Lookin’ Back and the Sky Is Burning*

Well it’s a beautiful April morning in Southern California…not too hot, a little breezy, nice blue skies. A contrast to the girlchild’s snow today…and who knows what the boychild is seeing, because he’s backpacking for a week over Spring Break. So yes. Yes. I will be worrying about him from now until he texts me that he’s home late next week. Parenting is fun y’all. He’s either doing 93 miles or 118. Makes me feel like an underachiever, for sure. I’m looking at some 5-mile hikes on my trip, maybe. We’ll see. Maybe a bike ride. Then again, I don’t need to worry about carrying my own food and water. I have a car. And a credit card. I’ll be fine. Maybe a bit damp, but fine.

Today though. Today is stress city. Gotta get it all done. But my brain is headachey fuzz. Sleep is just a mess. Plus I went to bed late because I was trying to get Wonder Under cut out. Yeah. That’s my fault. I know. But that was the end of the day.

The old lady, Calli, resting in the long grass. This explains all the crap I have to pick out of her fur after she’s been at the ex’s house. She’s on arthritis meds and is doing better.

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She likes a few squirts of salmon oil on her food as well. Blech. But if it helps…I’m OK with that.

I came home from work after a clusterfuck of a day…not the kids (although some are not fully present mentally, for sure), but adults who can’t adult. And having to work with them anyway. So that’s always fun. I will have to spend part of my weekend looking up more science stuff to buy, but that’s not hard…just time-consuming. When I got home, Pandora was playing. I always stop it when I leave, plus it will stop eventually because it gets butthurt that I’m not listening. Kitten had this sort of shocked look on her face, so I suspect she started it. Apparently she was in the mood for The Smiths.

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Makes sense. Cats are moody bitches.

Later, I saw this beer. And it reminded me of how I draw.

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Although much simpler. I do like the jelly beans on the shirt though, and the zigzaggy tongue. Gonna have to appropriate that.

Off to gaming, where I probably almost died because I was hanging with one of the characters that I don’t usually hang with, because my protector couldn’t make it over the wall. And he doesn’t care if he dies in the game. Maybe I don’t either. I’d just inhabit another crazy female dwarven engineer. There were beating hearts in a chest and a smell of rotting flesh, but we made it out alive. I stitch while we play because it’s Friday night and I’m tired and if I stitch, I don’t fall asleep. It’s weird, that, because I’m fairly sure I’m still tired, but the stitching keeps enough of my brain activated that I stay awake. It’s fucking effective.

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That damn tree has 6 tiny bullion knots around every brown spot. I’ve counted the number of spots three times and got a different answer every time, so I’m going to pick 31 spots. 31 x 6 = 186 bullions just on that fucking tree. I’m really good at bullions now. Expect to see me working on those for a while.

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Although I did get a bunch done last night. We were playing for a long time though. And I finished the couching around the tree as well. Plus they mansplained hot flashes for me. And that was funny. So funny I had a hot flash.

Then I came home and it was late and I was tired, so in typical Kathy fashion, I made a plan to keep working…I cut out another yard of Wonder Under…so that’s only 1 1/2 yards to go. I can do that today (can I?). I will do that today. Somehow.

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While I was cutting shit out, there was an earthquake that perhaps only 5 of us in San Diego felt…I personally thought a truck had slammed into my house, and the dog and cat near me were both minorly perturbed by it. Damn, it was small…

For what I felt. Not damn, I wish it were bigger. I’m OK with NOT feeling big earthquakes after growing up in LA. I just finished teaching about earthquakes too…I wonder if my students felt it.

So this is Simba when it’s daylight. He likes this window because he can see ALL the things.

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Anyway, my weekend post-it note is full of crap to do. First I need more tea and to give up and take meds for the headache, then eat something because my stomach is growling, and then beat the crap out of this list, to the best of my ability. Yuck. Hopefully tonight will have some good food, good company, and maybe some sketchbook time. I need that. I think I missed a deadline too…dammit. Oh well. Moving on. I really really need Spring Break.

