a way to make decisions. It’s like once the words are out of my head I don’t have to worry so much about what was said. I think the shelf system is the way to go. It’s harder and more time-consuming, but it’s also the best solution to the problem. I think. Aargh. For now.

So it won’t get done any time in the next month probably, because I’m upending everything here still. But there’s a semi-plan in place. I just did that in my head. Well…in the part of my head that I just spilled out into the interwebz.

I kept stitching down on Saturday…

Sometimes I get antsy and I have to get up and walk around, sometimes dance a little in the hallway, yell out a bit, make another cup of tea or heat up the one I haven’t been drinking. I think my teacup is just an excuse to get up and move around…which is a good thing.

I totally tense up while I’m doing this…

Anyway, I had a plan to go see some art afterwards, so I HAD to finish (I really do much better with deadlines)…

And I did. About 4 1/2 hours to stitch her down. Why less than I thought? Because lots of pieces means lots of time in the early stages, but not so much time now, because this is about distance more than quantity, and the distance is small.

I love seeing them from the back…

I actually look at the back to see if I missed any pieces. I found one and fixed it. There might be more. Hard to say.

Kitten slept the entire fucking time.

Then Sunday, the boychild and I went at the garage again. He was cutting things up for the dumpster/trash…and I was going through the last of the school stuff and moving all the art up and off the ground.

I forgot to take a picture of that…really I should do a before/after thing, but we’re still piling stuff that needs to get out of here.

Nighttime found me on the entryway floor, laying her out, ready for pinbasting.

I had a piece of fabric for the backing that was almost exactly the right size. I also had some batting that was the right size, but then I realized it hadn’t been washed. I use Warm and Natural, and it will shrink when washed. I have had to wash these before, so I always prewash batting. I got the leftover pieces from the community quilts, and that’s what wasn’t washed. So I pulled it all out of my stash and will put it in the bathtub today so it can go back in the stash and be ready to go.

I managed to find an older piece of washed batting that was the right size. And I pinbasted her…

I did all of the ironing and pinning while I was listening to the annual trainings that teachers have to do: Blood-borne Pathogens, Pesticide Idiocy, and the Mandated Reporter stuff. I love how they blamed teachers for abuse at school. OK. It’s OK. I passed. There’s one more we have to do, but they haven’t MADE IT YET. Because I can blow off stuff until the last minute. OK. I actually can blow off SOME stuff until the last minute, but not without repercussions. Like not sleeping due to my brain worrying about shit over and over again. But don’t make me deal with video trainings once the new year starts. I hate that.

I was behind on this. I did three strands of feather stitching on the top, and then for the fourth night, I did lazy daisies in one of the feather strands. I just wanted some different lines up there.

That’s 217 days of stitching. Yeah, I looked it up. So there are 148 days left (yes, I used a calculator).

Yes, I’m quilting today. Hopefully for a good chunk of time, although the shit is beginning to pile up…I want her quilted and the binding at least started or on before Friday. Seriously. I was really good yesterday and got almost all of the school stuff sent to the print shop, but I still have one more thing, plus stuff I need to do in the classroom, and the bedroom…holy god, the bedroom is still a freakish disaster. There’s So Much I got done and So Much I didn’t get done this summer. Nothing new there. The garage is a relief (I swear I’ll do a before/after photo thing). The bedroom will be a relief when it’s done.

But I need to start thinking about the next quilt. The drawing is barely started. I have all the ideas and concepts in my head, percolating, but an image hasn’t fully popped through. Hopefully it will some time this week.

OK. Need to get work. Enough thinking here. Need to do.

*Banks, Beggin for Thread

For a Minute There I Lost Myself*

School today. Not the start, just the prep. The stuff we do every year that no one pays us to do but that has to be done. Sometimes I only do this stuff alone, at home, staring at a computer, but we’re trying to finesse what we built from scratch last year, and that takes both of us. Next year maybe we won’t have to meet beforehand. You miss the people…not the workload. Well. And not ALL the people. Just like any other job.

