Don’t Matter What I Do*

I’m sitting here in my office/studio watching leaves drop from the trees outside my window. I think they’re Ash trees, maybe Green Ash. It doesn’t really matter, though. They are still dropping leaves for fall or winter, yet there are new buds and leaves popping out all over. My previous neighbor thought they were dead every winter, but they are in fact deciduous. And today they are confused. Southern California weather does that to trees. Any water and the slightest bit of sun and warmth and new growth pops out everywhere. And then we’re back to 40 degrees at night and they’re confuzzled.

I suspect I will have to leave before I finish writing this, and in fact, I might not finish until this afternoon. It’s a busy day in the car. I have to drop the girlchild at the airport…she’s going back to school. Then visit a cat left home by himself. I should probably feed and pet him as well. Then lunch out to discuss a show I’m working on with other people. (Do I have a drawing for that yet? No I do not. It is third in line.) Then groceries and I don’t know what. I have a list of things I need the boychild to help me with before he leaves, so I don’t have to be the lifter on everything. Plus grades. Plus ironing.

Yesterday though I think I did mostly ironing. Over 7 hours of it, to be specific. It was nice…my mood’s been low, so it was good to let art brain have time to just do its thing. It’s meditation. It’s calming. It’s productive. These are all good things.

So sometimes I trim pieces in other places, like Barnes and Noble’s Starbucks or people’s houses or cars. These two pieces were in a house and were delivered to me Friday…good thing, because I’ll need them today probably.

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Kitten is eyeing the pieces. She likes to try to sneak over and sit on them, and then the little ones get caught in her butt fur and I lose them that way. She mostly listens when I tell her not to do that, but if I’m leaving them for more than about 5 minutes, I always cover them with the other boxes of pieces. Sometimes she sits in those too, though, so it’s kind of a crapshoot whether I’ll find all the pieces I originally had.

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The whole bottom third of the quilt (or so) is a stove. I was going to write that I’d never put a stove in a quilt before, but that’s not true. It’s been a long time though. No Domestic Tranquility from 2004…

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That was a much simpler stove…

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Most of my quilts were much simpler in those days. I’m not sure what that green thing on the right side is. Maybe it’s corn? Who knows.

So I put a death angel from a gravestone in my stove door…like you do. I’m sure it has a better name than that…in fact, I looked it up at one point, but maybe it was winged skull. That’s pretty descriptive. Anyway. If anyone completely ignores my non-burial instructions, maybe I’ll get one of those (I’d really rather not be buried personally…waste of good land).

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My stove has feminist slogans on it. Doesn’t yours? They’re subtle, but they’ll be less so when I outline everything in a dark thread.

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Then I took a break and went to an art event that was supposed to be focused on women (and it mostly was)…a mural by Panca.

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I watched her paint for a bit, but I think she was mostly done at this point. There were three other muralists painting, but two were men (so much for the Femme Fest part of it…although who knows). These two were already done, either earlier in the day or at a previous event.

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The yard was pretty muddy…but I like watching street artists paint anyway.

I came back to this. No, it’s not on.

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But it was soon after…

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I took a break in the middle to do my one stitch of the day, which was the yellow of the herringbone and the french knots in the blue flowers. I do it more by the length of thread…finish it.

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So I guess I’m really doing one thread a day.

Then I went back to ironing…

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Stove tops…are a little more complicated.

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I did over 7 hours of ironing yesterday…

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I’ll be lucky to get 3 or 4 hours in today unfortunately. Oh well. It’s a good start. You can see the cat-shaped space in there. It was easier to iron it separately and then put it on top as a whole piece.

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So there’s the stove top done. I have one more side of it…

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Which I didn’t start last night because it was already 1 AM and I knew I had to get up to drive the girlchild to the airport. I got into the 500s though. So that was good for one day. I’d really like the whole thing ironed by the end of the long weekend, but I don’t know if I can pull that off. We’ll see.

And the girlchild’s plane just took off. So there we are.

*The Style Council, Long Hot Summer

You Scream You Learn*

Oh holy heck this is a morning. Rained hard most of the night, disturbing my sleep. I know some people find that noise helps them sleep, that drip drip drip pounding away of water above my head. I wasn’t put on this Earth to sleep apparently. And we need the rain. Even though it seems our annual rainfall is all happening in one week. We haven’t hit our average annual rainfall yet, nowhere close. Not even as much as last year. But day after day of drippy wet feet and spotted glasses and damp clothes starts to wear on a Southern Californian. Or as every teacher recognizes, the squeaky tennis shoes on the linoleum floor…oh, well, only the science teachers at my school, because the other classes have carpet. So yeah. I will write a referral if you are purposely doing that screech with your shoe on my floor…you don’t deserve to stay here if you are that guy (it is always a guy. Seriously.).