*Beck, Go It Alone

When You Gonna Wake Up and Fight*

Hey. So. When art brain is on a roll, it’s hard to shut her ass down. Last night, 12:35 AM (let’s remember I have to get up at 6:30 to get to school on time), I’m staring at the current quilt, thinking…wtf. I need to finish this. I need to finish it now. I can do that. Look at clock. Fuck. Dammit. Aargh. So yeah, I COULD finish it, but bedtime would probably have been closer to 1:30. On a non-school night, no problem. Sometimes having so many school nights just sucks. I can’t just head in an hour later and make it up in the evening. Even calling sick is so much of a pain in the ass that I rarely do it. Get a sub. Make sub plans. Figure out how to get the sub plans to school (once showed up, barely walking, still in pjs, feverish, barely post-vomitous, just to dump three pieces of paper on my counter and then drive back home to crawl back into bed). Yeah. Not easy.

Anyway. So. I did NOT finish. Because I am a responsible adult. Mostly. Really.

I did come home and walk dogs…which was a problem because Calli demanded to go. I wasn’t going to take her because she’s still limpy, but she really really wanted to go. So we limped. She’s going back to the vet Friday. If it’s arthritis, then she needs something else.

Julie! Here’s a bigger shot of that weird plant you couldn’t identify before. It’s not a yard plant…out in the middle of all the wild areas. Multiple plants…

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Spiky balls. And the flowers are red on top, but the lower ones are yellow. Freaky.

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This is Simba when he wants to go outside but doesn’t yet realize it’s raining.

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He hates water.

I have had some issues with dinner lately. I just don’t feel like eating anything. And then nothing I have sounds good. I wanted pie last night. I settled for French toast and Brussels sprouts. Why? They are both foreign? European dinner?

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It was actually pretty good. Needed sausage. But my store hasn’t had any for a long time. Things to hide in your freezer for weird-ass nights like last night.

I graded…see, I made puppy tired. Midnight’s look is amusing.

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Then I added another twig branch thing in the bottom right. Another brown thread.

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And then while watching the end of the episode of The Magicians (notice that Midnight is now sitting next to me…puppy’s foot is still over there), I worked on this, the fourth (not fourth) block of Folk Tails…couching threads forever on this one, which is nothing when you consider that each of those brown spots is going to be surrounded by tiny bullion knots. Pray for me.

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Finally into the quilting room. Kitten moves over, mostly, and I quilt the background…

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I think the quilting took about 4 1/2 hours. But it’s done…

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And then I trimmed it…

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And I found a binding and cut it and the sleeves…

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And that’s when I had that conversation with art brain about the importance of sleep. It doesn’t care. If it were summer break, I would have stayed up. Hell, if it were Friday night, I probably would have stayed up. Wednesday though? Aack. Nope. Too much to deal with at school to do that. Need some reserves to deal with the annoyances.

With that, I have a parent meeting this morning…quilt class tonight, but I won’t have time to put the binding on before I go…which does suck, but it’s not like I didn’t try. Sure I could have NOT exercised…but I needed to do that. So. Priorities I guess. Next quilt is ready to go though.

*Shinedown, Sound of Madness

I Want a Meaning from the Back of My Broken Hand*

I feel like my weekends haven’t had enough art lately. It’s just a lot of work and errands and trying to catch up. Sometimes that stuff is art-related, like this weekend, when I had to pack up two quilts to ship out of here, plus go to a meeting about an exhibit I’ll be in later this summer. But there’s very little doing…and that drives me a little bonkers sometimes. I like those long expanses of artmaking that come with breaks and weekends. A nice 6-hour run of ironing shit down…really helps you get through the week. I think I got about 25 minutes this weekend. Total. Sigh. Maybe next weekend. Life goals.

Whereas my cat has figured it out. Granted she doesn’t have to go to work to support the rest of us. And she’s lying on the drawing for the next quilt.

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Oh, so I got this thing called a Rocketbook, where you can draw or write in it and then basically scan it into your computer. And then when it’s full, you can microwave it up to 5 times to erase everything and start over. This is like crazy science here. But I’m looking forward to trying it out. You have to use special pens, unfortunately…odds are I won’t like them for drawing, but I’ll try it. It sounded so close to what I want, to be able to just download drawings from my head onto the computer. I’ll let you know how it works. You can even code pages to go to certain folders or whatever. So if I wanted to be able to take notes on my staff meetings, since I’m not allowed to do that electronically any more…I could use this notebook and then scan it into a work folder. If I wanted to waste pages on that, right? Well it was a thought. If the drawing doesn’t work out, that’s what I’ll use it for instead.

