My Version of Late…

Hey. It’s summer and the weather is still nice, not oppressive. I’m still exhausted. Doesn’t help that I had to be up early today to take the dog in for his teeth cleaning. I keep trying to sleep in. Doesn’t work. I managed to get most of the office cleaned up, packed up and delivered two quilts to San Ysidro for a show opening July 12 (you should come…yeah, I know it’s a long way, but you should come anyway). I still have fabric that doesn’t have a home in the office. Maybe I should focus on that? I’ve scheduled 70,000 things, talked to a diabetes nurse about why my blood sugar is an asshole, and read way too many books. Is there such a thing as too many? I’m still pretty braindead, despite being out of school for a week now. I’ll get there. I’m just NOT there yet.

I haven’t been able to draw anything the last couple of nights…mostly getting dinner late and then it’s 10:30 and then it’s midnight, and I don’t even know what happened (see note about braindead). I did put the bindings on Sue Spargo’s Chirp quilt.

And sleeves. I found some fabric that had been in a plastic bin on the desk I use as a sewing table since the girlchild was in high school…it’s faded in a few spots, and it had a bunch of cat hair embedded in it, from when Midnight lived on it…or Babygirl? Not sure which cat lived in that box. But I washed it and the other stuff in there, recycled bits, stashed the rest. Got rid of the damn bin! There’s a lot of stuff in the sewing room/office/studio (it gets called all those things) that I literally do not know with what to do. Random shapes of cutting rulers. I don’t piece. I really only need the two I use all the time. I tossed some stuff. I had gone shopping for thread, now that Joann is gone (the store, not some woman), and I found three large spools of thread I can use in the bobbin for the next three years, if I can figure out how to set up the stand for them. Mooommmm!

So I need to do all the handsewing of the binding. I got about halfway through it last night. This is not a large quilt. I do have one more wool quilt that needs quilting. It’s bigger and way more complicated. I’m not there yet.

Last night, I spent 2+ hours at a school board meeting…this is the third they’ve held on the same issue, and they tabled it again. I get why, but jesus. I stitched through most of it.

This is a complicated block. Part of Rooted. Fun trees. It’s very portable, unlike Homegrown, which is the whole quilt at the moment. Sewing wool in summer is not ideal. But it works for braindead…and school board meetings.

No ceramics since Monday…maybe tomorrow. I’m worried about the pup at the moment. He had some weird bloodwork come back and then they called me and asked if he could have been exposed to rodenticide (um no?). So I’ll just feel better when he’s home in a few hours. This was the look on his face when he realized I really wasn’t giving him breakfast this morning.

Sorry!

I also put away like 10 quilts or more in the girlchild’s room and my own. Had to find one of the quilts to deliver today, which meant unrolling one giant roll, putting another quilt in it, and manhandling it all back together. Then a bunch of smaller ones went in three other rolls. I still have four (?) on her bed…three don’t have an official home yet. I’m waiting on one to see if it gets into a show. One of them is supposed to go in a roll that’s up in my closet. I figured after asking the Man (who is injured) to lift up and down two other rolls, I wasn’t going to do the third. I’ll do that today maybe. I figure once I get them all put away, I’ll get into something and need to pull stuff out…but I think that would happen after the girlchild visits, so we’ll be OK. She’ll be here in two weeks. Looking forward to it…figure the boychild will be gone on a fire strike team by then. He keeps getting called out and canceled to local fires. Which is good! We don’t want big fires that need strike teams. Well, I don’t. Fire crews get bored apparently.

OK. So put away the last four quilts, which means pulling that roll down. Eat lunch. Read my book. Draw some. Pick up the dog. Go to pilates. Totally not in that order. Stitch some binding. Doesn’t sound hard. Oh yeah, need to finish filling two greenery trashcans so I can put them out tonight. They’re both mostly full, so just some more sweeping and trimming and then manhandling those damn cans out to the front. See, I have a plan! Even though I’m running late on everything. My version of late anyway.

