Finishing Up…a Quilt and an Exhibit…

Normally I’m a fan of rain, but not when the thunder associated with it makes the girlchild’s dog want to climb into my lap. Then it just sucks big time. She shut the computer down in the middle of a long post for one of the art groups I’m in. I finally managed to close the door to my office, just to get some peace without her trying to dig a hole in my fabric (she’s a Golden Retriever, not something that is easy to hide in a drawer of fabric, but she does it nonetheless). Her mom (the girlchild) is apparently NOT at the Fair, because it’s raining up there too, and the boychild just lost 4 wisdom teeth, so his patience is worn a bit thin and bloody. Plus it’s humid and muggy, not good for me either. But I’m trying to get all this computer crap out of the way, and then I can come out and sit with Ms. Whinypants, because I really need a Retriever on my lap.

Last night, finally, after a ton of stuff was done, I managed to finish ironing the pieces for the newest quilt…

I told you I would be adding color. It has 49 fabrics and it took about 5 1/2 hours to pick them all.

Pretty fast, actually. That’s because the majority of them were the same fabrics, so I just had to find them all and figure out which of the 6 flesh or 4 bone colors it needed to be, rather than find all new fabrics.

Kitten has appropriated the chair once taken by Babygirl and by Limbo before her.

In fact, she’s sitting there now, curled up against my back. I rarely get to sit in the chair properly. I’m always sharing it.

I did start cutting them out last night, mostly because I had to stay up until the girlchild came home, but also because I’m a night owl…

Although I’m feeling it this morning. Hopefully I’ll get the rest cut out tonight and then move on to ironing. Or maybe I’ll cut out the commissioned breast fabrics. That wouldn’t take long. We’ll see how tired I am. Cutting is fine while tired (I still have all my fingers). Ironing is harder. It requires standing and conscious thought. Always a problem.

I posted for California Fibers about the show opening on Saturday. You can see it all here, on the California Fibers blog. There were a few other artists involved in the show, so I wanted to post about them here.

This is Dani Dodge’s Sutured Jane with her video The Weight of Fabric playing on top of it.

I met Dani and had a conversation with her after we accidentally photographed each other in this panoramic…

She’s holding up the camera in the right middle…you can see how crowded the gallery was.

And here’s another view from more in the middle…of the gallery, not Dani.

Sandra Lauterbach was there with 6 pieces…yes, I know there are only 5 in this photo. I’m not sure where the 6th was.

Here’s a view from the stairs in the back, where more pieces were hiding…notably, Camilla Taylor’s We Waited, 4 figures total.

Here you can see three of them and her piece on the right, Feign.

I was more than a little fascinated with their construction…

listed as fabric, welded steel, paper pulp infrastructure. The stitcher in me wants to know HOW.

Terri Hartman’s work continued down the stairs with her Melancholy Sideshow…

Her Bullseye pieces…

In different sizes going up the stairs…

And her highly amusing My Family Tree…

consisting of descriptions of people we ALL want in our family…

Sold separately!

Seriously. I know these people.

And her Altered Definitions…

Lastly was a room with an installation, photographs, and video by Marisa Caichiolo…No More Blood in Your Clothes…

As you can see here…

The requisite picture of the harried artist, finally in front of her art (which was in a good place, right in front of the wine station)…

This guy matched the quilt…

Anyway, it was a good exhibit opening, which was nice, considering the drive. I would love to go back and peruse the hardware store as well…

Walls and walls of fun stuff. Now on to the next exhibit…although, honestly, I’m not sure I have one coming up with a local opening (or even one within a 3-hour drive), so it might be a while before I get to have those types of photos again. All the more reason to enjoy this one.

I See Progress…

Even when nothing seems to get done…

I didn’t do anything quilt-related last night. I was too braindead to quilt. I’m likely to sew right through my hand if I try in that mindset. I had a union meeting, the last one of the school year (that’s when you start realizing you’re almost done…when everything is the LAST one of the year). I drew during the meeting, mostly to stay awake…

I’m not good with late afternoon meetings. Ever. And I’m still working on versions of this drawing for making small quilts this summer.

This one…I don’t know what this one was…

Nice eyeball though. I’m fairly sure the teacher sitting next to me was confused. I don’t really care, because like I said, I was listening to all that was said…I was just tired and drawing keeps me from falling asleep in long meetings.