I am trying to stay caught up with this. I did a rosette stitch row on the left, the darker blue, and then did lazy daisy leaves and a stem in green above it.

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I still need to go back in and fill some of the stuff inside the center bits.

I did a little more on this as well, while finishing up the show I was watching. I don’t like leaving mid-episode.

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Then I went and dehaired this beast again (Kitten really likes to deposit hair on it) and then ironed it, sandwiched it, and pinbasted it. Easy peasy.

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I’m trying to use up weird old fabrics with no other purpose. I really have no clue why I bought this fabric, but I know it was like a million years ago.

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The fabric says 1997…so not as long as I thought, but still a 20-year-old fabric finally getting used. Well hallelujah. Seriously. I don’t know why I bought it. I so never use stuff like this. I was pregnant in 1997. Maybe it was pregnancy brain. Because a baby would want bell peppers and turnips and beets and dancing watermelon ladybugs? I just can’t explain it.

Anyway, in good news, I plan to quilt tonight, although I will probably have to grade first. I did that last night too. I’m permanently behind. WAY behind. Sigh.

So I mentioned last week trying to research some other female or other gendered artists. I started with Toyen, who was born Marie Čermínová, but as an adult seemed to prefer being male. It’s hard to get a good idea of what people wanted or thought if they weren’t big writers. A lot of the information about Toyen comes from other male artists or critics of the era. I can understand being an artist in the early to mid 1900s and preferring male status…because he was able to draw and paint some subjects that women would have been discouraged from picturing. Well, that still happens, doesn’t it?

He was mostly associated with surrealism, with some cubism thrown in, although those teeth in my girdle are neither…well, maybe you could argue surrealism.

Here’s a link to a gallery of some of his art.

Here’s a link to an article about Toyen as a feminist, which other articles have disagreed with. It has a good discussion of why there is so little information about him though, being both Czech and a surrealist.

This article is more background information, with a variety of photos that show Toyen dressed both as man and as woman over the years, which notably is less important than the art itself. But intriguing nonetheless, trying to understand whether the appropriation of male was as a transsexual, or if it was for the freedom of being a male artist. I have to wonder what I would have done in the same situation. I have the luxury of a society that is more accepting of women as artists, even women as artists instead of or at the same time as being a mother. Notice I say MORE accepting…I don’t actually believe a good chunk of society is really accepting of that. But we can get away with it.

Anyway…things to think about. What would you do to be an artist if you had to?

*The Killers, All These Things That I’ve Done

‘Neath the Black, the Sky Looks Dead*

I’m thinking that really what I need is to take a day off of work and purchase one of these…

Hopefully it’s soundproof. I really really like the idea of this. I think the cats would be OK with it if there were a cat flap. I mean, I know they’re selling these mostly for kids, but WTF. This is my dream. Now fill it with pillows and move the alarm clock way the fuck out of the room, and then let me sleep in peace for like a week. I joke about the last time I got a good night’s sleep was before I was pregnant with my son…who turned 21 this year. Yeah. I wasn’t joking. That’s for real.

The mornings have been beautiful this week. One of the benefits of Daylight Savings being gone. It’s gone, right? I can never remember. Is this my life ON Daylight Savings? Or OFF of it?

And these came yesterday…gonna put them on the car so I can get keyed in all my local parking lots.

Anyway. I came home from work yesterday and moved everything on my calendar from yesterday’s to-do list to today’s to-do list. I’m not sure it will all get done, but I really couldn’t deal with it. I knew I had a show to go to last night, but later, so I tried to do something useful. For instance, I had three days of 1 Year of Stitches to do…because I just lost it this week apparently. I’ve been really good up until now…never more than a day behind. I had found two batches of some perle cotton in a color range, so I decided to just use one a day. Hence the purple and blue from before. These three are the yellow above the blue wheels (under the tree) and then the orange bullions in the grasses to the right of the tree, and then I went in with the red and filled in the yellow bits, then went down and did some French knots in the fly stitches under the tree.

I was going to do some fill in around the blue and purple, but I think I want to use something variegated in there. For interest. Maybe today’s…

Here was my lap partner.

Pyscho puppy was in and out. I just throw balls for him in between taking a stitch. Literally. It’s like one stitch per throw.

