I’ll Be At Least 2 People Today*

Yesterday was a long day. I left here around 8 AM and had an easy drive to Pasadena to QuiltCon (pictures later this week). I went and saw all the quilts and the vendors. Then I sat in a coffee bar named appropriately Art+Science…

(mom, you wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday…look up) and graded stuff and drank tea. Really strong tea. Then I drove a few miles west into Los Angeles proper to our opening (more pictures later this week)…

(sat around outside for a bit and read my book, waiting for the opening to open…)…

(opening was at the Brewery…)…hung around for a while, and then headed back to San Diego, making awesome time, until some accident that must have had major injuries occurred just north of Oceanside. Added an hour and a half to my drive. Mostly creepy crawly drive, but some out and out stoppage. So like any good artist, I drew. Seriously, I turned my car off and drew.

But it got dark. And eventually we had to drive again. Apparently seeing all the word quilts at QuiltCon made me want to cover a body with them. I’ve done it before, with parts of bodies. I might need to do a larger version. We’ll see.

Anyway. I was sort of exhausted when I finally got home, but managed to get the trash out, eat dinner, and semi-function as a dishwasher. And then it was like 10 PM and I thought I should maybe get up off the couch and do something. I considered going to bed, but I wasn’t really sleep-tired, just drive-tired and brain-tired. I don’t need my brain to iron. This is not a brain-heavy part of the artmaking process. So I ironed.

Wait. This is from Saturday, because I didn’t blog Sunday morning. I did this bit Saturday, finishing off the Earth and doing part of the sky…

The screws from scoliosis surgery…they’ll be floating in the sky later.

The music-playing device…everybody’s got one…

The shoe signed by Mac DeMarco…I’m pretty proud of the signature, although the smiley face needs eyeballs. I figure I’ll stitch those. They’re too damn small to cut out.

That was Saturday and I didn’t want to start the next phase of the ironing, so I came in and finished handstitching the Climate Goddess piece that I’ve been working on sporadically since last June. It’s done.

Real photos later. When I go to the photographer later. Like much later.

THIS is Sunday night’s ironing. I started on SPACE…

Space is beautiful. I need to draw more space. Space and ground…

I’m quite happy with this…

Then I attached the bottom piece in the middle…I’ll have to hoist everything up on the teflon sheets to iron the sides down…

There’s writing in the sky…but I only cut the outside edges when I trimmed the pieces. I didn’t do the little holes in the letters, the part that makes o’s and a’s and e’s. Because those are a pain in the butt. I leave them until the end and use the tiny scissors and re-iron the paper on the fabric so I can use it to help me cut.

Looking good…think the “us” needs the “s” cut out better, but the others are pretty good.

Of course, that’s only half the words. I’ll do the rest tonight…and get started on the bodies, which is where a good chunk of the pieces are…

So it was a productive and exhausting weekend. I’m still fighting this Not-Really-A-Cold thing that comes and goes and bugs me and then goes away. It’s just annoying. Grades are due next week, so I’m in all-out-grading mode (hence sitting in a coffee shop in Pasadena and grading shit). Hopefully I’ll get this whole thing ironed together in the next two or three nights, then move on to stitch down by the weekend. Hopefully pinbaste and sandwich over the weekend? That would be cool. I’d be ready to quilt next week. I’m still debating getting this other quilt done by April 6…which would actually have to be done by March 28 so it could be photographed before I leave on vacation. Ha! I might be nuts. I don’t even know if I can do that. We’ll see.

*Gnarls Barkley, Who Cares

The Dew Will Settle on Our Graves*

‘Tis chilly here in sunny San Diego…some random cold front making it colder than Ithaca, NY, where the boychild is, but probably just for today. I’m pretty sure that will change soon enough. Cold enough to make me a dog sandwich on the couch, a cat sandwich in bed, though. Amazing how close they’ll get when it’s really chilly.

Yes, I actually cut stuff out with the two of them like that. It wasn’t easy. I’m used to one box on either side of me and one on my lap. Instead the boxes were precariously perched on either side of dogs who move erratically.

Earlier, I graded…because that’s all I ever do…and this one was already half in my spot. She didn’t move until bedtime.