I wanted to be done with the ironing yesterday…COULD have been done, but ’twas not to be. I started well…doing all those stupid little windows in the morning…see how small they are? How many of them there are?

Can you find the two cats? It’s hot and humid here. Cats don’t like hot and humid generally. At least that’s the impression I’m getting.

Then I had a good visit with an artist friend but when I got back, it was apparent to me that thunder had happened. Calli doesn’t like thunder any more. At all.

She tried to dig out the hat tree in the corner of the entryway, she tried to go under my desk, and in doing so, knocked down the ironing board with the quilt and 17 thousand safety pins on it. She also tried to dig through the couch, in my bathroom, and on my bed. Poor baby. There’s more possible thunderstorms today. I’m debating bringing her with me to school, just in case. Not that she’ll be better there, but at least she won’t be alone. And destroy the house. I debate the thundershirt idea every year, but haven’t done it yet.

So she was semi-frantic when I got home and needed about 4 hours of petting and sleeping to get over it. Meanwhile, the internet disappeared, and then so did my time, because fixing that took about 4 1/2 hours and a trip to the not-so-local cable services store for a new modem. And four different guys. The last one was named Lloyd and he promised to fix it in three minutes and he did. That’s all I really need folks. Follow-through and accountability. Or something. Thanks Lloyd.

I did this while I was waiting…

The white lazy daisies up on the top right plus the fern stitch. I also sewed 4 eyeballs down, but that’s not documented photographically. Just imagine the elephants from a couple days ago, but with no pins through their eyes.

Oh yeah, and I stopped by to see my exhibit, because it was near where I was visiting…just sat there and stared at it for about 5 minutes or so. It’s funny, because I walk in and start to explain who I am and they’re like, “We know who you are.” Oh. OK. Hi.

It’s still weird to sit in there and see all my stuff.

Before I left the house, though, I had finished those windows…

And ironed the arm from the night before on top of it all…

Then after the internet fiasco, so many hours wasted on the phone and otherwise, because then the phone was not working once we replaced the modem…I went back to ironing and finished up the torso…which looks ever so strange without boobs, quite honestly.

And then did the last bit of land…and a rocketship, and the wind behind her head. It’s a cheery landscape? No?

Eventually I will iron these two together, once I finish the head.

That’s today’s goal…along with stitching it all down. Hopefully. I have my quilt meeting tomorrow afternoon, and I might have nothing on this to take with me if I don’t catch up. There aren’t many pieces left, but it was enough at 12:30 last night that I was too tired to keep going, plus I knew I’d have to be up early for school today. Ugh. That phrase. Damn day job. I need another month. Seriously. Finish the quilt, the cleanup, the organization. Need more time. Always.

*Radiohead, Karma Police

It’s More Likely to Happen if I Talk about It

This happens every year. I get close to the beginning of the new school year and I decide to just make art nonstop. Like screw the housecleaning and the to-do list. Probably I should be more mature and get the car smogged and the bedroom out of chaos mode (I have two drawers and the hope chest still…just cannot deal. Cannot.). But no. I need this quilt done. I’m irritated that I’ve finished no quilts in months. This one isn’t even that big…although it does have a ton of pieces.

The last week before going back…it just sucks. You realize how many hours you’re going to lose…not just the hours at school, but it’s back to daily grading and planning, to kid problems that never leave your working brain, to adult drama (seriously), to stupid professional development that aims to teach you what you already know (some day they might differentiate…but it hasn’t happened yet), to endless meetings. UGH. I need to change my mindset. Somehow. Maybe if this summer had been more of a recharge and less like hard work. Reminder for next summer, eh? Then again, LAST summer at about this point, I was getting kicked out of an AQS show for an invisible penis. So. There’s that.