Roll Into the Hole…

I really didn’t want to wake up this morning. It’s silly, because there’s no NOT waking up. There’s animals (one is barking his head off right now for no reason…OK, it’s probably something, but really…wait, that was his happy yip so the Man must be back from the dentist), there’s neighbors, there’s neighborhood noise (damn neighbor with his saw…you’d think he’d sawed all the things, but no…there are more things to saw). Really, I should go to bed at a regular time and get up at dawn and work then. Except that’s not how my brain works, especially for the first week or two after I get out of school (it hasn’t even been a WEEK)…I’m a night owl through and through. This morning shit is not fun (yes, I’m aware it’s barely morning at this point…I’ve been up for hours). I didn’t want to wake up because I started cleaning the office/studio yesterday and it’s in that stage when it looks like it will never be done and you will never find a home for all the things you’ve unearthed. I did, however, find the book I’ve been searching for since Thursday (it wasn’t in here, by the way…it was in the girlchild’s room, of course), but I have not found the frames I feel like I have somewhere. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I bought a set of 4 and will need to buy another set? Sigh.

So yes, I am still in the braindead flailing part of Summer Break, where I stare at AI-generated videos of cats diving into swimming pools and wonder why people like war so much. Like if we’re really gonna worry about nuclear capability and bomb people over it, why are we picking on the bottom rung of the ladder…

This is from a video comparing nuclear stashes, and Iran isn’t even on the list. Now, it would be stupid as hell to bomb Russia…and I don’t want to bomb anyone, but seriously, how lame is it to go after a country that was under control until the current president backed out of a deal that was keeping them under control. Idiots. Absolute idiots. But if we’re looking at this, we’re not looking at the protests and ICE and breaking laws left and right and stupid ugly bills, are we.

It’s a lot.

So I had started my next quilt drawing and began inking on Friday night…

You can’t quite see it, but in pencil, on the left, there’s a hand stopping a missile. I inked that Saturday night, after the bombs dropped on Iran.

Added an American flag to it, because it’s ours. The Statue of Liberty was already penciled in. Last night, I inked the ICE swamp…

Because that’s what it is…a swamp of people wearing masks and maybe being legal sometimes? But mostly racial profiling and who knows if some of the people out there are actually ICE or not? They apparently don’t have to tell us. Need to add some swamp trees. Decide what’s happening under the arm underneath them. Oh yeah, added a bomb and an explosion. This drawing is evolving with the current situation. Not sure where I’m going next. Into space? Seems reasonable.

I did some clay glazing on Friday. Very peaceful.

I did the red.

And some flesh.

I keep breaking the left hand off. Frustrating. It’s a level issue…it’s lower than the rest of it. I might need to make a base for firing. Hoping to be back today or tomorrow. We’ll see.

Saturday was the opening of In the Land of… at the downtown library. It’s on the first floor.

It’s super hard to photograph things in glass cases. Here’s the front of mine with part of Jennifer Spencer’s piece…

And here’s the back…

There will hopefully be a video of me talking about the piece and maybe a video of the whole show. I’ll post if I see them.

I’ve also been trying to applique all the flowers on the borders of the Homegrown quilt…

It’s time consuming. But I’m almost done with the top and bottom ones, so then I can do the side flowers. Until then…

Plus doing a lot of escapist cleaning and reading to try to manage my brain. I have a biopsy set up in 2 1/2 weeks. There were two things they found in the MRI that didn’t show up in a mammogram. Better safe than sorry, but it did ramp my anxiety up. Also, the last biopsy wound hurt for a good 6 months. So it’s fun when they say oh no, it doesn’t hurt. Such bullshit. Then last time, when I called after three weeks, they admitted, oh yeah, it might hurt for a while. But it isn’t the pain I worry about, of course.