It was a frustrating day at school. Independent thinking is probably not best achieved on the first day back after a three-day weekend. I still remember what happened Friday, but not so my little chickadees. And even once I got them through a review, then I wanted them to come up with categories. Oh My Goodness. You’d think I had asked them to cure cancer. In my top class, chock full of honors students, I got one table with three categories: True, False, and IDK. Um. Ladies. They’re all true. LAME. It’s OK…today they will have to use what they did to make more sense of the world. I’m just damn cruel that way.

So yeah, I graded because grades are due soon and I know I will run out of time. I always do.

But I also was done with grading and dinner and all that dishery (I even cleaned a bathroom…just one and not the floor) around 9:30 PM or so and I did a few drawings in between cutting out the last of the pieces.

I like this one better…of course…because it’s weirder.

I did about 2 hours of trimming last night to finish up everything…with a total of 9 1/2 hours into the process. Box on top is the trash. I’m putting it in a ziplock bag with the trimmings from the LAST quilt and mailing them to someone whose address I saved (seriously, I did…). Box on the bottom will get sorted into bins tonight for ironing probably tomorrow night.

I have book club tonight, so I will go out and socialize with my tribe. Plus I read the book. So that’s a plus.

Girlchild has some access to Messenger this week, although she is back to camping in the wilds of Madagascar. On the beach. Near a hotel. Where no one likes to go.

It looks somewhat like my Spring Break trip to the redwoods last year…except the trees are smaller.

She’s really enjoying this. I’m really glad.

They seem to take care of the kids…unlike my group when I went abroad in college, which flew me to London and kept me there for about 3 days, but then sent me off to the wilds of Aberystwyth with zero support…although I think they gave us Thanksgiving dinner…that’s something. I guess we were less likely to die of a nasty disease in Wales. And they apparently spoke English there, although some days that was questionable.

Anyway, today I throw cellular respiration into the mix. That should make smoothies of my students’ brains. It’s OK…they’ll survive. I might not.

*Tom Waits, All the World Is Green

It Shines Like Destruction*

It’s interesting how I can get most of my to-do tasks done, except the cleaning ones. Those just suck and I suck at doing them. I just can’t get motivated to clean the kitchen floor. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t throw parties…I’d have to clean floors for that. I did clean the kitchen counters last night…and the stove, so I guess it’s not hopeless. I just reach an ending point on cleaning, and it’s never when everything is clean. I’d rather draw or something…anything else.

The project videos are done. It’s a miracle. I have plenty of other crap to grade, of course, but those are out of my hair. Next week, I get all of Unit 4, which will have to be graded in 6 days. And people wonder why I’m not going to a bunch of social stuff on the weekends. I did about 12 hours of grading this weekend, maybe more. Ugh.

No more 3-day weekends, which help with balance. Five weeks until Spring Break though. I can do that.

Sometimes school seems really heavy and hard. It’s usually right about now.

So add on hikes and art and whatever else makes the head rise above the slog…because I still have to go back every day and teach difficult subjects to kids who don’t necessarily want to learn. Labs help to keep them engaged, but it’s nothing if they don’t get understanding out of the labs…so we’ll see how that goes.

But yes, we walked the puppy yesterday…he needs exercise, and so do we…

It was a gorgeous but chilly day. Good day for a hike.

Then I came back and finished up as much of my to-do list as I could…and in between cutting out pieces of the new quilt, I did some smaller drawings that could be quilts…

I don’t really like all of them. And I have absolutely no time to make them, even more importantly.

I realized last night that I have five openings in the next month…two in Los Angeles. It’s gonna get a little crazy around here.

And grades are due for Trimester 2. I like this one…

I needed those breaks, because I trimmed pieces for about 4 1/2 hours yesterday. My hands get tight…

But I don’t think you can tell from here (trash top, to-be-cut in the middle, cut in the bottom)…I’m almost done. Like maybe an hour or two from finishing…with about 7 hours in. So that’s cool. It means I should be ironing together this week. My favorite part…where the image finally starts to appear (besides in my head). I hit the halfway mark on most quilts (on time) some time around finishing the trimming and starting the ironing. Although I need to be faster on this half, for sure. Keeping that in mind.