I didn’t get home until almost 6 and then had to cook a meal I’d never cooked before, which actually turned out OK, and then I cleaned up and holy crap, I know I did a bunch of school stuff, like 17×4 certificates and analyzed a bunch of data for our fun awards and who knows what else.

I meant to post this earlier this week as one of my small successes, but Tuesday kinda kicked me in the balls, as it were…one of the art groups I’m in, California Fibers, is doing a recycled art show in Los Angeles at The Loft at Liz’s. It’s called Diverted Destruction 8, and it opens June 27 from 7-10. I will be at the opening, barring any crazy life happenings that I can’t control. Anyway, we had a bunch of upholstery samples and some of us used other stuff as well (I used Mariah’s leftovers for the second one) and made work, and Fiber Art Now published an article about us. I was concerned at first because both of mine are nudes, and Quilting Arts won’t do nudes, although Quilters Newsletter Magazine does show my work regularly enough, but the editor was aware of who I was (that in itself is a bit frightening), so one of my entries to DD8 made it in the magazine. The article is well-designed, and each of us sent in a paragraph about the process…

The show looks like it will be very interesting…although we made two pieces and she’s going to jury from those, so I don’t know whether this one or the other one will be in the actual exhibit…

There’s mine in the middle at the bottom. Anyway, if you’re in LA that night, stop by. So I got published…and that’s a good thing.

Another good thing is that boychild has been cleaning out his room. He dusted and vacuumed and is getting rid of old stuff and then started cleaning a pile that’s been in the hallway outside his sister’s room for probably a year, maybe longer, and he’s really fucking efficient (unlike me), but he forces me to deal with stuff…mostly by handing it to me as I walk in the door or leaving it in my office. He was looking around the garage again, and I think maybe the week after school gets out, I’m going to spend some time kicking the garage’s ass with his help. I think it’s hysterical that I got an organized neatnik for a son (OK, I’m organized, but not the other thing). Of course, he has more free time than I do.

That’s it. I’d be neater if I had more time (see comic from yesterday).

I forgot this drawing…

This is definitely going to be one of the Cats of Summer, like last year we had the Birds of Summer? Except I think I want to do a different owl and that heart/hand thing as well, so it won’t just be cats, and I have one dog I want to do. I’m going to aim for 10 different ones, like last year, but I also have another quilt I have to finish before mid-July, so I really need to get started on that one too, because that’s just over a month away. I guess I’ve only been working on the Bathtub quilt since early May, so…except that’s still more time than I have for this one and I’m not done with the Bathtub yet…it’s probably got at least 10-15 hours left in it. SO. Yeah. Luckily there’s only 6 more days of school left, and then I will have (notionally) more free time. I didn’t sign up for workshops at all, because I just couldn’t deal with it, and honestly, there weren’t a lot that I would have found helpful. I hate sitting through useless professional development.

Anyway. I see progress, even though I got very little art stuff done yesterday. Tonight might be better. It might not. I can’t predict it at this point. I know I’d like to get some things done, but I have a lot on my plate up until about 6 PM (or later…might need to hit Home Depot as well, ugh). I really do need to go to work though. That damn job really gets in the way of my getting shit done.

Diverted Destruction Details

So I can’t post final pictures of the two Diverted Destruction pieces here until the end of May, since one will be in a magazine and I don’t know why not the other, but whatever…the photographer has finished, so here are details of both pieces.

This is Upholstered Nude, finished back in March…

It was made entirely of recycled upholstery fabrics from those annoying sample books, except for the background, which is from the stash of my friend Mariah.

Mariah supplied all the fabrics for the second piece, By All Means…

Forcing me to work with a range of colors that weren’t really planned, but also to use leftover blocks and strips and bits and pieces from her previous quilts…

Cuz, honey, y’all know I don’t piece my backgrounds.

I will be posting the full pieces the end of May…not sure which one will be in the show, because I don’t get to pick that, but the opening is the end of June in Los Angeles. Will let you know details as we get closer to the day.

I’m just glad to have them both done EARLY. How strange.