Then because I wasn’t budging off the couch until I had to eat and get ready to leave, I finished stitching down all the wool and cotton on the block that’s attached to the third block I was supposed to be embroidering on (if that makes any sense at all…because it only barely does to me)…

And because I still didn’t have to leave, I started the embroidery on that block…couching a thicker thread with a thinner one…two needles going at once.

There’s a lot of that in this quilt. I really do find this embroidery relaxing. Sure, I could have come in here and sandwiched the quilt last night, but my feet are hurting…that damn inner-foot arthritis. Only hikers with flat feet get that shit. I guess I need new shoes (not hiking boots…school shoes) again.

Then I went to the show, which was out in the boonies…and actually enjoyed myself…

Even when the drunk guy tried to drag me out onto the dance floor (foot is still hurting…plus drunk guy)…but it was really late when I got home, so I went pretty much straight to bed.

This morning, I’m trying to be focused. The problem is the number of things on which I need to focus. So my brain is trying to distract itself…like wouldn’t you like to make one of these small quilts next?

Well yes, I would…however, I can’t. I have a show coming up and I’m trying to stay focused on it and the 17,000 other shows that are picking away at my brain at the moment. At some point, I will just say Fuck You to all of it and do something I want to do. Climate change is poking at my brain at the moment.

Although I found the one I really am doing next, since I got the other rejection, confirming that I’m sticking with bathtubs…and I really like this one. So I’m good.

There’s even a piece of cheesecake in this quilt (can’t see it in this photo). So that’s cool.

And it only has 695 pieces.

Wait. Seriously? OK. So get your act together Kathryn, because you’re gone for a week in April. Counting this coming week, that gives you 5 weeks. Dammit. OK. I got this. One of those weeks is Spring Break, so I can put in some serious hours. Don’t think about school and grading…you’ll figure that shit out. You always do. Sleep? You suck at it anyway. I don’t even know why you worry about that.

I did just realize I forgot to schedule the machine in for cleaning/adjustment, so I scheduled that. Right now. In the middle of writing this post. I’ll be done with this quilt, but I’ll still be in the pre-quilting stages of the next one. So that’s awesome.

OK. Get a grip. Make a post-it note list. You know you love those. Maybe eat something and take a shower. And at least one more cup of tea.

Damn mockingbird is still keeping me up at night…a reader suggested I look at Failure to Launch…which I have not seen…but maybe I should…

I guess the difference between me and her is that I’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird…I don’t really want to kill it…I just want it to shut up.

*Soundgarden, Black Hole Sun

Words Make My Mouth Exercise*

So I was right. I got no real art stuff done yesterday, except that’s not true. Because sometimes the business of being an artist is what we do. So I sewed two labels on two quilts…

Really exciting stuff. Actually, the really exciting part was trying to find the three quilts that need shipping in the huge pile that’s currently on my daughter’s bed, because I can’t handle my organization system any more, and I really need to tear apart my closet and build something, perhaps before she comes home in May, or maybe she’ll get that internship and I’ll be really sad she’s not coming home, but I won’t have to move all those quilts.

It’s just hard to know what to feel in that situation.

I got one of the quilts packed up for shipping…I’m hoping for the other two tonight.

They need ironing and slats and crap that probably means a trip to Home Depot after school. I’m so glad I think all this shit through (better put that on my calendar or I will totally forget).

Um. What did I do? Oh yeah. I added green grass to the right of the tree…straight stitches with some long lazy daisies interspersed.

And some more of this while hanging out and watching episodes of Walking Dead. I need to do the two eyeballs, the leaf parts and the center of the flower. Then it can get the embroidery done (well, on the left side) and I can retire that packet of papers that I’m currently carrying around in the official bag of shit to be embroidered.

THAT’S why I like to do them in order…so I can take that wad of papers and threads out and put them somewhere organized and only have two or so months in my bag. Right now it’s three? I think? Yeah. I’m stitching on February at the moment…the sheep? That was February. I can’t remember if I started another one? No. I was trying to do this one next. Pretty sure. Yeah. Because the next February one is two blocks in one. Anyway, my brain likes things to work in certain ways, very organized (yeah that right brain/left brain stuff is kind of a crock when you look at mine…and many others). I try to help it with that.

This morning’s sky was beautiful…for just a moment. I used to have a long morning commute to the east…it was a pain in the ass, but the skies were often the best part of my day. I do miss those. I don’t miss the 5 AM wakeup call. I’m really not a morning person.