Meanwhile, back to school today, hammering the photosynthesis chemical reaction (which hopefully they’re getting by now), so I can throw cellular respiration at them next. Then tonight, I can cut out the rest of the pieces hopefully…

*Eurythmics, Love Is a Stranger

Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night*

I’m sitting in here, in my studio/office, listening to the rhythmic sounds of the septic pumper truck outside my window…once every 4 years, whether you need it or not? I don’t like waiting until there is a problem. Last time, we had to replace the whole septic field, so that was fun. Anyway, it means I’m trapped here for a bit (ironic that, because honestly, on the average weekend, I don’t leave the house much anyway, except for crazy errands etc. and the occasional meal). I have a bunch of schoolwork to do still, even after 4 hours yesterday of grading another period of project videos, plus 62 emails of makeup work. Done! All of it! Well, I still have more to do. It’s never-ending.

While I was working yesterday, Satchemo came in and investigated one of the cat hiding places in my office…this one will disappear in my remodeling plan, unfortunately for the cats.

Then I headed out for the deck, because yesterday still bordered on warm enough (today is not…unless you live back east and you’re used to much colder than this.). Simba agreed and laid out on the deck with me…

I tried another version of the drawing…

And got somewhere this time…a much better start. Still needs more, and yes, I had to break out the liquid paper, because the lines weren’t going where I wanted them to go. It happens.

Although now I’m annoyed that both figures are turned the same way. There’s a third figure that I think will fix that, and then I’ll draw off the bottom as well. I think it’ll be fine. If not, I’ll flip the skelly.

Back to the studio, where Kitten has picked her new sitting spot…

Yes, Kitten, that IS why I put the fabric in those boxes.

Somewhere in there is when I graded for 4 hours. It was quiet and frustrating and I had to get up and stomp around the house a few times and hallelujah I’m almost done with that.

I had enlarged the drawing I did last week…200%. I didn’t want something too big. There’s a deadline I honestly don’t know if I can make. But here it’s taped together…

And then I numbered it…hey…not too bad.

There’s some tiny stuff, but not too much of it.

And then I cut stuff out on the scoliosis for a few more hours. It’s slow…but it’s going…

Time for art, time for work. Today is similarly planned…one last class of project videos, plus finishing up another assignment and inputting some of those grades, so kids can be happy or despondent. Seriously they should already know which based on what they did or didn’t turn in, but apparently that level of self-review is not fully developed yet. I think they hope for magic sometimes. I mean, sure, I blew off the video and half the pages are blank, but maybe she won’t notice?

I noticed. Anyway. It is what it is. Trimester 2 is notoriously bad for our kids. The number of holidays? Spring messing with their hormones? It’s hard to say.

With that, I am hoping the pump-truck guys are near to done so I can get my own shit done (ha ha…see how I did that? Shit? Yeah. OK.). Art, work, food, sleep. I want a dog walk today too. I bet the dog would go along with that.

*Sarah McLachlan, Blackbird (yeah, the Beatles song)

I Am Superman and I Can Do Anything*

Well I finally managed drawing on the deck on a sunny day. As opposed to drawing on the deck on a rainy day? That would actually be harder to do with the weather we have. I’m going to try again today, because it was nice. Duh. Of course it was nice.

If you are back East or anywhere else it’s snowing, I’m sorry. You’re thinking, seriously Nida? Why CAN’T you get your butt outside on a gorgeous day and soak in some of this obviously Southern California (those aren’t my palm trees) wondrousness?

And the answer is, I don’t know. I have my weekly journal there, my sketchbook, a pile of art proposals that are coming up, the inevitable cup of tea? Perfect. Enough sun to warm my feet…bare feet. Yup. In February.

So I did this and rejected it…although there are things that might pop up elsewhere.

Sometimes I just have to move the pen around on paper until better ideas pop in.

So I started another one, which might stick. It has some issues.

That lower hand, for instance. I know where I’m going with this though, so it wouldn’t hurt to either start again or enlarge this and cut that crappy hand out and do another one. I think this might work.

In the middle of all this drawing, I sold a quilt…a small one, but that’s money. That’s the grocery money this week and next. That’s a cushion I didn’t have when I wrote my post yesterday morning. That’s a deep breath.

I appreciate that. So that quilt will be winging its way (ha! It’s a bird) to Colorado on Tuesday. If the post office stays open late enough and I can book out of tutoring on time.