Bound…But Not Done…

So I was a good girl and followed the plan yesterday. I came home after haircuts (me and girlchild), actually made it to the Giant Box Store of Long Line Hell before that (needed to go for the last month, but couldn’t bring myself to drive into the parking lot), unloaded everything, and started cooking dinner. Girlchild walked in the door and pushed me out of the kitchen (I love it when that happens), so I came in here and started finding the stuff I needed to get done before I could bind the quilt. All of that was done and taken care of before dinner, and I managed to get back up off the couch after dinner (oops, now you know we don’t eat at the table…which only happened when the boychild went to college and there was only the two of us), clean the kitchen, sign the girlchild up for college housing (is it OK if I clicked all the music-preference boxes that she hates?…it’s OK, I changed them), and then kicked her out of here so I could iron and trim the quilt and bind it.

The girlchild does actually on occasion resent the time I spend making art. Sigh.

I did actually go through the boxes looking for the bindings Mariah had already cut, but she cuts 2 1/2 inches, then folds in half and I cut 3 3/8 inches and fold in half. I debated it, using hers anyway, but then the fabric I wanted to use, it wasn’t long enough to go around. This quilt isn’t actually tiny…it’s about 22″ x 33″. So I rummaged around some more and found a dark blue, but I didn’t have enough to go all the way around, plus I liked a dark purple near the base, where all the purply triangles are, so I found a purple (ssshhhh…this one is from my stash, not Mariah’s), which made up the missing part.

The camera has totally washed those out…

So I pieced a binding and put it on…

I only spent 2 hours last night working on this…compared to 4 the night before. And another 2 or more on the drawing on Sunday and Monday nights. I figure I work on art somewhere between 10-20 hours on art on a school week. Much much more on a non-school week obviously. It really is a second job.

Anyway, I pinned all the bindings down…

You can see the purple on the bottom…

I wasn’t perfect about where it lined up, because I didn’t want to be. Plus the piecing isn’t perfect either. Also OK. I like it though. I’ll hand sew it tonight at quilt class, and will hopefully finish today. Otherwise it will have a May finish…although that might be good, because I could enter it in shows a month later than if it’s an April quilt. Not that it matters much.

Next on my list? Finish the Oasis drawing, maybe finish the big drawing, then trace the first bathtub…which needs to be done by mid-July, but I’m really aiming for end of June. Then Oasis by mid-July (OK, now we’re sounding crazy again), and the big one by the end of August. That’s the plan anyway. I’m good at that long-range stuff. I’m even good at breaking it up into smaller goals, although I can’t do that at the moment. Progress report grades are due Tuesday and I don’t even have that in my schedule. I’m kinda thinking tomorrow night, even though I’ll be tired…because progress reports don’t have to take as much time as the end of the trimester, and my TA can input stuff today, and maybe I’ll get all the warmups graded today (um, maybe? That might be crazy talking again.). Sigh. See, even in my real job, I have to project out and try to figure out if I can get stuff done. I still have two online assignments I need to get through, but that means I need my prep period (lost today to admin) or my computer…which I could do today, I guess. Sigh. Too Much Crap.

And the stuff that makes me feel better in my world? Making art. Making connections with a few people, troublesome at the moment. People I care about are not happy with me, and it makes me feel like a lame person…although it shouldn’t. It’s all about my putting my foot down on the line between work and the rest of my life, and that has upset some people, because they think I didn’t put it far enough out, but I know it’s what’s best for me. And there aren’t a lot of people out there looking out for me at that level, so I have to do it. And I feel the criticism (hear it even), and I’m just not in the mood to deal with it. I do not know really what it is like to raise kids in a marriage, so I don’t assume I do, but I do know what it’s like to do it without that…and sure, if it’s not a good marriage, that’s a whole ‘nother nest of problems, but I still know you can’t imagine what it’s like to do it alone. And I’m lucky in that their dad is still around, but still…it’s not like doing it alone.

Besides, I think I’m just a strange little beast who feels things differently than most. It’s not easy to explain the artistic drive to those who don’t have it. And mine is strong.

Anyway…binding tonight…here was the dog last night when I was trying to find somewhere to put the ironing board so I could get to the sewing machine…

I really need to clean the office out this summer…that pile of papers and notebooks and boxes near her does not need to be in here.

