On the Couch…

It all started on the couch…well, it’s still on the couch honestly. But Wednesday morning, after I found out my procedure would be Thursday and might knock me out of commission for a week or more, I had a goal. I didn’t REACH that goal, but I tried. I’m still on the couch today…been home since about noon yesterday. I tire easily. I’m in some pain, not a lot, but the meds are also making me tired…especially the Benadryl to counteract whatever I was allergic to in the hospital.

So Wednesday, I finished trimming all the Wonder Under, taking about ten hours total…

It doesn’t look like much, does it? Then I found a plastic bin for each 100 pieces, not an easy feat at the moment…

A lot of them were being used for other things. Kitten was after a bug in one of the bins, but the Wonder Under was also intriguing.

Then she sat right up against the first three bins, pissy that I was taking up space on her light table.

It took about an hour and 40 minutes to sort all the pieces out…

Then I headed to my office and hung up the drawing, and put away some of the fabrics that were piled up in that room (which really needs a serious deep clean…something I was supposed to do this summer)…

I started by putting the first 100 out in order and then began the ironing…

And got a whopping 35 minutes in.

Before I realized I had to be up in like 4 1/2 hours to go to the hospital. Yeah, so that’s where I didn’t meet my goal. I wanted a huge pile of stuff ironed so I could sit here, on the couch, and cut little pieces out. I guess I could do that, but it wouldn’t take very long. I think there’s only about 30 pieces ironed.

What I need now is enough energy to stand and iron fabrics to Wonder Under pieces. And that’s not happening today. In fact, I’m sitting here with my computer on my lap and my eyes are drooping again. Sigh. So I don’t know if I’m getting that burst of energy today.

I’ve been sitting on the couch and watching stuff saved on Tivo and stuff on Netflix, and then I’m sewing some wool bits to other wool bits, nothing fancy, just basic. Because I can’t deal with anything beyond that. Last night, I tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but then didn’t fall asleep until after 4:30 AM. At some point, I finally got up and read a book. An entire book. The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud…

I like the idea of this book, but had some issues with the story. I’m not sure it needed to be as long as it was (and it’s 400 pages long)

I think I need another nap. I don’t WANT another nap. I WANT to be making art.

Note: I put the computer down because my eyes were drooping…it’s now 2 hours later, so I guess I really needed to sleep. I’m hoping tomorrow is better. I know recovery takes time.

Damn Demanding Art Brain

Imagine my eyes wide open like this…

Yup. It’s been 24 hours or so of that. I might have slept a bit, but crazy nightmares of mud and blood and car accidents and disturbing imagery (I know, crazy, when you look at my drawings, but they have to come from SOMEWHERE, right?). And I think, what the hell were you doing last night? I went to an art opening (4th one in the same number of days?) and then I came home and ate dinner quietly by myself and watched four episodes of Elementary (um. Kathy. Sherlock is a bit creepy.) and cut out a shitload of Wonder Under.

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The container on the left has all the stuff that’s cut out. The pile on the right is all that’s left.

It was 1 AM and I wasn’t in the mood to spend another 45 minutes cutting that out. I was tired.

It’s still not cut out though and that was my plan for today: cut it out, sort it, and start ironing. But it’s 4:30 already and I haven’t even touched it. Why? Well hell. I’m having a surgical procedure tomorrow, just found out the timing today, so I’ve been running around like a crazy person labeling a quilt, driving to Home Depot for the slats for the quilt, cutting those, dehairing said quilt, boxing it up, driving it to someone who will deliver it for me, because now I can’t, and then the grocery store on the way home. I think I also made stuff for lunches for the next few days, so if I have an appetite when I get home, there’s some stuff I can eat. Because I have teenagers, and although they are both capable of cooking and cleaning and even fetching, they are also not always here or reliable or even sane. Boychild did fetch my library book for me.

It’s OK. Don’t panic. It’s not major surgery. I’m not even having stitches. It’s just the uterus and it needs some persuading to stop misbehaving, and because of that, I get to have flu symptoms for like a week. Or more. Because I have time for that shit right now. It’s OK. I do have time for it, because otherwise, I’m going to need to buy stock in a tampon company. But I don’t have time for it. I’m assuming the worst on recovery, and trying to prepare for it. So I still want to finish the Wonder Under, sort it, and start ironing tonight, even though I have to be at the hospital tomorrow at holy shit in the morning. I have 8 hours before I have to go to sleep. I can sleep ALL DAY tomorrow. Maybe I should just stay up all night. See those eyeballs up there? Yup. That would be a bad plan.

