BadAss Quilters Society

It’s Monday again. It’s like it happens every week. This one feels like a bit much. I really enjoyed my three days away from home, wallowing in quilty stuff. It was a relief. Talking to people about quilts and art (and politics, because that came up over and over again)…it was nice; it was a relief. Seeing all the quilts…yes, I have a million pictures and I may put some in here when I have time (when do I ever have time???)…even though I don’t make that kind of quilt, some of them truly sing to me. Having one’s head solidly in something that is not school-related is a blessing.

And now I’m back. Woo! Actually, I had kids emailing all weekend and a slew of coworker texts on Friday that just about made me implode in the car on the way to Phoenix. More last night. Anyway, I’m sure that will just be the norm from now until June 17. Wait, probably after that too.

So before I left for the show, I hung out and stitched with friends…

I thought I would work on this on the trip. Nope. Not at all. I did make a spectacular knot in this thread on Thursday night, and three stitchers valiantly tried to unknot it and got it to this…

Two well-managed bits on each side and then an uncontrolled disaster in the middle. Kind of a metaphor for life.

We drove to Phoenix, leaving Friday morning. We had a nice little cottagey condo, with these guys in the kitchen…

And their friends on the fence out back…

I’m a fan.

We spent a tiny bit of time out here. I spent most of my time at the convention center.

It was a comfortable place though.

I went to two lectures: Susan Hudson of the Navajo Quilt Project, which I’ve sent a ton of fabric to…

Don’t sit close if you want to see their faces…I will send her more fabric when I get around to going through it. I didn’t make it through all the colors.

And Anna Maria Parry (was Horner)…

No, I don’t make quilts like her at all…I do love to listen how artistic brains work though, so it was fascinating for that. Same with Susan’s.

Somewhere in between all that, I was back at the cottage.

Relaxed and exhausted.

I sat at the SAQA booth on Saturday for a couple of hours with my quilt, Woman 3.0, which is traveling with the StitchPunk exhibit.

It was nice to see her. And I finally met Maddie Kertay of BadAss Quilter Society and got one of her ribbons.

That was nice. Appreciate the ribbon too.

Saw some art that wasn’t fiber…

And took a nighttime class (with a lot of caffeine) from Nichole Vogelsinger (aka Wild Boho). It was fun; I enjoyed my tablemates and time to stitch…

Again, this was more about listening to how the artist thinks than trying to make her stuff. I did buy way too many sequins though…

And beads that didn’t arrive in time. It’s OK; I went through my stash and ended up using stuff from crazy quilt swaps I did a million years ago.

The Man walked back from the convention center with me at 9:30 PM, and we saw this amazing thing…Janet Echelman’s ‘Her Secret Is Patience’. Beautiful piece.

Then Sunday, we drove home, I pissed off someone in a Zoom meeting (well, I didn’t agree with her), and tried to get a bunch of stuff done. I didn’t draw at all this weekend. It’s OK, I’m fine with that. I inked the drawing I did on Wednesday night…

With no help from Bowie…

Or Nova, who kept taking my seat…

Yes, I bought fabric. I notionally said I wouldn’t, but I knew that was a lie because I was looking for e bond’s new line and the African fabrics fascinate me…but not a huge haul…

Fun stuff.

Anyway, now I’m back and need to grade a million things and deal with kids and adults and parents. Ugh. Starting with this morning and a meeting that starts in 45 minutes. Did I tell you that 4 subs canceled on me for Friday? So I got the one I’d requested in the beginning that the district made me cancel? Long (stupid) story. It’s fine. We’ll see how the kids did in a few hours…making them do presentations today on what they should have done Friday. We’ll see how that goes. Tons of meetings today and then clay. And grading. And hopefully drawing after that. I’m back and there’s nothing planned until Spring Break, which isn’t really planned. And may not happen. Sigh.

So first of all, another type of protest art quilt show…when my quilt got pulled in August from the AQS QuiltWeek exhibit in Grand Rapids, Michigan, because there was an invisible penis in it, Maddie Kertay offered to show my two quilts (because in the end, they pulled both my quilts) at her quilt store in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during AQS QuiltWeek down there. By the way, Facebook thinks Bonnie Browning and I should be friends (she’s the AQS Show Director…probably the sweet dear heart who pulled my stuff). This is how you know Facebook is an idiot. Because Bonnie and I are not friends. Bonnie can’t even have the decency to contact ME about pulling my work.

Then Maddie decided to host an online show called The Skin We Are In (not safe for work)…

I just love that picture. I should say that Maddie is the badass chick in charge of the BadAss Quilters Society and you should totally be a member. ANYWAY, the show is up and you should go see some of the very cool work that has been posted. Molli Sparkles has made a lovely quilt with ALL the penises very clearly marked so you can easily report them to Bonnie Browning. I’m hoping someone has sent her this link.

Sometimes grading is amusing…

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I feel like I would totally give her extra credit if she would provide me with some proof.

Sometimes grading is annoying and I walk away from it. That happened last night. So after battling with a bag of hash browns and eventually winning (I’ve never been able to cook them right, but last night I triumphed! I had to throw out the first two tries, but the third was successful! High fives!), I did some feathery things in the middle…

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To fill in space. Because I’m realizing I should do that. Otherwise I won’t be able to fit 365 days’ worth of stitching in there.

So then I came in here and quilted, and I actually got started relatively early (9:30?) because I really couldn’t stand grading any more. I thought maybe I was being extra mean, but it was more like no one wanted to read instructions. It’s hard to grade stuff when it’s all bad grades. It makes you feel like a shitty teacher. And it’s true, I missed one day when they were working on this. Sigh.

I finished the arm and the rest of the skeleton. I didn’t take a picture because I was on a roll. Don’t stop when you’re on a roll.

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It’s funny because I feel like I’ve really achieved something by finishing all the outlining, but in reality, now I have to do the background quilting, and that’s not a small task. It’s a different rhythm though…

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I don’t have to be as careful as I do when outlining. It took 12 hours to outline all this, by the way.

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It’s not a record for me, I’m sure. I have some quilts that might be as big as this? Maybe?

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I need to go back and catch some places where I didn’t stitch down properly. And then I’ll start on the background…probably not tonight…

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But definitely tomorrow. I want this quilted and the binding at least machine-stitched on by Monday night. At the photographer by the end of next week. Starting on the next quilt (which does not even exist on paper) by next week.

Yeah. Crazy. Kitten slept through all that.

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