I’m starting the day feeling a little lost, but also happy to be finishing this quilt. I found out that the other one for this show will be in the summer issue of Fiber Art Now in an article on my art group and the show we’re doing over the summer, Diverted Destruction, so that’s cool. Keep looking at all the good things and let the bad things just fall away. Don’t need them.

Having More Faith in My Brain…

I’m waiting to get enough tea into me to be able to get out of here and buy binding fabric. I trimmed the big quilt yesterday afternoon…laid it out on the floor (which was already dirty again)…

I really tried not to quilt too much extra this time…got it centered well and paid attention to whether the fabric was all the way under the top. It’s a waste of thread and time otherwise, and I hate wasting either.

Trimming this was really REALLY easy.

This never happens, but I got the measurements right, got it totally square the FIRST TIME. No adjustments, no straightening of a side. Just cut it. Measure it. Revel in it.

It’s about 55×64″. Not small. Now I need binding. I thought that last night as I looked at the time (crap) and then starting googling the two local shops where I could have gone. One closed in 4 minutes, the other in 34. Nope. Can’t do it. So I folded it up and decided to do it this morning. I mean, I’m sitting around waiting for the girlchild and her dad to get back from Boston anyway. I SHOULD go to school and set up for Monday’s lab (ugh. don’t make me.). I stopped by school yesterday to show my Belgian sister where I work and ran into another teacher, who is now ready for Monday. The thing is, I’m not MENTALLY ready to get ready for Monday, if that makes sense. Then I would have to admit Spring Break is almost over. I mean, technically it IS over, because I never count the weekends. So yeah. How many more weeks until summer? Ten weeks. Ugh. Major ugh.

Sometimes this job really sucks it out of you. I know what my to-do list looks like for next week, and I want to crawl back into bed.

But NO! I went over to my parents for dinner again and came back tired again. But I’m trained now, after over 20 months of teaching myself to make art almost every single day, I can’t possibly lie around and do nothing.

By the way, I read this…

And loved it. Read it in less than 36 hours. Interesting science. Good story. So that was part of Thursday and Friday. It’s been a while since I’ve read something that engaged my brain so well.

So I have this second recycled quilt I need to do…it’s been sitting around in pieces in a box for a few weeks…

So I started ironing it around 9:45 PM last night…like you do. Yes, when you are considering sleep, I am considering more work.

It’s only 160 pieces, so it won’t take long, right? And I don’t have to finish it tonight. Or do I?

I got this far and thought, I’m tired. I could stop. Nah. Can’t. Stop.

These fabrics are all from Mariah’s outcasts.

So I had to consider what I had, because mostly it was long strips of fabric. And it wasn’t always easy to find enough of what I wanted. But it turned out OK. I think I pieced one arm. Not that you could tell.

Then I pulled out the background.

All pieced from her leftovers. This is at least three different quilts I think. Maybe. And everyone is telling me it’s not going to work, that the background is too strong. But so I talked to Mariah about this. Part of where my brain is going is that Mariah herself currently has a life like that background, with a 2-year-old, an 11-week-old, recently left work, trying to make all of her life parts work, financially, socially, not going nuts being stuck at home with small children who can drive you freakin’ bonkers (I remember that feeling, distinctly). So it almost feels like your life is going to swallow you up, that all you are is mom and cleaner and food source and there is no time to be you (I’m fairly sure she’s not quilting at the moment!) or to even just have a quiet moment without someone fussing or screaming or throwing things.

And you manage it. It might feel like it’s going to take you over, but you manage it. Sometimes by the skin of your teeth. Sometimes with tears pouring out of your eyes. But you manage it.

And honestly, she’s not really fading into the background. I moved her around a bit to get the hands on darker sections instead of really light sections. But I think with the quilting that it will be exactly what I wanted it to be. Is it different? Well yeah. It has to be. It’s Mariah’s bits and pieces subjected to Kathy’s mind…Kathy who went through all that 17-plus years ago.

Anyway. Stitch down next, then sandwich and quilt. Then we’ll see where we are, because I will do something overall on the background anyway, quilting of some sort. But I think it’s exactly what I imagined. Despite the moments when I thought “what the fuck are you thinking here? This will never work.” Kinda like my life over the last 17 years. Probably what Mariah thinks in the middle of the day sometimes.

I guess I should have more faith in my own brain.