Yeah, I’m tired. First week always kicks ass. And my co-teacher is still on her honeymoon, so that makes it harder…although I’ve apparently survived it. Hopefully she’ll come back. And then both kids are leaving in the next week. Which makes me sad, but some things will be good…fewer dishes. Holy crap, the dishes are kicking my butt…and yes, they help, well, mostly…but it’s still more work. And there’s some drama I could do without. Because I don’t get enough of that at school. Really. I had to have a real-life discussion with a relatively high-level student about why it’s not OK to copy other people’s words. Why it’s important to engage your own brain with the material. “Why do they put it on the internet if they don’t want people to copy it?” Not a bad question, but you have to wonder how she got to age 12 and doesn’t have a better idea of copyright. Because yes, I teach science…but I also teach behavior and grammar and spelling and copyright and politics and history and compromise and how to get along with other people without being dickheads all the time. This week has been a lot of the latter.

There’s a 3-day weekend ahead though. It’s not an ideal 3-day weekend for a variety of reasons. Emotional. Sure. And a little too busy. But doable.

And most importantly, I’m finally on to the next stage of the quilt…I finished cutting pretty damn quickly, only another 30 minutes. So that’s what 19 hours of cutting pieces out looks like…

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Not much, honestly.

I hold on to the trash until I know I have all the pieces, because if I’m going to lose a piece, it’s usually a tiny one, and sometimes I can cut it out of the trash pieces.

Then I sorted…it was not an easy thing to do after standing all day. I sort by 100s. It’s easier to deal with 100 pieces at a time rather than 1300.

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An hour and 38 minutes later (ugh)…there they all are…

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Ready to be ironed together into a quilt…probably will take about 20 hours for that. Although it took a lot longer to cut them out than I thought it would. So we’ll see. There’s a lot of little pieces, apparently.

I had both cats with me…

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Kitten is trying to simultaneously sleep and watch me. It didn’t work. She slept. When the dogs are gone, I do get both cats. With the dogs, Kitten is less likely to venture out, unfortunately. I try to give her safe spaces on the couch and the desk, so sometimes that works…

I did my year of stitches thing while on the phone with my SIL…outlining with stem stitch (which is a pain around curves) around that blob of flowery things.

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I haven’t been able to keep up the daily meditation…I often remember just as I’m about to fall asleep. Last night, I did remember, and I turned it on and fell asleep until the very end. That should tell me something, I guess. Hopefully my unconscious brain was doing a good job.

I need to go to school. I’d like some sun tomorrow. Or at least sometime this weekend. I’d like some peace and quiet. I’d like some conversation with my kids before they leave. I’d like to get some clean up dealt with. I’d like to get this quilt ironed together. I think that’s enough for one 3-day weekend.

*Alanis Morissette, You Learn

Leave Me Be*

First week back, brain is mush, too much work, feeling overwhelmed, exhausted on top of it. I don’t sleep through the night most of the time. Last night, I suspect I would have if there hadn’t been puppy barks and late-night teen entry…I was exhausted enough. I went to bed early…well “early” because many of you are not night owls and manage to be in bed by 9 PM, which is when my art brain perks up and starts yelling. Falling asleep is not my superpower; neither is staying there. I have to be at work early today for a meeting, so I have to LEAVE early, which means leaving even earlier to account for the crazy elementary school parents I have to avoid on the way to school, plus the high-school traffic. It’s actually more efficient to leave later.

I just realized tonight is the full moon, which could partially explain everything at school.

So my brain is so fizzled at the moment that I thought I had a union meeting yesterday after school (to my credit, it’s always the second Wednesday of the month, so it wasn’t impossible that we might have one, but apparently they gave us this month off and I didn’t fix my calendar)…and was quite relieved NOT to have one, but came home to stress and cranky (none of it mine). I didn’t cook, but the cleanup on dinner was significant. Which I did do. Dishes dishes everywhere.

Although it seems someone will miss someone when someone leaves (you fill in the names as needed, because it is obviously going to affect both of them)…

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I kept on keeping on…with a different animal companion…

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I’m almost 19 hours into the cutting, and dammit, if I could have stayed up another hour, I would have been done. All I have left is big stove pieces. I wanted to finish, but had to be a responsible adult, dammit.