Anyway. With all that in mind, I’m a little overly stressed and a tad worried, because nobody likes to be put under and have drugs pumped into them and to lie in a hospital gown. Those damn things are freakishly uncomfortable, and just when you finally fall asleep, some loud nurse comes in and turns on all the lights and pulls the blankets off of you, scaring you half to death, just to check your incision. Yeah. Things I try to avoid.

So art…in a minute. First I want to talk about the three openings on Saturday. The first one was at Visions, a collectors’ exhibit. It’s worth seeing. I wasn’t overwhelmed, but it has some nice work in it. I’m not allowed to take pictures there. The second one was fun, but a little crazy…

The Frida Kahlo Group Art Show at the La Bodega Gallery in Barrio Logan. There were a million people there by the time we got down there, many of them dressed as Frida (somewhat disturbing). Some of the art was a bit TOO derivative, but much of it was an interesting take on people’s idea of Kahlo or her art. Artists’ names are on the tags below. Sometimes I try to link to websites for artists, but I will never get this posted this week if I try to do that.

So people kept posing this young Frida lookalike under the paintings, and she kept moving under the green one (one of my favorites), but then someone would move her back to the blue one…

And here’s the green one. Maybe we should have let her stay there.

Then a tiny room off to the side had David Van Gough in there…and I couldn’t possibly get any good pictures of his stuff, because it was hella crowded in there. But you can go see it here.

Outside? This awesome photo opportunity. Seriously cool.

After that, we went to a pop-up gallery with work by Spenser Little and Jaclyn Rose, both with amazing pieces. Then the night finished with a good burger and some wine, and you can’t argue with that. I still have a hike to post and some Wonder Under to manage. There was a side trip (while you weren’t looking) through a bunch of financial and copyright shit that I have now banished or managed or scared off. So I can get on with what I’ve wanted to do since I was awakened this morning by bad nightmares and cat breath. Damn demanding art brain.

Full-Funnel Conversion

First of all, no, I didn’t fall off the face of the Earth. I have 95 pictures on my camera to prove I’ve been out in the world Doing Shit. Never at home long enough to actually type a blog post. There are some pros and cons to that of course. First of all, I don’t have time right now to deal with all 95 photos. But I’ll get there. I’m sure.

Second of all, LinkedIn is convinced that I want a job…and it’s not that I don’t need work and money and all that, but it’s possible that I have Too Many jobs at the moment, hence stress levels akin to the beginning of school…but LI keeps suggesting the weirdest jobs. Post title: apparently I may be qualified to be a full-funnel conversion rate optimization specialist. Hmn. Boychild and I Googled that shit and we’re pretty sure I don’t know how to do that. Full-Funnel (cake) I can handle…the rest? Not so much.

So Saturday night was three art openings and a damn good burger. More about the openings later (can’t deal with that many photos right now). Sunday was a friend arriving from parts north. We hung out in her hotel room for a while and talked, because this was her view…

And it included over an inch of rain…

In fact, while sitting there, I think that entire inch of rain had drenched me between grocery store and car and then car and house and then house and car and then car and hotel room. Or something. Think I missed a step. But still warm and humid out. Dudes…this is why I don’t live in Florida.

But while sitting there, I started cutting out Wonder Under. Because my life is such that at the moment I cannot just sit anywhere. I have to be working. And that’s OK. Most of the time.

Once we left there for my parents, where there were lots of people and girlchild cooked, and I did manage to sit through dinner without cutting stuff out, I got really tired. Something about not sleeping well or long enough for two many nights in a row. So I went home and took a 20-minute nap. I do actually set the timer on my phone to wake me up. And that and a significant dose of tea woke me back up long enough to finish tracing the damn thing. First I had to readjust this sweetheart…

Um. Kitten. Excuse me. Sweetie, I need to move you. It’s really hard to move them when they look this adorable.

But I did. Because I wanted to be done. I had about 400 pieces and at first thought that was too many to get done, because it was late already…apparently I traced that night for 3 hours and 10 minutes. Yeah. So I got it done.