I Know How She Feels…

I think this recycled quilt titled itself last night…yet another quilt title pulled from some Star Trek episode. Anyway, we’ll see if it sticks. I finished ironing all the pieces last night. This was the hair…

Yeah. I tried a bunch of combinations and this is what I liked…although I think the dark purple got pulled from the hair and put into something else.

I used 34 fabrics total…and I’ll keep them in here until everything is ironed down…

Just in case I lost something, but also because I might make more oranges. It took about 2 hours and 15 minutes to pick the fabrics. It was an hour and 40 minutes to piece the background.

It’s not a big pile like the last quilt…

So I started cutting it out, because it wasn’t very late.

I didn’t get all the way through it though, because the day ahead of all this had been kind of a nasty one.

Here’s my best zoo picture…

I know how she feels.

The thing about field trips is that it’s hell until you get on the bus, and then usually it’s fine until you get back. I had one kid issue before (made her cry) and one kid issue after (made her leave), but otherwise it was fine. Exhausting and blood-sugar-killing, but fine. I’m not sure all of the adults are still speaking to each other, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue. I think we all need a break. OK, I know I need a break. Even if it means bringing 20 hours of grading home with me, at least I don’t have to be in the classroom, dealing with adults and kids and air conditioning (they found a temporary fix) and a network that’s not working and parents who can’t parent and expect me to do it for them and kids who can’t follow basic rules.

One day to survive. I heard a couple kids talking about how they weren’t coming to school today because they didn’t feel like it. I also considered that, but then realized that wasn’t fair to my school, my team, or my kids. But interesting. My mom would have forced me to go.

I am exhausted, physically and mentally…even emotionally. It’s funny that we’ve only been back for about 12 weeks, but we are so worn out. My Spring Break plans include finishing the smaller quilt, the recycled one; ironing down, stitching down, and starting the quilting on the Ventura Earth Mother (maybe even finishing it); cleaning house; doing yardwork; finishing all the grading; sleeping a normal amount occasionally; getting back into the gym habit (I was there last night…my SIL called me a gym rat); hiking; and reading some books. Hanging out with some people I want to hang out with…including my Belgian exchange sister from high school, who is coming to visit with two of her kids. And there’s an art opening as well at Grossmont College. So yeah, I guess it’s still busy. Of course it’s busy…I am rarely not busy…but it will be more like life and less like overwhelming stress. There’s something wrong with a job that expects so much of you, but pays you so little AND gives you so little respect. And then there’s something about the kids who hang out with you on the field trip and tell you all this goofy stuff and connect with you and we stand in front of them every day and try to get them to see a different view of the world. We’re not always successful, for sure, but sometimes we are.

With that, I do need to go survive the last day before break…

Still Standing

Hello Thursday. You don’t look like a Friday. Or a Monday. You’re already kicking my butt. I know you think a field trip with a million 7th graders to the zoo is the perfect time to throw a bunch of other shit at me, like a horrendous period and a room with a broken air conditioner when it’s going to be almost 100 degrees and a girlchild freaking out about college and an ex getting butthurt about his kids’ lack of communication skills and chaperones canceling at the last minute and parents trying to dump all their responsibilities on us and a shower that lost almost all water pressure and on top of all that, yet another art rejection.

Fuck you Thursday. I know Spring Break is coming and you have to make sure I appreciate it. I PROMISE TO APPRECIATE IT. Like teachers don’t. You’re being mean.

Anyway. Last night, I started cutting out fabrics for the second recycled quilt. Because after being at work and a work-related event until after 6 PM I couldn’t stomach more work. You know? I have two jobs. I can only spend so much time at the first one before the second one starts screaming and I curl up in a ball.

First of all, I bought these tablecloth things (or maybe they’re huge napkins…hard to say) when I was up in San Francisco…and I found them on the kitchen table yesterday and was thinking if they would work on this…

They won’t…but I think I’m going to dye them over break.

Then I laid out my fabric stash for this quilt, all recycled from Mariah’s stash…reds, oranges, pinks, purples, yellows, whites, blacks.

Then browns, greens, and blues (more of those, eh?).