Then I came inside and graded more projects and videos. This was my second smallest class. I was going to do both the small classes at once, but after I got through this period and an entire video of one of the kids in the class yelling out “My ass itches” while the kid doing the video tried to keep it together (oh man, that other kid is in BIG TROUBLE on Tuesday…), I couldn’t bring myself to do another 16 of them.

Plus Kitten was being a pain in the butt. That tail was flicking at me the whole time.

Two periods left to do. I’m doing the big one today. I might need mental assistance afterwards, but it will be done.

Then I started cutting tiny bone pieces out…

After dinner out and a visit to a local brewery, we came back and I tried to video chat with the girlchild. Apparently they could hear everything I said, but she sounded like she was in a metal drum and syncopated. SIGH. It’s OK. I saw she was alive…good thing, because she leaves tomorrow for 5 days. It’s OK. I’m doing fine. Sometimes I get sad and miss my kids, and that’s OK. It would be weird if I didn’t.

So then after that, I cut more pieces out. The top one is the trash, the middle one is actual quilt pieces, and the bottom is what still needs cutting…which is a lot.

But a lot of that is big pieces…all the details were on top, mostly, the last stuff I ironed down.

Girlchild did finally gt a picture of herself in the beach paradise of Antalaha, where she’s based for a lot of her stay…

Look! She’s alive! And also barefoot in the sun (huh…well…genetics). We should maybe feel sorry for the boychild for being in New York right now in the snow and cold (or not…he chose that).

Today? I’m going to sit outside again. Really. I am. And I’m going to torture myself with more project videos. And I’m going to cut more things out. Really, just like yesterday, minus dinner out. And it’s Sunday. Which means I need to send the parent email for school. But otherwise, I have tomorrow off as well? So I can kinda be relaxed and sort of pretend my job doesn’t inhabit my entire life today, yeah? Maybe? Gonna try.

*R.E.M., Superman

Dancin’ and Singin’ and Movin’ to the Groovin’*

So I drove my quilt 45 minutes north of here yesterday and then drove another hour back (same distance, welcome to traffic), and while I was driving, an entire drawing populated itself in my head. I’d had a vague idea of it before, but it was flat out laying down lines and spaces during the drive, to the point that I don’t remember a good chunk of it (let’s hope all the safety parts of my brain were fully engaged). So when I got home, I could start working on one of the things that needed working on, or I could sit down and draw.

Well. Um. So even though I have a to-do list 17 miles long with some pretty damn important things on it, this was a compelling drawing, so I sat and drew for about an hour before we left to finally see The Last Jedi…

I did pencil in general shapes before I started, because the overlaps on this thing are numerous. So that’s about an hour of drawing.

And then when we came home from the movie and dinner, I finished it.

Maybe another hour. It felt really good to get it on paper. So that’s that thing…I can plan all I want, but sometimes, I just have to do what my brain wants. I blow off what my brain wants when I’m working and when I need to grade things, so it seems fair to let it have its way sometimes. And now I have a drawing from it.

Here was the Oceanside Museum of Art yesterday…there was an artist’s talk going on, I think, but the quote on the building was cool…not that you can see it that well in a tiny picture.

Luckily, it’s part of the installation with the wall above, so you can see the quote and its explanation by the artist, Marcos Ramirez, on the page associated with Undocumenta, one of the exhibits that just closed in the museum.

I finally took a decent picture of this so I can put it on Etsy. It’s 11″ square.

It’ll be up there in a little bit.

And today? Today I actually have to do the things on my list. Like a lot of them. But that’s OK. I got a drawing out of it yesterday. I’m good.

*Wild Cherry, Play That Funky Music

Watch Her Moving in Elliptical Patterns*

Still tired. Seems puppy has forgotten how to not bark all night. I got the spray bottle and dragged my poor tired old body out of bed about 5 times until he stopped. Even with the coyotes, I’m like, dude, seriously, they’re outside. They’re not even right outside the window, slobbering on the glass. They’re like across a major road. No worries, OK? He grumbled a lot (he really does make a grumbling sound) and turned around on his bed a bunch and yipped a few times, but then either I slept through the rest (not likely) or he stopped.