I had already trimmed one yard at the hotel and my parents’ house, so there were 6 1/2 yards total…

Laid out on the floor. It took 21 1/2 hours to trace the whole quilt. There are about 1852 pieces (more than that, but not a lot more…yes, I always miss some). So it wasn’t super easy to trace apparently. Last year’s big quilt took about 18 minutes longer to trace and it had 100 fewer pieces. I don’t know what that means. It also took me 12 days to trace and this one only took 6 days. That’s the difference between being in school and being on vacation.

Then yesterday, I had brunch with my friend before she left…then headed over to my quilt class, where I continued cutting…

And then hiked 5 miles with the kids (more on that later), ate dinner (do you need to know more about that? After hikes? It’s pizza. Delivery. Hallelujah.), and kept cutting for almost 5 hours yesterday (finished Wandering Pines and am still not sure it hasn’t jumped the shark in the first season, if that’s possible). I’m at almost 7 hours total, and there are 2 1/2 yards left to trim. I could do that today. Today is actually pretty wide open (except the girlchild needs stuff and I have money crap I’m trying to manage and I need to do a ton of writing today and I have an opening to go to tonight and I didn’t do all the grocery shopping Sunday because I ran out of time to plan and I wasn’t sure when my procedure would be scheduled and I’m still waiting on that).

Wow. Deep breaths Kathryn. But if I can get all these trimmed today and sorted (which will probably take an hour or more), then I can start picking fabrics. Fuck. Wait. I don’t have a background fabric. Add to list. Must go to fabric store (oh my) today. And I need a big piece. This thing is 60″ square pretty much. Need 4 yards. OK. So that’s on my list for today as well. Girlchild can handle that errand mushed in with her need for a suitcase, right? That’s what I thought.

Someone’s in the shower and it’s not me. Did I mention I have a leaky sprinkler issue on the deck? Tried turning the whole mess off last night, but it didn’t stop water dripping. Not sure what’s up.

My lord. I need an assistant. AND a house cleaner. I’ve been watching the show Humans and reading a book about AI, and maybe, if humans weren’t so creepy about how they would USE AIs, this would be really incredibly helpful to me. Seriously.

On With Life…

This morning, at around 6 AM, a mere 5 hours after I found my bed, the dog woke me…crying, whining, scratching at the bed, trying to burrow under the bed itself. Why? Thunder. She’s developed an intense fear of thunder, and we aren’t sure why, but it woke most of us up this morning. The thunder stopped hours ago, and she’s still scared and hiding. She refuses to go out and pee. And I’ve been up since 6 AM basically, so I kinda feel braindead. What’s new, you ask? Exactly. She’s lying so close to my chair that I can’t move.

I only have about 78 things to do in the next three days. I should be totally blowing off sleep to get all that done. This is not the most relaxing summer vacation I’ve ever had. That’s unfortunate. I should work on that.

I’m still tracing Wonder Under…

Some days, it feels like I will be tracing forever, but I think I hit a place last night where I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m at 1450 pieces, with only about 400 to go. That’s a day. Maybe 4 hours. I have the torso, one arm, and the head of the smaller figure, and then I’m done.

Kitten is absolutely no help. She was lying on the couch, but STILL lying on the drawing and pulling it towards her as she cleaned herself.

Nice. Well, I’ll be done tracing soon, and then she can lie all over the light table to her heart’s content. (But mommy, there will be nothing to lie ON.) Sigh.

I actually didn’t do much tracing yesterday, only about two hours. I spent the afternoon re-learning how to crochet and then cutting out Wonder Under for the smaller quilts I have on my list. I didn’t start tracing until well after dinner.

I’m over 18 hours in though. It hasn’t felt like that…

I did finally force myself to stop around 12:30 last night. Some part of me just wants to bully through, stay up all night, get it done, because I’m pretty booked the next three days, but realistically, not sleeping at my age is not a good plan. I already have enough issues with staying asleep, although I was doing fine last night, until the dog and the thunder.

Can I take a nap today? I did take all the Wonder Under that was traced with me to quilt meeting yesterday, but then the crochet thing happened (girlchild wants a hat and her birthday is coming)…I’ve gone completely through my stash of rubberbands saved from when we used to get newspapers (I quit those years ago), so am forced to tie things up with ribbons now. I have tons of those. I keep a bunch looped over a clothes hanger in my office, for when I need to tie things up…

But I haven’t actually started cutting them out.