OK, today. Finish cleaning this disaster of a room. Getting my hair cut (it’s way too long). Trying to find a dress for a wedding Saturday. I had one ordered, but it was too small in the boobage, and I don’t think the replacement will get here in time. Ugh. I hate shopping for clothes. Oh well. Whatever. Then do some drawing, maybe finally get the binding on that other wool quilt, pack up two quilts for delivery for another show coming up in San Ysidro area. Yardwork of course. Try not to roll into the hole of nuclear bombs and children dying and people being deported who came here and followed the rules.

Maybe Not Starting Today

UGH. OK, I know it’s the first day of Summer Break and I should be all woo hoo and all that, but I’m just exhausted beyond belief. The dog was boofing this morning, the cat was scratching, it was not a sleepfest like I wanted. It’s fine. I’ve got 51 days off. It’s not two months (the kids were like, don’t we get two months? I’m like, well, not quite, and that is the theme for the rest of your life.). Also I have three appointments today for vet and doctor, so that’s not fun. But my brain is already trying to make a to-do list 17 miles long, so nothing has changed there, and last night, I was a blob. So yeah.

I will get to art. I don’t know when. But I will. Hopefully today.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing wool Sue Spargo things. They’re easy because I don’t have to think too hard…although quilting this requires a little thought.

I looked at the quilting someone did on Sue’s original piece (this is Chirp, by the way, in case you want to make your own, because no, I’m not selling you mine, are you nuts?) and kind of tried to emulate it. Lots of leaves and flowers and swirls and pebbles.

It’s fun. Also I need a thread for the borders that works with the two colors of green. Maybe I can get that before or after pilates? We’ll see. I should finish quilting the inside today easily. But I also want to start drawing the new art quilt, plus I have some ideas for experimenting with stuff that I want to try out…prep some stuff for the week away from here.

Also, honestly, I need to lie around, read books, and nap.

Monday was promotion practice for most of the morning, then one period in the classroom where I put on a movie and turned out the lights and tried to put away all the science stuff that showed up in my classroom in the morning. I love that. When the other science teachers are cleaning stuff out and dump stuff on me at the last minute when I don’t actually have much time in my classroom to put it away. But I did it. So the practice was all outside and we had a heat advisory. Which just means it was in the low 90s, high 80s. It will be hotter later this year. After that, we did t-shirt signing and a BBQ thing and then a color run, where the kids run around and we throw powder at them.

Obviously, they would throw it at us too, thinking we’d get all upset, but no, we just don’t care.

Bring it.

Had duty after school like that, then went to the staff meeting like that, then went home and showered for the first time…I think there’s still blue in my right ear. The powder goes through one layer of clothing, in case you wondered.

I washed my hat, my clothes, my backpack, and my flipflops. I’m so glad I didn’t wear my regular work shoes. It washed out in the washing machine…the hat needs more help. It might need to go in the machine…not sure if it can.

Yesterday was promotion, still freaking hot as hell, but shorter. We then went to get frozen yogurt as a team (minus two members)…

Because why not? Went back to our rooms, my coteacher and I managed to get checked out (booya!), then went to the afterschool party, had some snacks and a couple of drinks, then went to the last-minute asshole emergency school board meeting (seriously? 3 PM on the last day of school? Y’all are assholes) that the two Project 2025 assholes didn’t even show up for??? My goodness. They just wanna fuck with us. Not a fan. Then home. On the couch. Read. Drank an entire large bottle of water. Fell asleep. Read some more. Made dinner. Spaced out. Sewed some wool bits down. That’s all I had. Tried to go to bed early, but dog…tried to sleep in, but dog…

Saw this fire pop up (on the apps, then in real life)…

The boychild was sent out to it yesterday, but released last night. The fire decided to stop being a big asshole. It’s still out there and the sky is hazy, smells a bit of fire spirit, but they’re getting a handle on it.

Wow. So a busy couple of days with no art at all. Not true. I entered a complicated art show, rewrote my resume and artist statement for that. Also sent bio and wall text to another show that opens July 12 down in San Ysidro…two pieces in that one. And sent more work off for a proposal for the Oceanside Museum of Art at some unknown time. So not NO art…just no actual hands-on stuff. Just the business of art. Which happens too.