I think about what I do with the dog and what I do at school with kids, and sometimes there’s not a whole lot of difference. There are kids who have forgotten (sometimes purposefully) how to do their work, how to turn it in, how to stay on task, and I have to stand on them. Not literally, but constantly remind them of what I expect until I get it. Or don’t. Because that happens too. Projects are cool because we see all this great thinking, but also incredibly frustrating, because a lot of our kids can’t handle a project, even when we break it down into daily steps. I walked around yesterday to every table and commented on one single part of the assignment: “You did it. Awesome!” or “You didn’t reply.” or “You haven’t done any of it.” There was very little surprise with the last one…the first one made a lot of kids happy or incredulous that their tablemate had done it. The middle one just caused arguments, “Yes I did.” Try again.

Anyway, today is the last day. They are supposed to do videos today…I’ve already deleted about 5 of them that were way too short. They will love me for that, I guess. I did email them and tell them why. If I don’t delete them, they usually won’t go redo them. “I did it already!” is what I’ll hear. They have the time to redo them…they need to learn that skill, the redo skill. Fixing things!

Anyway, it’s a long time until Spring Break…I can feel it in the air…the kids’ brains disappearing even though they’ve got 6 weeks to get through…us too, I guess.

Yesterday was long and exhausting. I had before-school meetings and after-school appointments and meetings. I took two quilts with me to my stitching meeting so I could do bindings. I was sure I’d be able to finish at least one, but I was sewing way too slowly…and I was late getting there, etc. etc. I have this much binding left…

From the top down that side and barely around the corner. Of course, then I have two sleeves to sew on as well. But it’s almost done. Honestly I haven’t been working too hard on getting these done, obviously.

I also entered a show last night. I had debated it for a while, but I had a piece that seemed it might work, so I went for it.

Then I debated. I was way too tired to stand…and I’d made some significant brain errors yesterday due to tiredness, so I didn’t feel like ironing. I mean, I WANT to iron…I was just too tired at 10 PM to start. And I knew this week would probably go that way…it’s why I pushed to get started on the ironing earlier in the week. I’m hoping to get some done this weekend.

So I sat on the couch with a couple of animals, including this big goofball. “See my toy? Do you see my toy? I have a toy.” Yes Calli. We all see your toy.

And I took the drawing from the staff meeting earlier this week, and I drew it bigger and added a head. So it didn’t turn out like I wanted it too (I wanted 5 heads, but I ran out of paper space…a common problem for me), but I just kept adding shit until I thought I was done. It was a good thing to get out of my head.

I might need to do another one at some point, but this was cathartic for now. Back to the question…are they yelling at each other or trying to eat each other? I don’t know the answer to that. I guess to get 5 heads in there, I’m gonna have to start much much smaller. Good to know that too.

I have gaming tonight, so I know I won’t get to ironing…but I’m hoping I get a good night’s sleep. I do have to deliver a quilt tomorrow, so I should figure out where it is, dehair it, iron it maybe, and pack it up for delivery. That would be smart. And then a 3-day weekend, with at least one full day of grading stuff, but a big chunk of ironing as well…I need that. More fabric meditation.

*Phoenix, 1901

It’s a Small World Full of Light*

Last night, a bunch of stuff happened. I felt sick, so I went to bed a bit early without posting a picture of anything on Instagram (not the end of the world). I drew a bit, leftovers from the loooong staff meeting I survived. I finished cutting out all the Wonder Under for the commission quilt. I tried to clean up in the studio. I was going to sort Wonder Under pieces too, but my stomach did not agree. I love it when random bodily organs decide to sabotage the night. I’m arguing with it, please why can’t you just get along? We don’t have to do this. Ugh. Nausea sucks. Always.

Whatever it was, it’s still with me this morning. Fun stuff. Plus a parent meeting and duty again. Mornings are never my strong point. Wait. I said at the staff meeting yesterday that afternoons were never my strong point. Also true. I really am a night owl. I can function in the morning, but usually by myself and not talking for a goodly portion of it. Until some part of the first cup of tea gets in me.

I tried grading stuff yesterday evening, but it was making me fall asleep, so I quit. I made dinner and then this guy joined me on the couch for a while…

I started a drawing during the staff meeting because drawing helps me focus on stuff that’s kinda boring. Although I’m still not sure what the point of the meeting was…for us to do something we already do? And the video…I don’t know what it had to do with what we were doing? Sigh. Whatever. Last night I got a work email chastising a group of us for not going to a training on Wednesday for stuff we’ve already been trained on. I’m annoyed by that. I don’t need someone to explain the new standards to me right now. Thanks.