Deadlines are piling up. My proposal for a collaborative art thang was accepted, so I will be working on that in August, opening on September 12, but I don’t even know what THAT is yet, due to the collaborative part of it. Then I have to do a surgical procedure thing on the lovely fibroid-filled uterus that will leave me feeling out of it and tired for up to 10 days (I don’t have time for that shit)…if they can schedule it far enough in advance of school…which they say they can. But that would then be happening in the next week or so.

I think, OK, this big quilt ALSO needs to be done by about September 20. And I’m booking at the moment, moving uberfast, but that will change. Things I can do while sitting on the couch: cutting stuff out (good). So if the procedure is early next week, I’m still cutting out Wonder Under. OK. Or if it’s early the following week, maybe I will have made it to the ironing stage and I’ll have more stuff to cut out. I suspect picking out and ironing fabrics will be problematic if I feel like shit. Standing for hours doesn’t sound like it will be an option. So the timing is not great.

So I’m all stressed out about making art. Oh well. It’s because I’m pushing myself and challenging myself with new types of projects, and that’s good, and it’s just unfortunate that all this other crap has to happen at the same time.

Plus I really REALLY need to meditate every day. Seriously. Did it in the MRI machine…it was rhythmic. Nice. Can’t have one of those at home though. Gonna have to just do it on the couch.

Enough writing. On with life.

Wading in Wonder Under

I have 12 hours and 12 minutes into the tracing. I’m at piece 1138, which is the hair of the larger figure. All I have left to do of her is the hair and all the crazy stuff hiding in her hair. Then I can move on to the smaller figure.

Turns out there’s actually 1852 pieces (not 1825…not dyslexic) and I missed some, as always, so there are actually MORE than that. Whatever.

I washed the batting yesterday, left it in the bathtub. The kids said something this morning about not being able to take showers. Turns out I totally forgot it was in there. They thought about telling me, decided I must be doing it on purpose (Ha! My momhood is complete! Even my crazy makes sense to them!). When I explained to them this morning that this was Menopause Brain, similar to Pregnancy Brain but possibly permanent, girlchild yelled down the hallway, “Don’t blame your stupidity on your hormones!”

And there we are. The wonder that is my household.

Seriously, I traced for about 5 1/2 hours yesterday in the long run, AND made a new dinner recipe, AND left the batting in the bathtub overnight. Which reminds me…need to go drain that fucker.

Kitten harassed me all 5+ hours by sitting ON the drawing and ON the Wonder Under…

Calli was almost underfoot, but not quite…(see how big the drawing is…)

And then Kitten stared at me balefully from the couch, where she slept because Mommy wouldn’t let her on the light table.

Meanest mommy ever. But I got a lot done…

Sometimes I want to just quit, but it’s easier to stop at the end of some section, and I crazily started the bird with 100 pieces in it at about midnight…so you know how that went.

Up too late, yet again. Thing is, I had to be up early this morning, because I’m not allowed to eat or drink anything after 9 AM. I can’t understand the logic of telling a diabetic NOT to eat, and then having her drive all over San Diego County for an MRI and a totally different place for the doctor. Hopefully I’ll have time to eat in between. I will totally be drinking an entire bottle of water, because I’m already dehydrated, and I drank two full bottles of water last night and this morning. Let’s hope they don’t need to take any blood, because they won’t get into my veins.

It’s OK…the uterus is just full of things that are benign but annoying and causing problems. I gave it permission to STOP being annoying, you know, like you give dying people permission to just Let Go? But my uterus is more stubborn than that. It’s convinced releasing eggs is what it should be doing right now, whether I like it or not. Hence stupid doctors’ appointments and procedures and tests and annoyances.

Anyway. So there will be lots of driving and dehydration and doctor’s waiting rooms today. Not fun. I’m going to trace some more before I go, though, and then pray for caffeine. I am more than halfway through the tracing…which is interesting, because we are officially halfway through summer break too, I think…although I personally start thinking of school officially on August 1, and this summer has been filled with school batting at my brain consistently, via email and text and signing up for classes, because everything is changing again. This will be the fourth website I’ve had to do for school, wait, no, I did a Google Sites one too, so that’s five. I’m not sure what was wrong with the last one, but now we get to learn a new one. Whatever. I’m sure it will be the most awesomest EVER, but if Google Classroom let us do a few more things, then I wouldn’t NEED another one. Wait. Google Classroom is number 5, so this is 6. Bloody hell. If I didn’t have to keep redoing things every time someone changed their minds about what was the coolest (and the cheapest), I might get more of my summer.