So I could see everything right there. And then I started thinking about the flesh. I thought about making it blue, but there’s a lot of blue in the background already. Green seemed a problem. In the end, I went for normal flesh tones…

I don’t know if it will work, but that’s what I did. And that’s most of the pieces, so it took me a while, but I laid out all the fleshy pieces…

You’ll notice I added another one. The ones in the middle, there were three fabrics that were all the same tone, so I just used all of them for pieces that should be in that range. I had to piece one section on the lightest fabric, because it was bigger than the strip I had. I’ve done that before, so it’s not a problem. I just added a little piece of Wonder Under to one end after I cut the larger Wonder Under piece, so they will overlap and no one will ever know. Except I just told all of you. Huh. I’ve done it before. You didn’t notice then.

I didn’t start until almost 10:30…I did some cleaning and I booked my son’s return flight from college and there was dinner, albeit late. And I don’t remember what else I did. I’m sure it was important.

These are the fabrics I’ve used so far, all part of the body.

I haven’t done her hair yet or the orange…but otherwise, I think everything else is done. There’s only 160 pieces…and here’s what I ironed last night…

Not a lot of color yet! The hair will be the interesting part…and no, I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. Maybe tonight. If I’m still standing.

Crazy Duck Lady

I came home after the chiropractor put my neck bones back where they should be and after the final dance practice for this thing we’re doing at school, filming starting today, and I thought…I should do some work. Like grade papers. And then I thought about the week’s assignments and realized that although there’s a field trip, which will probably kick our butts, and certainly if they don’t fix my classroom air conditioning by Thursday/Friday, when it’s supposed to approach 100 degrees, then I will not be able to think straight, but mostly…mostly kids are working independently this week and I can grade papers during class. Often I think this, though, and it does not happen because the kids are needier than I expect or their behavior requires me to walk the tables constantly. Sometimes, though, they settle down and work. So we’ll see, but it was my reasoning for deciding not to grade last night. I read for a little bit and then came in the office/studio to decide what I wanted to do next…and apparently, I wanted to piece. This is not a normal thing for me…either piecing or wanting to piece. I know how. My first quilt classes were all piecing, until I realized straight lines were not my friend. Then I even pieced a landscape quilt with all those curves. Yeah. Also not my thing. So this was a strange experience…but this thing is calling to me. Plus Mariah did all the hard work already…like those two bottom rows.

I found a few more sections and sewed them together and then sewed the bottom rows together. Then I sewed the two sections of long strips together. Easy peasy.

Then I found all the pieces that I had of this type of strip. I had to pull a couple apart and mess around to make them fit the way I wanted…

I wanted alternating darks and lights, but the next row had to move over to make that work. And then there was one large block and half of another one, which did fit in the top row…so I put it there. Although apparently I laid it out here upside down.

Not that it really mattered in the end. I just didn’t want likes with likes. It worked out OK. Then I had to fussy piece/cut the next squarish bit to get that block in there…plus the strips were not quite tall enough (probably because that one orangey stripe is skinnier than the others), but trimming a quarter inch off wasn’t noticeable…

And there it is. I had to add some to the left of the purple strips too. Holey crikey…that’s crazy. It’s totally busy. And some people will freak out about the purple (it really does look fine in person…this photo is a bit washed out). And this might not work. But I really like it. I like the crazy. The mixed up.

I laid out the image again…good size. It might be too wide, but I’m considering that…

She’s holding an orange. I could make more oranges.

Then I hung it up, because the next step is to pick out the fabrics for the image…

So yeah. I’m going to have to work hard to make sure it shows up on the background and doesn’t get swallowed up by it. And no, it’s not like what I normally do. That’s what’s cool about it. Yes, I have considered a paint wash over the background. I’ve also considered overdying the whole thing, a layer or two of tulle, and using this on the back instead of the front. I want to try it, though. I think I can do it. It will be different, but that’s part of the challenge. And the cool thing about the technique I use is that I will iron that whole image together and then I can lay it out on the background and decide if it’s going to work or not. And if not, then I can adjust. So watch for that.

After that, I settled down for my 2-hour session of cutting tiny fucking pieces of fabric out, because I designed the quilt that way in the first place (yeah, I do keep challenging myself)…but here’s how you know Babygirl is feeling better. That’s my lap.

I’m trying to cut things out, cat. Please either get off or settle down and get out of my face. “Pet me. Please pet me.” Sigh. Pet the cat. Pet the cat. Settle the cat. Cat leaves. Really?