So I started the drawing, but then we had planning time, so we used it…and I finished the drawing at home…on the couch…

I guess you know how I feel about staff meetings now. That big mouth is kinda scary. I kind of want to do a larger drawing with more and more mouths getting bigger and trying to swallow the smaller ones.

I finished the Wonder Under cutting…just under 5 hours (pretty damn good guess, eh?).

I need to sort them. I was going to do it last night, but that stomach thing. It’ll take less than an hour to sort them, and then I can start ironing to fabric! Yay! I love that part! Although it’s more standing…and it will take longer, probably more like the 9 hours or so that it took me to trace the quilt…maybe a little more than that. So I’ll be doing that hopefully starting tonight…then I have a hike, a meeting, and gaming (3 nights of activities)…so not very much of that until the weekend, I think. So probably I’ll finish ironing to fabric sometime next week. ALTHOUGH…I have Monday off from work. I’ll have to grade some and probably walk some dogs (like this one sleeping with her ball)…

And I’d like to plant some stuff and there’s floors and bathrooms to clean (oooh exciting) and could I Please Please Please remember to go sit on the deck and draw? Yeah? Totally. I should do that.

This was part of the cleaning last night…I was looking for bins to sort Wonder Under into, and all the fabrics from the last quilt are still there (I leave them there until I hit this stage on the next quilt), plus a few I bought since then, plus the ones the boychild gave me for Christmas. All sorted by color. So they need to be put away before I can start. Not hard.

Just takes a bit of time.

The girlchild left last night (which was actually this morning) on an overnight into the rainforest. They drove for a while and then hiked an hour and a half into the campsite with tents and sleeping bags (now you can see why her packing was such a pain! Imagine hauling all your camping stuff 11,000 miles). I haven’t heard from her for a while, so I suspect even the limited contact we had is unavailable where she is now. She’s there for one night and then home the next evening, which means I won’t hear from her until Thursday morning at the earliest. Yeah that part is hard. Funny, though. I always keep her and her brother in the back of my mind when they’re away at school. It’s hard not to, but I don’t worry. I know they’re OK. But that’s harder when she’s this far away. I’m sure I’ll get used to it (will I? In just 3 1/2 months?). She’s talking about doing a rural independent study project, which could mean 3 weeks or more of no contact. So I guess I’m glad I’ve had some contact with her at the beginning, because I’m pretty sure it won’t stay that way. It’s interesting what the internet has done for us in terms of keeping track of people you care about…it’s too easy to always be in contact, I guess. There’s pros and cons to that.

Anyway, parent meeting, the last day of labs (oh hallelujah, because I might kill someone soon), hopefully an improved stomach, and fabric waiting at the end of the day. Plus I don’t have to cook tonight. Always a plus.

*Laurie Anderson, Dark Angel

And We’ll All Float on OK*

Yesterday was long. It began with a parent meeting and a breakfast of a handful of peanuts (not the best choice) and the teaching part went all day, like it does, into a meeting about who teaches what and why and how and when and maybe which…who knows. At some point, I got a second wind and started doing art things, quite a few of them. I didn’t do school things because I did lots of them at school and I should be allowed to stop at some point. Really. Today I have to remember to go to the chiropractor after school too. Somewhat hard to remember that shit.

So that was January, a whirlwind of not being able to do art for some reason. Seriously, I looked back, and most weeks I manage 13-20 hours of art…on top of a 60+-hour week of school (ugh). But until this week, I was doing about 4-5 hours a week. Maybe not helping with the feelings of stress. But I’m back on track! Woo hoo!

Seriously, it feels better.

Left for work yesterday morning with two furry beasts staring out the dirty window. It’s on a 2nd floor…hard to clean it, really. Need to replace it with something easier to clean. Normally the puppy is not out, but my housemate was running slow, so Simba got a few more moments of house freedom.

After dinner, I put the bindings on the quilt I’ve been working on for months. That’s a fun binding…

Usually my bindings are more mellow.