Anyway, I had another dental appointment in the morning, but then came back and refused to do anything but art. That’s not true. I moved a few things into the garage. But the humidity is killing me at the moment. Ugh. So I started ironing. Which isn’t hot at all. Stop laughing.

I did the rest of the hills…hard to see it all in this picture. We got oil things and a dam and a cracked highway and a volcano. Like you do. Some power plants.

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I added some oil drums to the top right…

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Then ironed all the bottom stuff to that…

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It’s super long, so that’s harder than it looks to keep it all attached. Right now it’s all rolled up under where I’m ironing. Somewhat dangerous, as I might accidentally iron it all to itself. That would suck.

I did some of this after dinner. I think I was doing blue in the top, above the tree. Just filling in spaces with whatever makes sense.

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Then back to ironing. I did about 5 hours total yesterday…up to almost 14 hours of ironing at this point, but I’m much closer to done now. These flowers were a bit of a challenge.

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Then the body behind it, attaching it all to the bottom bits and building one arm. The hand went in front of and behind the flowers.

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I did some of the torso (the yellow sun thing) and then turned the teflon sideways to do the other arm separately. I numbered it before the torso, but the torso has to be finished before, because it’s behind the arm. Complicated much?

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Awwww. Tiny bird.

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Then I ironed the other arm where it belongs, although it’s not ironed down where the buildings need to go. I just wanted you to see everything I ironed yesterday. It was a lot of little pieces. I gave up when the buildings were next.

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It was after midnight, I was tired, and I didn’t want to deal with all the tiny windows. Although, now it’s morning and I still don’t want to deal with them. Huh.

So then I was trying to figure out how to photograph this thing. Finished, it’s 61″ long…I’m not finished yet.

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This is a slightly better view. You can see I need to finish the torso, the land above it, and her head.

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So I’m in the 1000s. About 320 pieces to go. That’s it. Then iron it to the background and start ironing it down. See now I can see an endpoint, a light at the end of the tunnel. So it’s really hard to NOT work on it right this second. I have about an hour and a half before I have to leave again. But I need to get the dogs. And really I should clean something (ugh I so don’t want to). I could be done with ironing today if I worked hard and if my schedule allowed. Hard to say if that will happen. Stitch down by tomorrow? Quilting by Friday? I don’t know if I can pull that off. Probably not. But I can talk about it. It’s more likely to happen if I talk about it.

Back from That Soul Vacation*

It’s frustrating to keep making plans to get a certain amount of art done, and then you end up barely getting anything done, whether it’s because of limited time or because things take longer than you thought they would (my fault for so many tiny pieces) or even both! Which is what I’m dealing with today…along with a cracked filling that needs replacing because I grind my teeth. The same with exercise and cleaning and organizing and getting everything done. Life is time-consuming.

Anyway, I’m back to the dentist today to deal with the filling, unfortunately…but it’s gotta be done. I don’t know what to tell her about grinding my teeth…I was busted for that the first time my freshman year of college. I need to socket the exercise back in regularly. I am definitely a work in progress. Sigh.

I did some of this while I was finishing something else up…more stitching in the bottom left, the lighter color, pistil stitches and fly stitches.

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And I have almost all of these sewn down…just eyeballs and those big yellow flower things. I need this done by Friday. Maybe Thursday. And I was watching the last bit of an episode I can’t watch on the computer…

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So ironing started late. Same time as when I’m teaching, ironically. What else did I get done yesterday? Some major cleaning in the bedroom again (still not anywhere near done), boychild needed shoes, some other stuff. Then I ironed the rocky crotchland.

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So yeah, this sits right above the legs…and then the land sits above it. Normal people might just do one piece of brown behind all the rocks and water. I am not normal. But I like how it looks, so that’s my problem. I didn’t get much more in height yesterday…

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I did start on the land, but you can see there are a ton of tiny pieces here…

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The sheep will look more sheeplike with outlining. Hopefully. So this afternoon, when I’m recovering from the dental crap, hopefully I’ll be ironing. Before that, I’ll be dumping 10 bags of clothing and other crap at the thrift store. It’s progress. I know when I’m done with this, it will be a good thing. It’s just sucking up so much time. This is nothing new, right? I’m so at peace when I’m ironing though. Makes me want to do more. Less likely to grind my teeth, right?