Today? Vet for dog so he can get his teeth cleaned in the future. Then measles shot (because I had that one-shot version back in 1967 and it’s not enough) and boob MRI. Appreciating that…not. Then pilates. I’m so tired, y’all. Really tired. I know that’s normal. I know it happens every year. This year feels more tiring. Not sure why. It’s not age, because I’m not the only one. It’s possible all the crazy politics and worry about wars (like please stop threatening Iran you dumbass) makes it worse. Who knows. I’ve got 51 days to try to reset myself…and my house! Because it’s a crazy mess. But maybe not starting today.

When AM I Reading Today?

I love that I said I’d be cleaning my classroom this week, because that hasn’t happened. At all. And it’s not likely to any time soon. I’m teaching, talking all the time, for the next three days, then we have a day of practice and crazy antics, then actual promotion. By the end of the day, hell, by prep period, I’m out of it. Today. Today I will use prep period wisely. I will. I swear. My coteacher and I will go get all the stupid signatures we need to check out. That’s my plan. The last of the to-be-graded assignments are due at 3:30 today. I have a union meeting after school, and then I’m grading. I came home yesterday and graded while on Zoom with my stupid school board meeting. Fun times. I had pilates (finally, I got in…I need the exercise and the time to concentrate on something besides school, something that’s good for me), so I didn’t go to the board meeting, but my stalwart coworkers stayed past 8 PM. It’s never an hour with this board…it’s always three or more. No efficiency there. We went to Belmont Park with the whole promoting class yesterday…my coteacher and I rode the roller coaster early (it gets chaotic after that).

Look! Real smiles! Seriously love me a good roller coaster. I didn’t go last year for some stupid reason. It does make for a long, exhausting day though. We combined our classes for the last two periods and watched Into the Spiderverse. We didn’t even start it over for the last period; just kept watching. For the last 30 minutes, there was a big ice cream celebration for most of our kids. We kept 7 and sat in the dark air conditioning. I don’t really know how I managed to stay functional during grading for an hour or so and then pilates, but I did.

The pro is that I’ve had some time to stitch in the evenings. I’ve been trying to get the flowers on the Sue Spargo Homegrown borders finally. It’s a lot of little pieces on a giant thing. During book club on Monday, I worked on her Rooted quilt…

Here’s the June block on top of her Tinsel quilt, which I’m finishing for my mom. It’s taking forever…

Teeny tiny binding requires tinier stitches. I’m finally on the sleeves, so hopefully, I’ll finish tonight. I have two more Spargo quilts to finish up. I did have a drawing pop into my head during pilates last night (don’t ask…it’s how Art Brain works…I’m trying not to fall over and it’s creating shit). I’m not saying I won’t start some art thing before finishing the two Spargo quilts…I haven’t made any decisions, because I literally don’t have the brain power for that.

Monday was ceramics…I painted the torso for the fourth time…this time, I actually covered everything, but I had to reattach that damn hand again.

I saved some of the mix of underglaze to patch the hand…smarter than usual. Friday, I’m hoping to start glazing more of the other bits, which will take forever. At least.

The base has been bisqued, but the colors were a bit much, so I finally decided to underglaze over them. I also want to do a wash over it all, but I can’t wipe that away without wiping the glaze away, so I’m going to have to fire it again. Expensive. That said, this piece has so many freaking hours in it, I’ll never be able to sell it. At this point, I just want to be able to finish it.

The crazy stuff I do for fun.

Here’s a sampling of kid stuff about sex ed…

Made me laugh.

A lot.

Sigh. That one. Literally they had a chart to help them fill this out. I mean, he’s not entirely wrong.