I need to go to the gym today and pack up the other two quilts. I also want to start stitching down, but that might be too much…we’ll see. I’m still adjusting to the time change…finding it hard to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

I did start researching alternative artists…I started with women, but am realizing that some are more gender fluid than that…which I guess is part of why we didn’t get to study them in school. I think I’ve mentioned before that my art history portion of my degree was based on Janson’s History of Art, which didn’t add female artists until I think 1986. My female art history professor tried to supplement (before the internet) with stuff she’d found, and I obviously did some research on my own as a kid and a college student, but it was hard to find a lot of information in the pre-internet age. So I have a list of over 200 female or other genders to research.

I started with Toyen, a Czechoslovakian transgender artist originally born as Marie Čermínová. She logically found being male in the art world was beneficial, certainly being born in 1902 and living until 1980…it unfortunately makes sense. I wish I had time to finish this post right now and add her stuff, but I have to be at work and the puppy is being an asshole and refusing to come in the house. So I have to go get him…in the bushes. I’m looking forward to this about as much as I would to an enema.

*Violent Femmes, Add It Up

Take Only What You Need from It*

I really enjoyed coming home from school and sitting on the deck in the waning sunshine, the day still a bit warm, but starting to cool off with spring night temperatures. I probably got bit by some overachieving mosquito or seven, but it was worth it to just sit…only 30 or 40 minutes maybe, but better than most days, when it’s zero.

Of course, part of why I had time to do that was because Calli is injured, so I didn’t walk the dogs today. Calli was convinced I should throw that stick for her. Many days I do, but she’s still limping. I tried to explain that to her, but it didn’t go down well.

So I had started this drawing a couple of weeks ago. It’s still not going where I want, but since I’m not sure where I want it to go, it was OK to just draw shit.

Honestly, sometimes it’s OK just to wiggle the pen across the paper in a drawing motion.

I find myself drawing less than I used to…not enough time to just sit and do that. Life was supposed to get less busy with the kids gone, but it hasn’t really. I’m sure that’s my fault. I’m hoping next year is better, after we have most of our science curriculum set. We’ll see.

I did come home to a jury summons. I haven’t gotten one of those since the kids were little. And they picked not only Spring Break, but the week I’m planning on taking the first vacation I’ve tried to take for more than two days since oh maybe 2013. So yeah. I postponed it to summer…AND moved it out of downtown, so I wouldn’t have to deal with traffic and hellish parking.

Pretty sure they’ll kick me right off the premises pretty quickly. Maybe I should bring up the missing penis debacle.

I did the buttonhole stitch wheels in blue. There’s gonna be color in between them too…I left room for that.

And then while waiting for an episode to end, I stitched more wool down…with a puppy.

This is pretty relaxing as well.

I didn’t grade last night. We spent about 2 hours after work trying to spend some money we were given for science, more than we’ve ever seen. We wanted to be sure we did it well. I felt like I had worked enough hours yesterday.

Then I finally went in to iron…only the heads left. I always iron the eyes separately and then place them on the face…more likely to get the expression right.

Crooked eyes can really screw up the faces.

Yeah. Those eyeballs just floating around.

Heads done.

At this point, it was midnight. Of course, I should have stopped there and gone to bed and finished it tonight. Er. Um. I didn’t. I kept going.

So now she’s all ironed down and ready to go.

She’s got some batik running blue issues, but I can fix that. You’d think I’d remember to rewash dark blue batik when I use it as a background…but no. After 25 years, I still just go with it. It’s fine…I’ve dealt with it before.

Anyway, tonight I need to put labels on two quilts shipping to a show and pack those up and another one to ship out this week…so I might not have time to start the stitch down. I don’t expect it to take long though. I’m hoping it will be easier than it was on the last quilt…the tension was a bitch last time.

Anyway. Progress. Meanwhile, both kids are socked into blizzards and school is closed for the day. Actually, Boston hasn’t checked in…I know her school is closed, but not whether they got the snow they were supposed to…but Ithaca just closed. And Cornell rarely closes. Meanwhile, we’re slated to hit 90 degrees today. Wait. Boston (excuse me, Waltham) has reported “quite snowy”. And it’s gotta be a blizzard for Cornell to close.

OK. Well. School. Yeah. No blizzards here.