Wait. Well there’s this one…I finished the handstitching last night on this binding, but I purposely picked something crazy. Now I need to do the embroidery on it…that will take a while.

I had wanted a January finish, so I should have done the handstitching on the other small quilt first and finished IT yesterday, but no…I did not think that far in advance. I liked last year when I was finishing one thing each month. Well. Until the summer, when all that fell to shit…so why am I worried? It’s OK…I didn’t have a finish last January either…I think I was a day or so off.

Dumped this on the couch so I could pin the binding back…

So fast! So easy! This one will actually be done when the binding is done. I’m only doing bindings in that little bit after I’ve eaten my dinner until the show we’re watching stops. So if they’re 50-minute shows (figuring for commercials), that’s not a lot of time. It’s OK. They’ll get done.

No rush.

My couch partner. He was quite happy when I sat still.

Unfortunately for him, I suck at that. I eventually made it up off the couch again, after 10 PM, and started tracing freakishly small pieces of spine and ribcage and metal structure.

I’m about 7 1/2 hours in and honestly? Almost done with the tracing. I think I have about 100 pieces left…or 120. That’s an hour or two. The little ones go faster. So hopefully I’ll finish tracing tonight and start cutting pieces out.

Meanwhile, from Tuesday’s drawing, there’s this little rodenty thing. I didn’t draw him with a purpose…was thinking mole and then he got a tail, so maybe mouse, or I don’t know what. Little mammal thing in a hole.

Julie didn’t like that he didn’t have ears, apparently, or that he wasn’t biologically valid, which is amusing, because absolutely none NONE of my birds are real. Seriously, I just make that shit up. It must be obvious. But now I have this…

because she sent it to me for future reference. I’m amused because this is a drawing about us getting nuked to oblivion due to our idiot president’s penis size (sigh), and she’s worried about that thing having no ears. I researched nuclear bombs and umbrellas and the rest was just random drawing. Filling space. And I’m months away from being able to make this quilt.

It’s fine. I’m amused. Now you know how much I research…sometimes a LOT, sometimes nothing at all.

Girlchild has finally found the wifi and time to post on her blog…check it out. And now I’m off to another parent meeting and day of teaching, luckily without the meeting at the end. And then art…really, after the gym and reading my book, but art.

*Modest Mouse, Float On

You Show the Lights That Stop Me Turn to Stone*

Somehow I came home last night after a long day at work, and instead of pulling out the last pages of the assignment I’ve been grading at school on and off for the last couple of days and finishing it, I sat down with a cup of tea and my sketchbook and vomited out one thing that’s been in my head for weeks.

I had two or three false starts, where the body or the head weren’t quite right…and this guy trying to get on my lap didn’t help…

Maybe he was just after my color pens. They are pretty awesome.

So yeah, nuclear bombs much? This totally reminds me of getting under my useless school desk in middle school…those Cold War bomb drills they did with us. Even then we were smart and savvy enough to know we would totally die if the Russian nukes hit our school while we cowered under those tiny little desks.

I think if this becomes an actual quilt, I will make it bigger to the sides, maybe change the figures under the umbrella, add more earth. Or not. Who knows…

Then I started tracing Wonder Under. I’m sure I ate dinner in there somewhere and sewed some more binding bits on, but I’m not sure when that was. Post drawing? Probably.

I took a break from tracing at one point and had both dogs back there…

Then back to the tracing. I have about 6 hours in and I think I’m just under the halfway mark…somewhere in the mid-300s.

It went slowly last night, because it was mostly the big sky pieces, and they take longer to trace. I think I have two completed yards traced, and another two in process…filling up all the little spaces…with fingernails and finger creases. I have the whole background traced and I started on the first of the two figures.

Next up is that back with all the tiny pieces…needs to be earlier in the evening to do that. So tonight…should be good. Hopefully I’ll get that assignment graded at school, so I won’t even need to worry about grading.

I’m hearing just a little from girlchild at the moment. I know she hasn’t figured out how to get the blog to post yet (wifi is the issue)…but here is her program center, where all her classes are.

Hopefully she’ll get the blog sorted soon…that and learning French. Meanwhile, I’m going to go to school and try to persuade kids to do some work. They like doing labs, but writing stuff down is apparently some high level of torture. Fun stuff.

*Ellie Goulding, Lights