Anyway. I’m putzing along with all the things. I have a lot of things unfortunately. I did book my flight up to San Francisco to see the girlchild and all the art that’s up there, including my piece at Sebastopol. So my two summer things are planned. The rest of the summer is managing all the shit at home and getting things cleaned up and gotten rid of and painted and fixed and trimmed and planted. And sleeping and reading and making art. Maybe not in that order. Maybe sleeping first. For a week or two. Not that the living things (or my body) let me sleep for long. I would rather be reading my book today than teaching about sexually transmitted infections, but that’s not an option. Union meeting after school. Then grades. Then stitching of some sort. Wait. When AM I reading today (most important question ever)? Good question. Always.

Collapse

I had this goal to have written the massive Quilt National post by now, having missed two regularly scheduled posts. I had a great trip, easy travel, everything was awesome…then I got food poisoning once I got home. Fun times. I missed school yesterday…I think I actually missed the entire day mentally. Pretty sure all I did was sleep and try to drink things. I’m OK (shaky but functional) today, so I guess it’s all through my system. Going back to school today after missing three days with no clue how far they’ve gotten (although it does not look good). Today will be a catchup day, where I roll around the room on a chair, checking in with everyone. Egg drop Friday. Sex ed next week. It’s a lot. I’m not ready for any of it.

Besides the amazing quilts and people, I did do a few other things in Athens…not much though. I did some stitching…first on Zoom with my stitching friends…

Then more on the plane…

Finished this block at home on Sunday night…

I also went for a couple of walks…one with a friend…

And one on my own…

Ohio is very green.

Walked around an old mill that is now a garden center…

Some interesting things going on there…

Went to a winery…who knew Ohio had wineries? It was nice…

The girlchild was in Chicago at the same time…

This is how I learn geography.

I did manage to cut out some pieces for my quilt on Sunday night…

I finished the rest Monday night…before I went to bed for 24 hours straight. Or more.

I will get to the quilt post…it’s in progress. Today will be slow and lots of sitting down, I predict. I already canceled pilates. Pretty sure I’m coming home and lying down again. But who knows…maybe I’ll bounce back. Those younger years when that was easy to do…miss that. Not all of it…just that bit. This morning, I’m stiff as a board. Too much non movement yesterday. Sigh. OK. Take meds, go to work, survive it, come home and collapse.

In Between Time

Up early again…this week has been difficult for sleep, across the board. As I got more and more exhausted, I did a better job of falling asleep and staying asleep, until it gets light, which unfortunately is earlier and earlier. Ugh. Also state testing really messes with kid and teacher rhythms. We’re all off. It’s Friday! I’m not sure what day it feels like. Next Wednesday maybe? Unclear. Anyway, yesterday went OK except for the advisory class discussion on drop shipping as a current job choice. (No, they don’t know what tariffs are.) Like, dude, no one will hire you to sleep all day. Not happening. Anyway. There are 27 days of school left. Yesterday was also the pep talk of “you aren’t done yet.” Difficult for all of us. Today we start state test review for science…hard hard hard…all talking. Ugh. I may need some alternate stuff by the end of next week. Also, I thought I would be so efficient and get caught up on grading. Nah. Did not. Lame.

In art news, since I finished the banned-book piece, which I still need to photograph, I’m sort of in a stasis mode…by choice. I have a friend’s mom’s quilt I really need to finish, so that’s what I’m doing with my normal art time. It’s fine…it’s still quilting. I am doing a bit of embroidery (honestly, when I should be grading) on Sue Spargo’s Rooted blocks…this one is really nice.

Bowie wanted to smell this one in progress.

And I took it to my stitching meeting last night and kept working on it.

I think I have four blocks done of nine. We’ll be here for a while.

Then here’s the quilting…

I’m in the outer borders. There’s definitely something weird going on in the last border that I’ll deal with when I’m done playing thread chicken with the light blue thread.

I only had two small spools of it and finished one of them in the beginning of the third border, so unless I do a lot more squiggling stitching in the last two borders, I should be OK and not run out in the last two inches, but you never know. Then quilt around the corner blocks (fast) and the two outer borders just need outlining, and then I can trim it (it’s fucking huge…not sure how I’m doing that) and then putting binding on.