Anyway. Teeth call. Louder than the other things.

*Train, Drops of Jupiter

Ironing in My Spare Time…

Interesting weekend. Surely was. I think I have 14 minutes to write this post. Already been to the dentist…sigh. This is what happens to the end of summer. Errands and appointments and meetings.

Anyway, so Saturday morning/afternoon, I worked on the other leg…

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There’s a plane in there that will show up better with stitching and a dark background.

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The lowest land bit goes behind one leg and in front of another. You wanna know why? It was not planned. I had already drawn one leg all the way down and I liked it. The other one wasn’t done, so the land went in front of it.

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Why do I have land at all? Well this quilt is for a show where there’s no nudity allowed, so my land bits solve that problem. But I didn’t just want two, because I don’t like even numbers for shit like that. So land…in three parts.

This is how far I got Saturday before I had to leave for the afternoon’s shenanigans…

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Polar bears…very tiny polar bears.

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Snagged a Groupon for a 90-minute cruise on this boat, wine and snacks.

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It was nice…mostly cloudy actually, with people who were good at talking, although I have to say, I don’t know how people afford to travel as much as some people do. I can’t afford it. All their trips sounded awesome (except I don’t want to do cruises)…

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Wildlife of course…

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Then we headed over to Arts & Amps, at the Karl Strauss tasting room over near Pacific Beach. We’ve been here before…we enjoy the mix of music and art. Cohort Collective are a local art group that has a lot of muralists in it…but today they also had Spenser Little, wire artist…

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And I’m pretty sure this is Christopher Konecki, although I may be wrong.

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And this is the Schizophonics, who were very hyper and loud.

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Spenser attaching his wire bits to the sign…

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That’s when we left…needed food. But it was good.

Then Sunday dog sleeping. Some family health excitement in the middle of all that. Suffice it to say that all is well (for now) and hopefully will stay that way.

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I had 4 nights of catchup on this unfortunately. Mostly down in the bottom left.

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Then more ironing after dinner…other leg above the land.

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A recycling truck…

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A city and a tornado…

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Yes. Those are tiny windows. I only lost one of them. So it looks like I’m halfway done, but I’m not in terms of pieces…because hands and fingers and two more land bits. I’m somewhere in the 400s…got plenty more to do and not a ton of time in which to do it.

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Today is errands and more cleaning and hopefully ironing at the end of it. I wanted to be done with ironing by today, but that’s not a thing. Not today. I’m pretty sure it’s another 10 plus hours. Maybe today and tomorrow? It’s possible. Time is frittering away. Drives me nuts. Feel like I am only ironing in my spare time…and that’s what I do during school. It should be better right now. Oh well…there’s progress. That’s a plus.

You Said That You Could Let It Go*

OK, I don’t have much time here. I have to hurry rush go very very fast to get downtown and sit for about 6 hours. OK, probably not sitting the whole time, but it’s deinstall day at the Don’t Shut Up show…it wasn’t up for long, but we did a lot of stuff while it was up. So much work to put the show together and then it comes apart in a day.

I preloaded a bunch of resized photos onto a flash drive and I’m hoping someone will be nice enough to share the school wifi password so I can write a couple of blogposts for the two art groups I’m in. It takes a good 5 hours to write those posts sometimes: Find the photos. Resize the photos. Ask people for better photos sometimes. Start writing. Find all the artists’ names. Find all the names of the art. Resize things again because Blogger is a pain in the ass. Check all the spelling. Email three people whose labels you forgot to photograph. Save a draft. Save a draft again. Preview it. Go back and fix everything you fucked up on. Rewrite Blogger’s code because that’s easier than starting over. Save it again. Maybe publish it.