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Another hour? Maybe? I have a scissors callous on my right index finger and my hand is stiff this morning. But hopefully tonight I will finish cutting and sort these assholes so I can start ironing. Because it’s about time.

This is not a small quilt. It is not a simple quilt. It could be worse.

My one stitch for today…the spiderweb rose or I can’t remember what the book called it, woven something? And some french knots and seed stitches to use up the last bit of the bright pink thread.

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Ugh. Tired. We knew I would be tired by the end of this week, so we designed instruction to get kids to a more independent place by today. We’ve taught you a bunch of stuff, showed you some stuff, told you some stuff, had you read some stuff…now you need to go figure some stuff out on your own and explain it to us.

Let my teacher brain rest a bit (as much as it ever does).

*Sara Bareilles, Gravity

And We’ll All Float on OK*

You know, sometimes progress doesn’t look like anything. I have almost 16 hours into the cutting out of tiny little pieces, and there’s more to go, and I told you I couldn’t predict how many more, because as I go through the pile of pieces in there, I’m never really sure if the piece of fabric below the one I’m currently picking up will have three huge pieces on it (easy to cut, nice and quick) or be the one with all the finger bones (not easy, pain in the ass, gonna take me an entire episode of Supernatural, if I’m lucky).

I cut for over 3 hours again last night. I’m not bringing school work home at the moment. I will eventually. But not until I get these cut out. So if you look at yesterday’s pile of stuff left to cut out and today’s pile of stuff left to cut out, you might feel as discouraged as I did, because I was sure I was getting closer…

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Except at least two of those pieces of fabric on top are full of tiny fucking finger bones. Or rib bones. Or whatever that’s tiny and curvy and time-fucking-consuming. My hand hurt last night. It’s stiff this morning. Am I closer? Sure. Do I think I’ll finish tonight?

I don’t think I’ll EVER FINISH. OK. That’s silly. Of course I’ll finish. Some day. Probably not today. And it amuses me that this is what one of my quilts looks like at this stage…a pile of never-ending strangely shaped pieces.

Another day in 1 Year of Stitches…I finally Googled it and wrote it on a post-it note and attached it to the computer so I can remember the correct wording. Until the cat takes off with it.

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Yesterday was a curvy line of Palestrina knots, which used to scare the crap out of me, but are really very easy to do. Don’t get me wrong…I still stare at an instruction book while doing them.

You saw my cover page yesterday for the new unit. I do apparently occasionally inspire kids to do their own thing…here’s one of my student’s covers for the last unit (which I’m currently grading, because it’s the one assignment I blew off grading during break).

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That’s a lot of bubbles. Must be a chemical change.

If you’re on Instagram or Facebook with me, you’ve already seen this part of my Christmas gifts…a little late, but blame the post office. I do wear boots to school quite often, so I really can wear them to school…

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(I’m wearing a pair now…they’re kinda inspirational.)

Last night was chilly and the dogs were at the other house, so Kitten ventured out and sat right next to me on the couch. This is a strange thing. She does not do it often.

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So it’s sweet when she does.

*Modest Mouse, Float On

I Have the Technology

The first day back, trying to balance food and bathroom breaks and kids who have been free to do whatever they want for three weeks, and now I want them to sit and do work for a whole 45 minutes. Today it will be 51 minutes and we’ll see how they do. We jumped right into the new unit…but I have three new students today. Sigh.

I do love drawing a new cover page though…and then hiding it so the kids won’t copy it (they still try…”Can you put it up on the screen? I just need ideas.” Use your brain sweetheart. It has lots of ideas.).

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I have to actually research stuff for this unit. I’m a little shaky on energy resources, having never taught it or officially learned it in school. Plus it’s changed a bit since the 70s. So I’ve been reading up…watching videos. Hoping I understand what’s supposed to happen in the labs and, more importantly, why.

I came home relatively early (quick staff meeting, hallelujah) and started trying to straighten up…putting away all the wrapping paper and accoutrement, breaking down all the boxes that came in during the last few weeks, putting stuff away…then I found another rug. My grandfather used to (he’s dead now) crochet rugs out of mattress ticking. They last forever and are washable. Case in point, the one on the left has been in my kitchen forever…and my grandfather died while I was pregnant with my now 21-year-old son. The puppy decided to pull on bits and pieces, though, so now it is holey. I found the one on the right in the closet (don’t even know where it came from)…but I don’t like the color. I realize most of you probably think it works fine with the kitchen (and it does), but I thought about dying it…unfortunately, it’s gotta be mostly polyester, so I’d have to buy dyes I think.