Good. I cut out for almost 2 hours again…

I have 8 hours in. And I really am almost done. That’s mostly big pieces in the left box, and not very many of them. Fire and wind and earth. (Yeah, those are in the wrong order). Trash in the middle. Finished pieces in the right box…mostly elephants and trees last night. Tiny and complicated pieces that required the tiny sharp scissors. Wrinkles on knees. I must have strong hand muscles. It doesn’t hurt today and it should.

In other news, my students put together a petition for me to get a class duck. I tried to explain that ducks were noisy and they smelled, but they really want a duck. Enough to get other teachers to sign the petition. And they want it to be named Spaghetti. What my students DON’T know is that my neighbor feeds all the local wild ducks…

Normally there are way more ducks than that (I was early). Yes. I am the weird teacher. Why do you ask? (I’m not getting a duck. All those ducks are wild and I think they should stay that way. Yes, my daughter thinks I am a freak. No, I am not a crazy duck lady.)

Piecing It Together

Well, normally, I just buy a big piece of fabric and that is my background. I iron all my bits together and plop them on top. So the background tends to be, well, not very busy, because it would detract from the image. There are some pieces I’ve done with busy backgrounds, and mostly they read well…this one, for example…

The background has crazy details (this is 3-Piece Family, by the way…far back in the Kathy canon…circa 2009)…but it still works.

I’ve pieced a few backgrounds…sometimes on purpose, like in FishWife…

I didn’t have enough of the pinks, so I had to piece it (I actually did stitch and flip for parts of it, a la crazy quilting…it’s on a muslin background), but then while I was figuring that out, the rest started to make sense. I think the waves were in the original drawing, but the rest of it was improvised.

A truly strange piece that has been in many shows.

I pieced this one for a similar reason: not enough of the background fabric…

This picture shows the overlap between the two fabrics pretty well.

I have never pieced a background quite like this one though…I have pieced strips and one larger block and then lots of smaller units that probably belong together…and they’re not all from the same quilt. This does not bother me. I started laying them out last night…

See, most of them are blues and browns, but there’s the weird purple bits too, which I really like. This kind of piecing is more about the pattern and the fabrics than about showcasing the image, which is why it’s outside my realm of expertise. I mean, I’ve made pieced quilts before, mostly for babies, who really don’t care about my piecing skills. I could do the strips on the bottom, but it would hurt my head! Anyway, the layout above was OK, but not quite right…so I tried again…

I like this better. I think. Maybe with another row at the top? Of course, it will all shrink down when I piece it together. I did consider just going through the boxes and finding more strips and strip-piecing the whole background like that one section…but that’s boring (and easy)! Hell, if I’m gonna piece this thing, I’m going all out. Besides, Mariah did most of the work already. Sort of.

I found the drawing for the 2nd recycled piece…

So I could check sizing. The image will have to be strong to stand out on the background at all. I think I can do that. I’ll probably need to do some more piecing for the larger sections. It has 160 pieces in it…more detail than the last one. That’s why I didn’t want to do it in upholstery fabrics. It would be too difficult. Plus my machine wouldn’t go through all the layers. It was having issues with more than 2 layers on the last one.

OK, well I’m working towards a decision that involves my sewing straight lines (aack) and filling in weird spaces between strips that don’t quite match up. It’s a good thing I’ve been sewing with a machine since I was 8. Or so. Can’t remember. Because I need a background before I start picking fabrics out for this one, so I know what will be behind each piece. Maybe I’ll offset the strips more so they don’t line up at all. Because that’s not like more work or anything.

After I messed around with all that for a while, I sat down and kept cutting things out for the Ventura quilt for another couple of hours. I had to steal my computer back from the girlchild, who had left multiple tabs open with prom dress websites (ugh). She has gotten into one college so far and is waitlisted on three others. She is treating those as rejections, while I see them as opportunities (one of them quite a nice opportunity), so the tension here is thick…but at least we have one acceptance and no rejections so far. I’m sure the rejections are coming, but they are somehow easier to take. It’s not a wishy washy “we sorta want you…maybe,” but a definitive “no.” So the drama continues.