Now do it again for the other art group. And then sit back and wait for the stuff you know people will want you to fix.

So I’m gonna try and get that done today in between people picking up art. Or maybe we’ll be able to start spackling and painting…who knows?

Yesterday was mostly about cleaning the bedroom. I don’t know about you, but I have no freakin’ clue why I have so many hangers…I don’t even hang most of my clothes up. I live out of the laundry basket most of the time. In fact, you could take my wardrobe down to 7 pairs of black pants and 7 black shirts and I’d probably be OK with that.

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I still haven’t dealt with most of that pile. It was overwhelming. I walked away. Cleaned something else.

Then I found this. Oh sigh. Really? So we grew up (and this may be some weird thing with just my family; feel free to tell me that) with wooden coathangers that some poor soul had crocheted over. I think when my grandma died, my mom packed up all of HER crocheted wooden coathangers and put them in a plastic bag with my name on them. This was early on post-divorce, so I apparently shoved them in the back of my closet.

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Where they stayed for like the next 10 years. I think. I just don’t even remember taking possession of that bag, and now I have to figure out what to do with all these.

When my parents die, there will be another 100 of those fuckers.

After dinner, I headed for the couch. I did pistil stitches in a white variegated thread in the very bottom area. Trying to branch out. Or fill in. Or whatever I’m doing.

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Boychild joined me and merged the dogs into one. They should be easier to take care of this way.

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Then I cut stuff out while watching A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was pretty funny.

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I’m so not done. I’m taking this with me too, just in case there’s no wifi. My hand hurts today though. Shockingly.

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The stuff on top still needs cutting out. I did about 3 hours yesterday and I think I’m 9 hours in total right now. I didn’t start until late because I was cleaning most of the day. The cleaning is very difficult…I have to spend way too much time thinking about the implications of the 100 vintage scarves and hankies I found, plus the kid’s book that my grandma’s grandma made (do the math…I can’t). Like where the fuck do I store stuff? I have too much stuff in that room. It’s traumatizing. And cleansing. And dirty and stressful and at some point, I just gave up and vacuumed the living room because it was easier. And then I resized 150 photos for the two blogposts.

I AM HAVING A VERY HARD TIME GETTING SHIT DONE THIS SUMMER.

OK. There we are. Feeling better. Need food, need more caffeine. Leaving soon.

*Gotye, Somebody That I Used to Know

Running in Circles, Coming Up Tails*

So I bought 6 bars of soap in November 2008. I’m allergic to a lot of soap-like things. Hell, I’m allergic to a lot of things in general. Like when I tell people I’m allergic to fish and chocolate, they just lose it…over the chocolate part. Whatever. So I bought these bars of soap online because I couldn’t find it locally any more, and it’s the only soap in the world that I’ve found that doesn’t cause my face to itch like a bitch. So I was running out, getting low, and thinking, shit, I’m gonna have to drop cash on a whole 6-pack. Then I checked Amazon and saw how long they lasted. I’m laughing. I should just buy a lifetime supply now. I’m buying 6 now and I won’t need more until 2026. We probably won’t even use soap in 2026. We’ll just walk into the Tardis and it will deal with the oil and dirt and bacteria, right?

Here’s hoping.

So I’ve been working on the bedroom…which includes scary spaces like the closet and random nightstand drawers. The cats are fascinated, because I leave drawers empty and open and they like to sit in them. It’s going to take a while to clean all that stuff out. And I’m running out of time. I have 16 days, but there are 4 completely booked days already. So I try to clean during the day…it seems to work better…and then do the art at night. I finished ironing everything to fabric yesterday. It took a really long time, 20 hours. For 1320 pieces? I think it was all the fussy grays and greens. Lots of buildings that needed to be next to each other.

Of course, when I moved back to ironing, the cats followed me…and sat in other open drawers.