Rant over. Tracing will begin.

Distractions…aka Life

Summer is full of distractions. The weather alone can be an issue. Some days it’s just too hot or humid to work (yes, even here, when the thunderstorms pile in, it can be awful…for us, that is) and sometimes there are just too many little piddly things that suck up time, like today. Today I had to sign up for a class for school, write an email about a contract, and drive to the girlchild’s doctor’s office to get them to sign the one page of four that they missed the last time she was there. It didn’t take long to get there, but she was in the middle of something, so I sat there and watched 20 minutes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original), which I didn’t see until I went to college, because I wasn’t allowed up after 8 PM. Veruca…such a bitch.

Then I went on to JoAnns, which no longer has an apostrophe and may not even have two capital letters…wait. It does. And there’s a hyphen and no ‘s’. Ugh. Forget it. I usually hate that place, but it has Wonder Under and Warm and Natural batting, and I had a handful of 50%-off certificates. I was trying to manhandle the giant bolt of batting down the aisle and an older woman offered her cart, said if I’d lift it in, she’d roll it up…she wanted some too. So YEAH. Nice moment there. Hopefully some young thang will help ME roll that batting down the aisle when I’m 70.

Then picked up the boychild and the dog and headed home, ate lunch, but then fell into the rabbit hole of insurance plans when the girlchild’s university called here and gave me some information that gave me pause. Wait a minute. Maybe I can kick these sweet little monsters off my insurance next month, since they have to be covered somewhere, and then I can save myself…how much…holy crap. $410 a month. Mylanta Georgia, as the girlchild says…that might just cover the shortfall on the boychild’s college fees. Maybe.

So I’m sitting here, buzzing like a bee, hoping magic is about to happen, money to appear in the sky (on my paystub as it were…whenever I might get one of those pretty things again), but I can’t focus enough to make my way to the damn light table and trace.

Which honestly is OK, because I traced for almost 6 hours yesterday. Apparently. I watched 4 episodes of Elementary and another bunch of SHIELD and then a movie. ‘Watched’ isn’t really the word though, because I traced the whole time.

The night before, I numbered the whole damn thing, which is about 60″ square. It’ll probably be smaller than that at the end. Maybe. It took 2 1/2 hours just to NUMBER it. Huh. And you can see some of the crazy there in the spider web.

But it came out at about 1825 pieces, which is less than 2000. That’s good. It’s big, it’s meaty, but it’s not overwhelming to think about. Maybe it should be, but I’ve done bigger than that, so I’m good. Last year’s crazy big piece had 1764 pieces and took about 144 hours to make. So I’m in the same range. I have about 2 1/2 months too, so I’m good. It would be nice if it finished early so I could work on something else…plus I shouldn’t ignore the other proposal I did…although I haven’t heard anything, so maybe my proposal sucked. Or whatever.

Here’s the drawing upside down on the light table. You can see why I love my light table almost as much as my kids. Seriously. It’s lovely.

And it does not talk back or leave dishes on the counter.

Kitten was trying to lie ON the drawing, UNDER the drawing, IN the drawing, so I banished her…to the top of the piano, on all my drawings and sketchbooks…

Isn’t that where all of us keep our stuff? So I had a little left to watch of the show and didn’t want to start tracing Monday night, so I cut out two of the smaller quilts…just the Wonder Under.

Really, I should be working on those this week and getting them ironed to fabric so I can trim them on Friday, but I can’t be bothered. I’m on a tracing roll. And tomorrow is a medical clusterfuck (thank you, uterus, for demanding ALL the attention), so I probably won’t get much of anything done. Plus it’s almost three today and I have started exactly nothing. These DAMN DISTRACTIONS. And a headache. Weather headache. Arrgh. Where’s the damn Motrin. And now I hear I shouldn’t be popping those? Someone should tell my damn head that so it can stop throbbing on command.

I started tracing yesterday afternoon…

And I just kept going. I stopped for dinner. I stopped to do some writing. I stopped to pee a few times. But I’m through piece 472.