Meanwhile, here’s Kitten. She did not have a good day yesterday. It involved a ton of laundry and a bath. She’s looking pretty good considering all of that.

She was pretty mad at me at the end, but still loves me. So that’s OK then. It’s hard to know when it’s time. I keep thinking we must be close and then she rallies. Poor old lady. A lot of her current issues are because of the little boy cat, who doesn’t understand sick old ladies. Sigh.

OK. I’m waiting for solar to show up and turn off the electricity, probably soon. Then school, turn in huge packet (which I then have to grade), teach how to take a test (Step 1: stop freaking out. Seriously.). Then hopefully ceramics. Rescheduling telephone call with doc. The Man has a show tonight. I’m exhausted, but it’s a friend’s birthday party and I know the band is all freaked out because their lead singer may or may not have quit or taken a hiatus, so they’re all singing tonight. Well, not all of them. So I’ll go to that and see how much energy I have for it. Small confined space with lots of loud music and people and alcohol and whatever. Right now it sounds kinda hellacious, but sometimes it’s OK. Friday nights are rough though. Looking forward to going to sleep tonight and NOT having to get up at 6 AM tomorrow. For once this week. I did finish my book by the way. I know you were worried. I wasn’t.

Already in the Weeds

We’re baaack. And already in the weeds. Not surprising. The yard is full of weeds. The house needs things. The animals need things. I apparently need to do some work, both art and school. All good. Not doing school yet though. Sticking to art and the yard.

Can’t remember when I last posted…ah yes, we’d made it to Santa Ynez, but hadn’t done anything yet. Our rule was hike then relax. I mean, hiking is a form of relaxation in itself, but we wanted to make sure movement was a part of this trip, because the day job makes it hard to do anything but the day job. Hiking has fallen by the wayside. It’s easy to leave out the exercise, and we didn’t want to leave it out. SO. We hiked first, up in the mountains, where we found out that the Lake Fire last year had impacted part of the hiking trails.

It was beautiful out there and there were a bunch of people at the trailheads, but we managed to be quietly alone for a goodly portion of the trail. Which we prefer.

Burn was pretty obvious.

Apparently the boychild worked this fire last July.

We did a little over 4 miles. The weather was perfect…a little chilly, not too warm. The flowers were starting to bloom. Some of the oaks were coming back, some of the other stuff too. We didn’t see the pines coming back, but maybe it takes them longer.

After that, we headed out for a wine tasting. We wanted a pro-white-wine tasting and wandered around Los Olivos with a lot of really drunk people and dogs until we found a place that was more white friendly. Like white wine friendly. To be clear. We’d done a lot of reds at the last place and they’re not my favorite. The last place did give us an extra tasting though and then a great deal on two bottles of white. This place was interesting…different wines.

But he revised the tasting for us and we appreciated that. Afterwards, we were in the mood to feed some ostriches and emus (like you do)…

If you’ve been to Solvang, you’ve probably driven by Ostrichland and thought WTF. But you know, these guys are truly prehistoric-looking and fascinating up close.

Also a little terrifying to try to feed them.

It was totally worth it. We had dinner out at a place that wasn’t really known for its food, obviously. No amazing food this trip…oh wait, the sandwiches we had from the fancy grocery store…they were damn good. But otherwise? Eh. We did get apple strudel (well I did) from Solvang. It was good.

Then Sunday, we had to come home. It wasn’t a bad drive (knock on wood) for once…Los Angeles can be hellacious. Although this was interesting…

Let’s get that out there please.

I finished one Rooted tree (March block, Sue Spargo) on the way home…it’s the only one I worked on the entire trip.

I started the next one once I got home…

Once we unpacked everything and checked on all the animals and I ran to the store for essentials because the Man had to read a chapter and take a quiz and write an essay. The furry beasts seemed happy to have us home…

Poor pup. And I started quilting the piece I was working on before I left…

And emailing all the people I was supposed to deal with while I was gone. Fun times. I’ll be quilting today, getting vaccines, already took the dog to the vet and survived an earthquake in a building full of animals (5.2 just east of here…felt bigger). I even have pilates later. Although my stomach is not happy with me at the moment. Hopefully it’ll figure that shit out before I’m lying down and exercising. Just felt another aftershock. That one got a boof out of the dog. Hopefully I’m back on a normal blogging schedule now. It was nice to just check out for a week, but for some things, I really am a routines person, for good or bad.