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I think that cat is why one of my green drawers is broken…and they don’t make this size any more, so if I’m going to fix all this, I have to buy all new, and the sizing is off. Sigh. Pain in the butt. I replaced all the rest of the fabric drawers in the last two years…again, they probably lasted 15 years or more. Plastics. Can’t afford to do anything else in here. Although I might be smarter about what’s there. Put a floor-to-ceiling shelf in and put drawers on the shelves? Sounds expensive. And time-consuming. Back of the brain. Not necessary right now. I’m at the end of the summer…everything has to be necessary to get done.

Speaking of necessary, this quilt needs to get done and photographed. Here’s the tail end of the flesh pieces…

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The face and the neck.

So this quilt used a whopping 139 fabrics…which is a lot, even for me…so that’s where the time comes in…picking each of those out takes more time. Lots of grays and variations on gray.

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Here’s what I have left to cut out…remembering I started cutting them out last week at my quilt meeting…these pieces have been to three meetings and a hair appointment (not mine) so far.

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I am trying to stay caught up on this…so I did something…some sort of fly stitch with straight stitch. On the right side still, down in that wave. I need to do something in the top right now…or go down and finish the bottom. It’s right up on the edge of the fabric.

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Then I cut stuff out for a few hours, with Kitten’s help. She follows me around the house. Although, I don’t know where she is right now?

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The cats seem fascinated by all the spaces I keep opening up in the house when I clean. She’s probably in a drawer somewhere.

I have about 7 hours into the cutting…all the cut-out stuff is on the left and all the to-be cut (which is still the larger pile) is on the right. So another 7 hours? Yikes. I could do that in one day, if I hated my hand and had nothing else to do.

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Yeah, not so much. So probably not finishing until tomorrow…tomorrow when I’m booked almost all day. Then sort and start ironing Thursday night? Or Friday. Friday is wide open…and then next week starts to bog up. Get it all ironed by Tuesday of next week? Then stitch down and quilt…I actually have a small chance of getting it done before school starts. If I stay focused and no other crazy shit happens (and there we are…because that’s why nothing gets done in the time I think it should…because of crazy shit).

I need to start drawing the next two as well. Minor issue. Gonna start with the closet…one thing at a time.

*Coldplay, The Scientist

You Know It Ain’t Nothing in Rambling*

So I went to bed a little earlier last night and finally got a full night’s sleep with no interruptions (there was that brief moment when I thought the house was haunted, but it was just the ceiling fan moving the blinds around…yes those are the things that keep me from sleeping. I yell out at the cats to attack all intruders, human or haint, and they don’t do shit except stare up into the corners of the ceilings very intently as if there really were something there.). Unfortunately, the alarm went off this morning and immediately thereafter, chaos ensued. First girlchild came and used all my water and demanded things but I was barely awake and I don’t function well in the morning, whenever the morning starts, as those around me should know, and then the water guys showed up, fully convinced they could turn the water off at my house (they can’t, and they didn’t believe me because my driveway currently looks like a hoarder house as we finish the garage cleanout and also because I have boobs and probably I wasn’t wearing any underwear because girlchild dragged me out of bed to unlock the door and use all my water and shit. What the fuck people. I think a close parenthesis needs to go right around HERE.).

So yeah. The water is off. And most of the water containers in the fridge were empty (BOYCHILD) and girlchild used up all the stuff in the house (GIRLCHILD) and I did have enough in the tea kettle to make tea, thank goddess, because otherwise I’d be taking my unshowered ununderweared person somewhere where there was tea. Or water. I do have a pool full of water, but I’m pretty sure things pee in it. I try not to make tea out of pee water.

I have a list of things to do today, but I can’t do them without a shower. I just checked the list and nothing got crossed off yesterday. In fact, I just added something. It’s not that I didn’t do stuff on it. I was working on the garage and the bedroom after the artist talk last night, around 8:30 at night (it was cooler then).