So only a quarter of the way through. If I could be as focused as I was yesterday, I’d be done by Sunday. Ha! Not happening. Oh well. Distractions. It’s good if it saves me or makes me some money. I needed the batting. I needed it to be on sale too, and the coupon expired today. All those other fussy little things, fill out this form and that form, take the car in for this and that. I hate that shit. I need to delegate more out. My post-it list from two days ago still has 4 things on it.

Anyway. I will stand. I will go get headache meds. I will take the phone with me, in case the health insurance people call me back today. I will trace the Wonder Under. I will push off the other distractions until tomorrow. Mostly.

The Two Newest…

So I just had the two newest pieces photographed over the weekend. Before I go back to my marathon tracing event (aargh, braindeath), I thought I’d throw them up here, because all you’ve seen is awkward hanging from clothes hangers and badly lit crappy photos. And that seems mean when I have much better pictures available now.

I finished In Deep (Bathtub 2) in June…I love this cat…

The fabric on her face has those lines across it…and no, I didn’t fussy cut it. I had barely enough of it to cut out the pieces I did…

The other figure is upside down…and sleeping…

This is the first of the bathtub series…expect more of them.

I keep drawing them. It’s a nice frame to whatever it is I’m saying. This is 40″ w x 50″ h.

Then right away, I started Part-Time Oasis…I actually did the original top of the drawing for this more than once back in January…

And then drew the whole thing to size back in June. Lots of little pieces for such a small work…

It was mostly flesh fabrics in the end…and a heart for the cat, because Kimberly asked.

It turned out well…like what I saw in my head. That’s always a plus.

It’s 18″ w x 40″ h. And they were both done in about 8 weeks flat. Not bad.

Now I move on to a giant huge beast. It won’t be done particularly soon. More about it tomorrow. Right this second, I must go back to the light table that is my master today.

Ripping the Drawing Out…

So how do I get a drawing out of me? Sometimes it spills out, fully formed, from my head, where it’s been growing for days. Or I wake up with it in my brain from some dream I had. Or more often, I’m driving around or at the gym or on a hike, and I see a hand in my head and the pen is moving and the drawing forms right there.

But sometimes, I have part of a drawing and there’s more that needs to be done to size…as in, I’m drawing it the actual size that it will be in the final piece. This is rare for me, but it happens. And then sometimes, I have to rip it out of me. Staring at the paper, sketching ideas, erasing them, pounding my hand down, my head pounding in response. That drawing just won’t come out easily. It has to be birthed.

I had about 4 1/2 hours in by Saturday night. Then Sunday, I stared at it a lot, but put in another 2 hours and 50 minutes. With Kitten’s help (not)…but there’s the upper arm and the bird…

But in the distance, Katie…(that’s the girlchild’s foot)…

Zoom out. Red arrow is Katie, my parents’ dog.

Staring at Kitten. On the light table. Katie got picked up today, so Kitten has free rein in the house again. Which is nice, because moving her around so I could draw yesterday was a pain in the butt.

I do use photos as reference for animals…and bugs. I used this lion and another one to draw the one on the leg…

I looked at bee, butterfly, thistle, and howling wolf photos as well. And a raven.

Here you can see that the whole pissed-off Earth Mother figure is taking shape.

Here’s a better view of the left torso. I got most of that done yesterday…

And then I added a snake…a particular snake, with specific colors. So I wouldn’t forget, I saved it on my iPad…but I also noted the colors on the drawing…

Here’s the snake around the legs…

And that’s where I gave up last night. I stared at it and googled images for about 20 minutes before I gave up. Because I knew I wanted some sort of dog or wolf, but didn’t know where to put it, and at that point, I was debating bones or not, because there aren’t any in the other figure, but then that makes sense, because that’s the manmade version and this is the natural version.

Anyway. I drew today as well, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that. But right now, at 9 PM, no, I’m not done with the drawing. I’m hoping to be soon. I think I will be soon. I’m going to get some caffeine in me and see if I can bang it out…because this drawing has about 9 hours in it so far. And I wanted it done last night (ha!). So yeah. Done and numbered tonight, so I can start tracing tomorrow. The editing job fell through (seems a common theme), but a writing job is there, and I’m working on that. But not tonight. And I have some other errands I have to do tomorrow.