Cutting…six hours in…

The cut-out pile on the right is significantly larger than it was…well…6 hours ago. There doesn’t seem to be much left, but it’s all the tiny stuff from the bottom of the quilt (elephants and apples), so it will probably take longer than the size of the pile indicates. What did I guess? Twelve hours? I don’t think it will take that long…but if it did and I keep on my 2-hour-a-night streak, I’ll be done by Wednesday. Earlier than I originally thought…nice.

One hiccup in all this…last night, I managed to flip the container with all the cut-out pieces all over my chaotic desk. I think I’ve found all the pieces, but then again, I know I haven’t. How do I know? I thought I had found them all last night, and as I was staring to the right of my computer, deciding if I was done writing this post, I saw another piece in a box. Fuck. Dammit. I’m gonna be hating life when I go to iron this beast together. Oh well. Shit happens. That’s what I get for being a klutz.

By the way, one of the things that really helped me in the last week was having some down time over the weekend. I did some totally useless stuff and hung out and got recharged. I feel much more ready to face the week than I have for the last few Mondays…it’s a real relief. Yes, I did schoolwork too, but I didn’t have to do a lot…just enough to feel like I’m not buried in it this week. And I worked on non-deadline fabric stuff. And I got connected. So that helps. Good thing really…it’s the last week before Spring Break, so the kids will be braindead (they already were on Friday). Plus we have a field trip. So I need all the help I can get.

Recycled Two

One of the art groups I belong to, California Fibers, is participating in a recycled fibers show called Diverted Destruction 8 at The Loft at Liz’s, where we were asked to used recycled materials to make our art. The group has a wide variety of fiber artists, from weavers and quilters to basketmakers and sculptors and dyers to painters and embroiderers. Some defy description.

I’m a quilter though. Really. I do a bunch of different things, but mostly I quilt. So I approached this exhibit with the idea of using different materials to do the same type of quilt I normally make…the challenge being in the materials. The first one is done and photographed (supposed to hold off on putting the final on here) and was made largely of upholstery fabrics from a sample book, not something that was foreign to me due to years of crazy quilting and starting out with some very different types of quilting in the early days, but certainly not how I usually approach the fabrics in my quilts. In fact, some of my quilts have satin, lame, and sequin fabrics in them, all of which were their own special challenge.

The second quilt I didn’t want to do in the same types of fabrics, so when over Winter Break a quilting friend called to say she was getting rid of her excess fabric (wait, what is that?) and did I want any of it, hell, I jumped on that. Mariah’s a mostly traditional quilter, using lots of batiks and fun prints to make some pretty gorgeous quilts. She has good color sense, and batiks have always been my favorite as well, and because I often deal with some awfully small pieces, the off-cuts from her traditional quilts actually come in useful. I brought home two or three bagsful…

and it’s taken me three months to sort through them into color piles

and then into bins where all the likes were together. I suck at filing; what can I say?

This afternoon, I grabbed the blacks, whites, and yellows, and sorted their asses…

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Then got all of it in the same room…

It looks like a lot, but it’s hard with all the prints and colors, which won’t necessarily flow together, to see coherence at this point. Obviously, I’m not going to use all of these. Honestly, I’ll probably use maybe 20-30 of them. Then the rest will go into my stash and people will walk up to my quilts and go, “Oh hey, didn’t I give you that fabric?” Happens all the time.

Mariah had lots of owls…

Then there was this pile…

She had a lot of partially finished blocks or trims from piecing, and I just took them because I thought I could use them somehow. I personally hate piecing, so I’m glad to let others do it.

There were these two chunks that I put together, trying to visualize a background…

Although I think it might be too busy. But maybe…maybe this is Mariah’s quilt and the background should be busy. She’s a young mom of two…that’s what your life is really like…and then the main figure can sit on top of that. It will be difficult to make the coloring work, but let’s say I have 25 years of experience and I can make it work.

Maybe. Here are some more of the pieced bits…one whole block…

Some more pieces of strips…there’s one pile in the middle of pieces that could make another part of the background. Maybe. She tends toward blues and browns. They’re all in that range.

But then she has this skinny strip of pieced triangles…I like it as a border maybe or a base for the figure.

although they are a completely different color range. Things to consider. Obviously I’m not making decisions about those tonight, because it’s time to make dinner. I too am a mom with many distracting things in the background of my art self. More later…but this one is definitely coming into existence this week…whether I like it or not.