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Like I have time to dye a rug.

Next day of 1 Year in Stitches…I think I change the name every time I post about it. Fly stitches and french knots added to the lazy daisies…are they called that when the anchor stitch is long? Who knows. I just pulled a thread out of the basket and sewed with it until it ran out. That’s all I ever do.

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It needs more colors.

I cut for about a million hours yesterday…OK, for about 4 1/2 hours. I didn’t bring any schoolwork home. I just did some cleaning and then cut for a while and then made dinner and cut for an even longer while. My hand was sore last night, but not so much today. That’s good. This is about 12 1/2 hours of cutting total. As you can see, there’s still stuff in the to-be-cut pile…but I’m down to stove parts. I finished all the body parts.

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I wish I could say I knew how many hours are left, but I haven’t got a clue. At least 2 or 3, probably more. And today will be a long day, with tutorial after school. Tomorrow is the union meeting. I’ll be dead tired by the weekend. But hopefully done with cutting, then sorting, and on to ironing. I want to have the majority of the 3-day weekend for that. Progress. I’m feeling stressed about deadlines. Only one way to deal with that, and it’s to get some work done. I have to use time wisely, just like at school. I honestly think I’m more efficient about getting art done when I’m in session, because I don’t have a choice. It didn’t used to be that way, but it is now.

I also need to make a pussy hat this weekend…I’m not knitting. I know how, but it takes too much time that I don’t have, so fleece it is. I wanted to make a banner (or 7) like Stephanie Syjuco is showing on Instagram (@ssyjuco on IG), but I don’t really have time for that either. Patterns are here. You can find her on Facebook as well. She’s an artist and professor, but these banners are freakin’ awesome. Maybe I will bang one out this weekend. I certainly have the technology to do so.

I Dream of That Too…

That first day back to school after a break…ugh. I’m never ready. I even went to bed early, but the pup was barking at the wind (as far as I could tell) in the nether regions of the morning, so that wasn’t particularly helpful. I know I’m never prepared, I feel panicked, I didn’t finish everything. I didn’t even come close to finishing everything. Maybe I could have if I’d done less art…but that’s just crazy talk, right? Less art. Hmmmph. Not happening.

I did spend most of the weekend running errands and at a friend’s wedding, so not a lot of art happened. It’s OK. I knew it was coming. I did not make it to school beforehand. Oh well. I was a puppy sleeping pillow for a good long time last night…

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The girlchild is visiting her cousins in Seattle, so I’m second best…sometimes third best, depending on the boychild’s mood.

Once I got home from the wedding, I started trimming. I was pretty tired, though, so this is like the kind of stuff that will put you to sleep if you’re already halfway there…

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It looks like I have a lot done, because the big box is only half full right now, but most of that is body parts, and I haven’t even gotten down to the stove pieces. I have almost 8 hours of trimming in…I did a few hours on Saturday and a few on Sunday…

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And I need to move the already cut pieces back into the other big box. It’s more portable with two smaller boxes, since I was carrying this pile to hair appointments etc. But now, I am back to only cutting out stuff at home. Hopefully I’ll be done and sorted by the end of the week, so I can start ironing together over the weekend.

The wedding was nice, great weather, even a bit warm. The shoes did not survive though. I don’t have much in the way of shoes, so when my mom was going through her closet and cleaning out, both the girlchild and I took some…these made it through less than half of a wedding, unfortunately.

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In case you wanted to see how old shoes die. (They die on Kathy’s feet.)

I’m still doing the year in stitches…that’s Saturday…

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And Sunday…

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No plan. I just randomly stitch. It takes about 5 minutes max. Not bad.

OK, well I have to go to work. On a rainy day, so that’s like torture. Plus a ton of kids won’t show up because (a) they’re still stuck in Mexico due to border closures (protests about gas prices) or (b) because they might melt in the rain or (c) because the first day back doesn’t really matter, right? And it’s a staff meeting day. And my co-teacher is gone all week, because she’s on her honeymoon (which means I should be able to get all that grading done that I didn’t do over break on my prep periods, because I won’t be planning and I’m ultra-efficient…ha!). I am having a really hard time persuading my brain that it doesn’t belong to a full-time artist who works at home every day. It’s convinced that should be the case. Ah yes, brain. I dream of that too…

This Chapter’s Gonna Be a Close One*

Back to the post-it-note lists for the weekend. Today is a little crazy. Tomorrow too. Then a week of school. The last week of my kids being home. That part sucks. Although the amount of dishes and groceries has been a bit overwhelming. Plus three trips to the airport in less than a week.