It’s funny, I know I’m stressed about money and projects because I’m grinding my teeth and I have those weird canker sores I get at the end of the school year and when stuff is really stressful, but I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be stressed over summer, right? Yeah. I know. My own fault.

Good news on the quilt front though…Earth Mother for Ventura got into the show up at the Ventura County Government Building, so it will be there from August 28-October 13 for your viewing pleasure…

So go see it. I won’t be at the opening. Can’t get there in time from San Diego. Good to be getting into shows again.

OK. Drawing calls. Loudly. From the other room. Rude little beast.

One Done, Nine to Go…or Ten?

So I finished another quilt last night, actually this morning in the early dewy moments when you know you should be asleep, but you’re waiting for the girlchild to get home from a performance, so you can’t go to sleep anyway, so you might as well finish the binding, even though you’re tired of working on it. Yeah. It was one of those. Sometimes my brain just fights finishing (because it knows what’s next and it’s afraid, very very afraid).

OK, really just apprehensive because I’m not sure how the next step will work out and there’s a lot of other things hanging over me right now that I am trying REALLY hard to ignore. Really.

So I trimmed the quilt.

I really hate having to make quilts to a specific size. It gives me the heeby jeebies. I’m sure I’m going to fuck it up. I check the size in the paperwork or online over and over, obsessively, and then trimming it just freaks me out. I’m sure it would be OK if it were a half inch larger, but I just don’t like it.

I had gone to the fabric store before and gotten the binding (plus some others wanted to come home with me…all those pretty pastel colors and then SKULLS)…

I tried for a dark blue and it just didn’t work…couldn’t get the right shade and dark enough. And then I thought about turquoise, but I don’t know if it’s just my store (which is huge), but I haven’t seen any good turquoises for months. Something to keep in mind. I put it in the wash before I went to my quilt meeting and it was ready when I finally got done with all that and dinnermaking and cleaning the kitchen. Yes, I started after 9 PM, I’m sure…

But this really is a small quilt, so this went relatively quickly…

Binding on, two sleeves, bottom and top…and then the handsewing…

While waiting for the girlchild to get home. It’s done. Emailing the photographer this morning to do this one and the Bathtub.

I also worked on some smaller quilts for sale yesterday, because it’s an easier project to lug around outside the house…I traced all the Wonder Under for 7 projects…

Having done two of them last Friday and then not touching them all week. Here they are, all ready for trimming…

I decided to try cats this year instead of birds. But then I digressed. Because I do. But starting with the cats, here’s 1 and 2…

Both drawn from real life. Then 3 and 4…

Three is the curled-up one and that was real life, but it’s also much more complicated. Julie is shaking her head at me right now, because complicated means more time.

And Cat 5…

whose expression is my favorite. That’s Kitten’s face.

Cat 6? Well, let’s just say I can’t always be normal. I really wanted to make this one and it kept talking to me, and I realize no one will probably want to buy it because it’s weird, AND it has over a hundred pieces (Julie throws her arms up in the air and stomps away), but I like it. So there.

So that’s 6 cats…then I liked the heart in hands that I did for the FFAC donation, so I had drawn one version that was way too complicated and one simple one…

So the one on the left will inevitably be cheaper than the one on the right. Whatever. I don’t even know if these will sell, but it’s worth a try.

And then I did another owl…

I actually pulled this from one of the bathtub drawings. There’s another owl I want to draw, but I really need to stop and get these started at least, because I need to draw this giant thing this weekend and start working on it, because there’s really only 4 weeks until I have to start really thinking about school (besides all the texts and emails all over the place that have been annoying me all week). And that’s not much time. And I have to finish that commission piece too. I’m kind of freaked out about the next step with that…will have to just suck it up and DO it instead of thinking so hard about it. Like that’s possible.

But I’m really pleased that I’ve stuck with my schedule so far…in fact, I’m about a week ahead. Of course, I might be screwed later today if the job I bid on comes in…screwed timewise, but able to earn August’s mortgage payment. That would be a plus. Trade-offs…one of the things I teach in 7th-grade science. Clinical trials for medications, cancer treatments, how to get money to go to the movies…all trade-offs. Yes, I can be an artist, but I am going to be behind on everything else and sometimes my schedule will go crazy, even though it’s summer and I should be relaxing. It is relaxing to be tracing Wonder Under or picking fabrics…it’s a different kind of relaxation. The sort-of workaholic kind. Oh well. It’s obviously in my genes. I will take some time off this evening and relax a bit, and then go crazy again.