I’m Going for a Walk

Well I said that a week ago and I feel like that’s all I’ve been trying to do for 7 days. Mostly succeeding. No super long hikes like trips in the past, but lots of little ones. Plus reading, stitching, drawing, and staring deeply into fires. Also not having a clue what day it is, which is the absolute best thing ever. We didn’t do a long road trip last year because I had to pay to fix the flooding damage, and I really missed it. I’m glad we did it this year.

We’re not back yet, by the way. I just have some time while the Man watches some videos for school, and I’m not really in the headspace to draw…ironic since a quilt fully drew itself in my head about 10 minutes into our drive today.

So we left last Saturday and took a couple hefty drive days…California is beautiful, even from the car…especially in Spring.

We stopped in hotels in tiny spots off the main road, nothing exciting…although at one point, we were across the bay from the girlchild. I stitched the pieces I needed embroidered for a small set of quilts I will need to finish very quickly when I get back.

Here’s the San Rafael Bridge…

It started raining at some point on Day 2, which turned into a downpour. We ate leftovers in the deserted hotel breakfast area and hung out in the room. There was a plan to go out, but the rain put a damper on that. So I drew and stitched.

First I had to trace the second bit of stitching…love hotel rooms with irons and ironing boards.

The next day, we had a few hours to waste, so we searched for the Bertella Kildow Skinner Grove in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which involved parking on the side of a road and hiking using two different topographical maps to figure out where the grove and sign should be. I know we were in it at multiple points, but couldn’t find the sign. It’s possible things were burnt in the 2003 Canoe Fire? Who’s Bertella, you might ask? I think she was my great great aunt? Or maybe three greats. I had these two old lady aunts who were awesomely strange in my childhood, and this was their mom, who I think died before I was born? Or soon after. But Jeanne and Bernice were definitely around.

We finally got into the campground just as it stopped raining, which was good, because it sucks putting tents up in the rain. As it was, the site was pretty muddy and damp and cold, but we enjoyed it.

I stitched in the campground too. We hiked in the AM, then more in the PM. Nighttime was for fires and drawing.

The Man had some moments…

Before showering. Definitely. In his creepy stalker stage.

The sky. It’s up there.

The Eel River…

Glorious weather for most of it.

When I was a kid, we traveled all over the US, but we never really were allowed to stop at the weird places. So the Man and I kinda try to do just that.

Legends of Bigfoot. And us.

After Humboldt, we headed for Sonoma.

More gorgeous green. I finished the embroidery that night in the bungalow.

So those are ready to be appliquéd into a quilt.

We hiked in the morning.

I scared a deer while peeing in nature.

Or it scared me. Hard to say.

This deer could not give a lesser shit about humans…

Which I appreciate. Also I never get good quail photos.

Plus our quail are much skinnier.

Flowers everywhere. Then we spent some time (and money, let’s be honest) at the Gundlach Bundschu winery (oldest in California)…

Beautiful day, needed a nap after. No shock. Did more drawing in a cocktail bar later…

I actually started drawing this over a week ago and just kept adding to it. I also started stitching a tree in Sue Spargo’s Rooted block of the month. I think this is the March block.

I worked on it today but forgot to photograph it. Today we left Sonoma and stopped in San Francisco to see the girlchild and her visiting friend, who worked with USAID, fuck you to the dumbasses cutting jobs without considering real live consequences. We had lunch…

It was nice to see them in person…from there, we negotiated all the Friday traffic past places we visited two years ago, maybe three? Down to Santa Ynez/Los Olivos, where we are now, researching hikes, wine, and ostriches. Plus donuts, due to the campground having a Donut Kebab van that just set us off on a donut tangent that has not been satisfied.