Still debating going to school today. I think I will be fine if I get there on time on Monday…there’s not that much to do. Teachers have to set up boundaries…school intrudes on so much of our personal lives. I will be sending the parent email today…every weekend, I do that. I didn’t grade that last assignment. It’s OK. It will get done. And then there will be more. I meant to do it. I just lost momentum.

I did cut stuff out for about 4 hours yesterday…top left is trash, top right is cut-out pieces, bottom is stuff that still needs cutting (ie, most of the quilt). I’m hoping to do more of that today…maybe get to ironing by next weekend. That would be good.

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I cut for almost an hour at my daughter and my co-hair appointment. She sets up the girlchild’s hair color and then cuts mine and then cuts hers. So I sit there and trim stuff in between. Multi-tasking. I do a lot of that.

I got into a show in Camarillo with two pieces, which is good, and got rejected by another show, which is also good, because I need two of those pieces for my solo show. Seriously need new work for shows! But the solo show is kind of eating that up…which is not a bad thing. I need to draw. I keep saying that and not being able to find the time and mental space.

I think I meditated last night…maybe. I did do this…added the orange.

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It’s a double cast-on stitch. I had enough thread for two of them…but the eyeball asked for it.

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Honestly not sure I can stick with this every-day stuff. Although I blog almost every day. Routines. At some point, they do stick.

Puppy was stuck with me last night, because the girlchild is now in Seattle. She was home less than 24 hours.

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She went to see her cousins…so that’s good.

OK, so the to-do list is scaring me. Best thing to do is just bang it out. If I’m lucky, there’ll be some art involved as well…it’s my goal, anyway. Always my goal.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers, Can’t Stop

Something in Hand

So the ends of vacations often fall into this panicked attempt to complete everything on the list, which is always impossible. Yet I try. Check it off, cross it off, get it all under control. It’s not on the list? It might not happen then. I might forget about it completely until 1 AM 2 AM even 3 AM, when I am lying in bed…and I slide my phone out from under the pillow, where it records my lack of sleep, tossing and turning, and add that crucial task to the calendar or the list of things to do.

It’s at a point right now of What Do I Really Have to Do to Get By. What Is Absolutely Necessary. Is It Bad Form to Draw at a Wedding? OK, I already know the answer to that one, it’s OK. I multitask for survival’s sake. I know I have a staff meeting Monday. What else can I do during the meeting? Still paying attention, but not just sitting there. I’m really bad at just sitting there. I need something in hand. Stitching, a book, a sketchbook, scissors, whatever.

Yesterday was a rainy mess here. I went to school and started organizing for Monday. I’m still debating whether I need to go back Saturday to finish, or whether I can get through Monday without doing that. I’d prefer NOT to go in. I need the mental space to evaluate that. I don’t have that at the moment. Then I had professional development. There were a couple of things I noted as useful, but mostly it was like, yeah, I know that, I just haven’t found the time (while designing curriculum from scratch) to fit a higher level of that into my curriculum. There is a low level of it. I manage to get 2nd place in a roomful of teachers on a quiz…well, there’s an achievement…then back to school, in the rain, to drop my computer and head out to see Persephone.

We met in a German hostel or something like that, aged 16 or so, summer abroad program with AFS. She sang, I pounded on a piano. We were both unlike the more normal American girls and bonded. We see each other maybe every 3-7 years and it’s always easy. Yesterday was a trip to Goodwill…

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The color runs always fascinate me…

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I used to live in thrift shop clothing…I don’t ever have time to go there now. I rarely buy clothes for myself at all. It was fun…

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And we did the normal lunch and coffee/tea thing too…then I traipsed all over Mira Mesa to get to my stitching meeting. I didn’t do my day of stitch on Wednesday (already an issue? Yeah. I know.)…so I did that first…the yellow.

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Then added Thursday’s eyeball.

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And worked on the warthog’s bush. All couching. Crazy.

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I did cut a few pieces out last night, but didn’t photograph them. Left and picked up girls from the airport at midnight, in bed by 2 AM, then up early (well, for me) and out to take Persephone to the train station…a beautiful California day.

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And realized as the train was pulling away and we were waving at each other that we never took a picture together. Whoops. Oh well. I don’t think we did last time either. I never remember that kind of documentation.