Speaking of relaxing, when I’m done sewing bindings but the girlchild isn’t actually home yet so I still have to be awake, or when I’m in a Barnes and Noble Starbucks with my stitching friends and I don’t have anything portable to work on, I do these…

This is Sue Spargo’s Bird Crazy, started three years ago? Maybe 2 1/2 years ago. I have 21 birds completely embroidered and 9 to go…here’s the 6 I’m currently working on…

They all have feet. The bottom half have all their background embroidery done. I’m working on that task on the top three. When these are done, there are only 3 left…then I can sew it together…and start on another one. Because I do need something to work on when I’m on a plane or in a waiting room or wherever, and these are easy and relaxing and don’t require a lot of thought, but the embroidery is fun to do. So yeah, I have those to work on.

OK, so I need to deal with that giant drawing now. Or breakfast. Whichever seems less traumatic…

Late-Night Title Number 17

I just can’t come up with a title. Sorry. Left all my brainpower elsewhere. It’s late.

So I finished quilting tonight…

About 5 hours and 21 minutes to quilt it all. Told you it was small. Small and quick. That was the goal. I’m ahead of schedule right this second. That could change at any second. So in a little bit, after writing this, I’ll calculate the binding and see if I have enough of something appropriate in house to do that…which would be nice, because I don’t want to lose time tomorrow morning with going out and buying it and having to wash it before I put it on. Why? I mean, if I’m ahead of schedule, why am I panicking? Well I had one copyediting job that I thought might start yesterday, but then that fell through (or extended out until October, hard to say), and then I had another request for bid tonight, so hopefully…maybe…I’ll have work for the next week. But THAT means I won’t have time (or as much time) to quilt. And the next one is a big one. A time-sucker. A giant-ass beast of a quilt. Well, at least I think it will be, because (don’t laugh) the drawing isn’t done. So that’s one issue. Plus I’m letting a ton of stuff just fall by the wayside at the moment. Because? I just can’t deal with all of it is all. There aren’t enough hours.

But I do make choices about certain things…yesterday, I chose to go to this concert…

Vokab Company (eh) with their crazy painter accompaniment…painting John Travolta as he danced to the music…

I’m fairly sure he had a shitload of paint in his hair this morning.

And then what we really came for, Dopapod…

Great light show and fun music…

More fun without all the drunk white boys, but what can you say…cheap tickets and apparently easy to buy beer (funny that they have more money than I do to spend on beer). Concerts haven’t changed much since I was 16…I still dance, even just to keep my feet from going dead, and I refrained from offering the excessively drunk tiny girls in the bathroom a ride home dearies. Seriously, I really wanted to mom them…briefly.

Anyway, that and a variety of other things waylaid my responsibility cart yesterday, plus the panic about a possible job starting (silly, since it didn’t). I was much better today…got some stuff done and bid on another job and got my focus closer to where it needed to be. I have a plan for tomorrow that will be better once I finish writing this and looking at bindings.

Boychild deconstructed the ancient play structure yesterday…

Quite happily…and trotted most of it off the lawn today. He is doing a bit every day on the list I gave him. Girlchild has signed up for her first college classes. They will all be gone in six weeks…leaving me in a very quiet house where the only dishes are mine. That will be interesting. And lonely. Sigh. Pros and cons.

This is why I try to hike with them now. But I’m not caving into guilt trips about whether I should be making art or not. This is who I am, what I am. If they haven’t figured that out yet, they will. Soon enough.

After I finished quilting, I inked shadows…

Funny…looking at this picture, I just saw something I needed to fix! No, I’m not telling you what.

I like this one. It’s so small. Trim and bind…that’s it. Then call the photographer and get my butt in gear on the big one. I have a plan. It’s all laid out in my head. There’s other shit that keeps piling in on top of it, but I’m trying to keep the big goals in my head, keep them straight and prioritized. Because in the long run, I don’t care whether that box gets emptied out and put away. I do care if my art gets made and shown. I do care if my kids grow up to be responsible. I care if my sanity survives the next 6+ weeks. I care if I can pay the bills and still feel like I have time to do what I need to do. So that…that’s my goal.

OK, measuring for binding now.