Yes. I have part of a skeleton in my house. It was in my classroom one year when I got pink-slipped and had to clean out the whole classroom and the asshole of a principal (hopefully he does not read my blog…I think he’s um let me think…THREE principals ago? Don’t even ask how many principals I’ve had in 14 years of teaching) MADE ME clean out the whole room, so I had to clean up what previous teachers had left and either take it with me to shove in my then very cluttered garage OR throw it away, so of course I kept the arm. From the elbow down. Trust me, I would have kept the whole thing, but only the lower arm was there.

And to be clear, Kitten had just whacked the fuck out of me for attempting to clean her face (somedays. Calico cats. Are evil.), so I employed the skelly hand to get her back on my good side.

She does like to be petted with the skelly hand, although yesterday, she attacked it for a bit as well. Hey, it’s either that or a gauntlet with her. Of course, right now, she’s sweetly and quietly asleep in that same place. Because she loves her mommy. When she’s not whacking the fuck outta me.

OK, I was two nights behind. I did some French knots between the buttonholes around that wave shape in the bottom right, and then I did fly stitches around the lazy daisies.

One thing I’ve realized in doing this project is that there are fewer stitches out there than you might think.

I finally made it into the studio for ironing time around 10 PM or so…Midnight seemed in need of a caffeine fix…

Seriously, some pieces are too small for words.

Adding colors…

Although not a lot of them yet. Here’s the pile of the 200s last night…

But I also pulled pieces from the 300s, 400s, and even the 600s when I was ironing…because it made more sense to try to iron all the bone and flesh pieces at the same time. So I’ve done all the legs up to the crotch area, but I need to go back and do the land area that’s below the knees. I also did some water in the rocky crotch (seriously…I made a crotch out of rocks. Must be in a mood. Pubic rocks. Ha. Ha.).

On the right is what I ironed last night, which doesn’t look like much. On the left is what I cut out yesterday at my quilt meeting.

So I had a plan for today and it’s already been kicked to the curb, run over, and salted. Or something else horrible. I’m trying. I’m really trying. Lots to get done. Gonna do my best. Maybe should just make a cocktail and grab my book and sit out on the deck until it looks up.

*Lucinda Williams, Nothing in Rambling

I Feel Your Whisper Across the Sea*

I’m back! I know, you didn’t barely notice I was gone. It’s OK. I wasn’t getting much done. Well. That’s not true. I did manage to cut out all the Wonder Under for two quilts BEFORE I paddled a canoe a million miles, thus trashing both hands for a day. But it was for a good cause. And it wasn’t a million miles either.

So. You know I only put pictures on the blog so I can remember what I did…here’s a great shot of the boat trip…

And more puppy sleeping. He got pretty tired out up in the mountains. It’s gonna really suck for him when the kids leave…

I did walk the two dogs on my own even. Shocking. Calli is doing much better…we’re weaning her off her arthritis meds. I’m hoping to be back to my regular dog-walking schedule by the time school starts…

Which is Way Too Fucking Soon. I swear. More about that later.

I finished this, which is block 10. I sewed it to block 9 yesterday. More about those later too.

This was my starting set of tiles in Scrabble. I did use both the Q and the Z, but there’s still some drama over my use of the word zed. Whatever. Scrabble accepted it.

I didn’t win at Clue or Scrabble, but I was much closer at Scrabble. Mostly because of the word quips.

There was a lot of sleepiness.

But here’s one quilt completely cut out of Wonder Under on Sunday night and I did another Monday night. Pretty good. Yes, I had already started both of them. Minor issue.

After the bed disaster of Sunday night, I chose the couch (and this view) for Monday night. Much more comfortable. Well. Until dog incursion.

I didn’t get into the kayak, but the others did. I canoed. Here’s girlchild, waiting on us to get the canoe in the water…

And boychild the day before…

I like the open kayaks better, but this one is easy to control…way easier than that paddleboard (at least standing). See! Evidence I was up! It didn’t last long.