The cravings are real. The Man has an essay to write on Sunday, so it’ll be a bit of a kamikaze trip home so he can read the chapter in the book he didn’t know he needed. It’s fine. And I have things to finish too that I am currently ignoring quite well. I finished one big book and read two smaller ones so far, spent 12 1/2 hours doing the embroidered words, plus 4 drawings? All good.

We are currently sitting out by a fire pit, listened to Great Horned Owls and getting tired.

It’s almost the full moon and we’re ready to enjoy tomorrow.

Traveling Again…

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.

That’s My Plan

Apparently it’s Saturday. You know how you blow off all that work anxiety that appears the week before we go back to school? Take a bunch of art/craft classes so you don’t have time to think about the fact that you’re going back. It’s very relaxing. I should do this every year. Somehow. Because finding classes to do right before break ends is always an issue. This has been nice though. It’s the last year of Craft Napa, and I took two crafty classes with Libby Williamson and one improv quilting class with Irene Roderick.

I haven’t gotten any ironing done on the other quilt due to all this stuff, but it’s OK. I’m enjoying all of it. The first class was a collage-type lesson that went through painting with ink on CraftTex and then stitching around those, cutting them out, and making an image on a paper-collaged canvas. I started out by making flowers and leaves like everyone else, but then went into Nida territory. The teacher was Libby Williamson, crafter extraordinaire of many materials and techniques. I think she sees random materials and then tries to figure out how to make something out of them, which is a great talent.

You can see flames and maybe a face over there on the top left.

I then collaged the background. Now you will see where I diverted from the class subjects…because I ended up painting over a lot of the background. I wanted the papers to show at first, but there wasn’t enough contrast between the face and the background. Since I had started with the person on fire (sorry LA…hoping the fires are getting more and more under control as the weekend continues on), I figured I could make the background go along with that. I stained the bottom with red ink, fairly diluted. I started with the clouds very light, so the paper came through, but it didn’t look good, so I went for a much more opaque and graphic look for the clouds.

I do want to write all over the red still…haven’t done that yet. I had leftover flowers that didn’t work with this image, so I made a second smaller one…

Which was a bit more like what the rest of the class did. And it’s nice. I like it.

Yesterday, I took improv quilting with Irene Roderick. I’ve taken improv classes before, but got stuck on making things (triangles, strings, stripes) and not the creative part of it. This class focused more on the creative part…and that finally made sense to me. I’ve never gotten past a pile of parts before, and they didn’t excite me. I think focusing just on black and white (and NOT color) and just doing one thing at a time and fitting it into what already existed…that worked for me. I have a solid start to a quilt top here…

A top I actually want to finish. So that was cool. It’s totally NOT how I usually work, which I appreciate. Stretch the brain! Try new things! I’m in another class today (waiting for paint to dry, literally), so those photos will have to wait.

I also finished the first block of Rooted, which was Sue Spargo’s block-of-the-month lite version for two years ago? 2023 I think? I’ve had them stitched down for a while; getting to the embroidery has taken a while. This is after Thursday’s stitching meeting…

And last night, I finished while at my parents’ house for dinner with my bro and my nephew.

One done! Eight to go! Yeah, nothing is fast. These are pretty easy though.

So the pro of all these classes this week is that I can barely consider school. So the anxiety is gone, plus I have the added benefit of the meditative qualities of making for three days straight. Peace and love, peace and love. I’m sure I’ll panic soon. I didn’t finish grading…almost did! They’re due in like 10 days. It’ll be fine. I need to pack up four more quilts after class today to deliver to a friend who will deliver up north (not near the fires). And then once all this is done, I can start ironing and quilting my friend’s quilt again. It’s been chaotic in this room this week. We’ll see how that goes. I’m not ready to go back, but I never am. Maybe it’s enough to just accept that, go into it with calm and determination to make art. Still. Anyway, that’s my plan.