Art interrupted by life. And a big ball of have-to hanging over my head. I’m feeling overwhelmed by all of it. I can feel it in my shoulders. My neck. My head. The reality is that I will get done what I can, and I may have to say no to some things. Today is still busy…girlchild leaves again tonight…but maybe later I will get fabric time. Or drawing time. We’ll see. Certainly I’m taking fabric with me to the girlchild’s hair appointment (mine is in the middle of hers and then we go directly to the airport). Oh yeah, see? Documentation…

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And taking deep breaths. Meditating. Trying to get what I can under control.

At Citibank We Will Meet Accidentally*

Back to school sort of this morning. Need to set up the classroom and do another training. Hopefully this one will actually have something I don’t already know. I’m never ready to go back. I always need more time. Such is the way of these breaks…we spend so much time grading or prepping anyway, or doing all the stuff we can’t get done when school’s in session. It’s hard to go back.

Anyway, the good news is that I finally finished ironing down all the fabrics for this quilt. It felt like it took forever…almost 25 hours when there’s only 1400 pieces? But then I figured out part of it yesterday…148 fabrics. That’s a lot…although looking at this, it’s a lot of grays and variations on white.

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The next stage requires a decent pair of scissors (always an issue for me…so many of them are very stiff, so they don’t work well) and a lot of time on the couch. Maybe 20 hours or so on the couch. OK.

Here’s the boxful of pieces…

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I wasn’t kidding about the full part.

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I should be working on that later tonight. Training, then hanging out with long-time friend. But the girlchild’s plane doesn’t come in ’til late tonight, so hopefully I’ll have some time to trim. When might I be done? Sometime next week. My three-day weekend just got full of ironing stuff down if I can get done trimming in time.

Yesterday during the day, the boychild and I did a ton of work…installed one rain barrel, although we still need some help attaching the gutter back to the wall…

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Noticed this problematic situation…don’t know when that happened.

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Took this wee beastie to the vet and then had to shampoo her with special stuff and sing songs to her for 10 minutes while it sunk in.

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Someone should redo my bathroom (ha! and the rest of the house…can’t keep up with any of it). We also did a ton of yardwork, pulling stuff down and out. Filled the two trashcans we had and left the rest in the driveway, pushed to the side, for next week. Spread all the extra leaves from the side of the house on the weeds in the front yard. Still one water barrel to install and a few more branches and volunteer trees to take out. I don’t know when that’s happening…after school (in the dark?) sometimes next week? Who knows.

So many things I’d like to get done over break that I didn’t get to. Organizing, cleaning, tossing. But my focus is on trying to get quilts done at this point…and survive work…and take care of the animals…and myself. Doing the best I can right now. It’s not great, but it’s what I can do.

*Cake, Short Skirt/Long Jacket

It’s Where My Demons Hide*

I keep thinking I’m going to get done with the ironing, but it’s taking a long time to get through the last of the fussy little pieces. So even though I ironed for almost 4 hours yesterday, I’m still about 100-150 pieces short of done. They need to be done today. Of course, today is full of other crap, as is the next day and the next day. Aargh. One assignment has still not been graded (oh well…it will get done eventually)…I need to find time to draw. I need to get this quilt to the next stage.

I couldn’t find piece 1103 for a while…turns out I thought it was piece 1193 instead and ironed it to the wrong reddish fabric. So I retraced it for the right fabric, and found 1193 and ironed it onto the red fabric. Silly stuff like that is why I’m almost 22 hours in to the ironing. That’s a lot for a 1400-piece quilt.

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I had a lasagne interlude and then some companionable TV watching…so I did my one stitch for the day, a whipped something or other. I should be better about documenting, but I can’t be I guess.

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Then back to the ironing with the cat. Hi Kitten…

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The fabric pile was getting seriously out of control…if it takes me 5 minutes to find the one yellow I know I already used in the quilt and want to use again? Then that’s wasted time…

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So I stopped and organized. That’s a lot of fabrics. This is part of why it’s taking so long. It took a run of 6 greens to make the small intestines, another 6 of browns for the large intestines.

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Complicated as shit. Anyway, all the innards are now ironed down and I’m on to the head…in fact, I just have the head and the two heads in the cloud left. Even the cloud is picked out (you can see it lying largely on top).

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So that’s good. But today is already designated yardwork and rain barrel day, so it’s gotta get done. Seriously, because the kids are gone in a week and a half, and then I’m back to no help at all. So much as I hate walking away from the quilt at the moment (especially with the deadlines crowding my brain, I need to get out there and hook this shit up.

*Imagine Dragons, Demons