Oh well…no photos of my falling, unfortunately.

Simba likes the shade of Grandpa.

The weather was good, a little warm and sunburnt, but that’s my fault for not successfully sunscreening myself. Some people were smart and wore hats. I should be that smart.

Nah. He’s not spoiled.

I did this every night…mostly on the right side. Not sure I could tell you what I did. French knots? Some other stuff?

I drove home yesterday and was enthusiastically greeted by cats. I’m trying to prep the next month of blocks for the Folk Tails quilt (Sue Spargo). It’s one of those things I work on when I can’t work on my own stuff.

But then I decided to sort Wonder Under pieces for the Long Skinny…with or without Midnight’s help. Because it has 1320 pieces, I need a box for each 100 pieces (that’s 14 boxes. Yes. I math.). Most of them are numbered already on a small piece of tape, but I often am using boxes for something else, so sometimes I have to renumber them. Fourteen boxes is easy to find…it’s when I go up to twenty that I have issues.

No, I don’t own stock in Rubbermaid. Anyway, here they are all laid out. I had to keep pushing Midnight over. I was watching King Charles III, which was interesting. A prediction of how it might go if Charles becomes king when the Queen dies. The verse from the original play is in this adaptation, which makes it reminiscent of Shakespeare in many ways. I was intrigued.

So then I started sorting. It took over an hour to sort them all. Some idiot (me) made a lot of really tiny pieces.

There they are all sorted, now ready to be ironed onto fabric, which hopefully starts today. Realistically? Tonight.

I have one piece with no number (bottom right), but I’ll figure it out. And I have to choose a background fabric. And finish organizing a bit in here. I was cleaning out DVDs and I need to finish that. Maybe 20 minutes? It’s not the only thing on my list for the day unfortunately. Because I’m freaking out about school, trying to prep for the first week or so, plus the first unit. I can’t remember what we did at the end. I know we copied stuff. I just don’t remember what. Sigh. My co-teacher was organized and did it already. But I had way too much other copyediting and art work the first three weeks after school got out. I’m still trying to get caught up on that.

So once it was all sorted, my brain was in stresslord overdrive (like a time lord, but Nida Powers version…and yes, they can all be female dammit). So I kept sewing things down. That’s my applique thread stash. It’s funny how long ago I bought all those…when I was doing hand applique all the time. So sometime about 27 years ago. Or so. Impressive that they last that long. I don’t use a lot of it any more, but the stash continues. I don’t buy more of it…not even sure where I could get it anymore, since that shop shut down.

Online, I guess. So here’s what’s done. Well. There’s one unembroidered block in there because it’s sewn to a finished block. So only 8 blocks are done. Let’s see. This is not how they fit together either. Blocks 4 and 5 are on the top left. Under them are blocks 9 and 10. To the right are blocks 20 and 21? I think? Then the bottom row is blocks 1, 2, and 25? I think? So I need to embroider block 5…it’s part of May, which is what I’m sewing together now. Blocks 14 and 15 are the elephants and tree blocks above. They go under 9 and 10.

But I haven’t sewn the April blocks together yet. I don’t really know why I did them out of order. Maybe because of the 4/5 combo. Whatever. This will take forever, and I’m OK with that. It’s a place to let my head be when the rest is too much. Plus it keeps me awake when I would otherwise try to catch up on all my missed sleep. And I enjoy the embroidery part. I have a wool quilt I designed that may never get made, but I think it’s all cut out even. Huh. I should think about that. In my spare time.

OK. I’m going to get going on something…SOMETHING that I can check off the to-do list. I literally finished NOTHING yesterday. Oh. Wait the sorting. But I didn’t put that on the list. Duh. Seriously, a to-do list with things you can cross off is such a useful practice. It’s incredibly motivating.

*Jason Mraz, Lucky