*MGMT, Kids

Oh Mother, Tell Your Children*

I realize it hasn’t been very long since I last wrote…although I walked a dog (I think I did that before I wrote last night, because he was being very demanding and I figured he needed it…as did I. I often need a walk.).

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I stuck to the streets this time, because I didn’t have much time before sunset and I only had the one dog…and he’s short. Long grass causes issues. It gets stuck in his badly designed fur and turns him green and grassy. Anyway. I walked him past the old chicken farm property, which still hasn’t been turned into the tract homes they said it would be (and I’m OK with that)…

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Lots of wildflowers here…did not venture to Anza Borrego this weekend (although I wish I could over the week)…this is a different one, one I don’t remember seeing before.

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These are just weird. Nature is so full of weird.

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After 3 miles plus (and whatever my ex did to try to tire him out), he finally settled.

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It takes a lot to tire that beast out. I graded for a while…it needed to be done, because there’s a pile waiting for me at work as well. It’s never-ending.

I did the purple butterfly wings…they’re actually chain stitches that chain off of each other.

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And then, because I was trying to finish watching an episode of something, I found block 3 (which is not block 3, by the way, but block 4, and block 4 is actually block 19 or something. Crazy numbering), which is sewn to block 5, and then started sewing down the stuff on block 5, which is way way way down on the embroidery pile.

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I only sewed until the episode was over. Plus I need to find the other three colors of wool. They’re not where they belong. It’s OK. There’s a box. I know they’re in the box.

Then I wandered in here and ironed a cat…

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Hard to see on the Tyvek…but it will show up fine on the dark background.

Then did the other arm and the stuff floating around it…

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And the teacup on her leg. And We Won’t.

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Because (a) everyone can balance a teacup on their thigh in this position, and (b) We Won’t.

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What’s left? Three heads. And one speech bubble. The time change screwed me over. Not only did I have to try to go to bed an hour earlier (a rampant failure on my part to actually fall asleep), but I had to be up early for a parent meeting today. When I signed up for it back in January or whenever it was, I didn’t know it was the Monday after Daylight Savings. Or that there would be multiple disturbances in the night (coyotes AND raccoons…a double dog-barking whammy). Anyway. This will be a rough week…it always is. But hopefully I’ll get those heads done tonight and have this thing fully ironed down before I try to go to bed at an unnatural time yet again.

*The Animals, House of the Rising Sun

Time Will Prove Everything*

Well apparently every online service I’m using has switched up its format in the last 36 hours…or less. I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. In the case of WordPress, everything that was over here is now over there. It’s OK. I got this.

I meant to write yesterday, but I lost time to taxes. And no, they’re not done. Almost. Well, if by almost, I mean I’ve finished the hour or so it will take me to track down all my teacher expenses. So yeah. TurboTax wants me to file in 4 days, so they should come here and find all those expenses for me. I’ve found all the others.

Meanwhile, doing taxes takes away from very important artmaking time. I think I did a whopping 25 minutes of ironing yesterday and zero so far today (aiming for after dinner, I think). So yeah…I ironed a spool, an embroidery hoop, and a pair of scissors. That’s it.

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Still have the other arm and the stuff floating around that hand, plus the three heads, a cat and a teacup. Huh. That’s actually not a small number of pieces. I’m a gonna say I probably won’t be done tonight. Just guessing. Because it’s almost 7 PM and I’m not cooking dinner, because I’m not hungry, because it’s not really 7 in my head, so everything’s gonna run kinda late.

Calli has no break. But signs of arthritis. Poor baby.

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So she’s off walk duty for a while. Which doesn’t make her happy.

Gaming on Friday…I’m still stitching. It keeps me awake…I need multiple inputs. It’s interesting though that when I’m really tired, creating shit keeps me awake. So it IS my fault that I stay up late.

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I got a good chunk done Friday night…

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And then came home and tried to persuade the puppy to come inside instead of trying to chase possums or bunnies, because I was hearing big animals up in the bushes and he wasn’t…so I wasn’t leaving him out there alone with the coyotes.

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I did three nights’ worth on this…let’s see if I can remember what I did. I did a light blue bullion and fly stitch above the orange lazy daisies I did last week. Then I added a green fly stitch, but there was still green thread left, so I filled in with a chained fly stitch below the tree roots. And then I did a satin stitch in columns below the orange lazy daisies. It looks kind of like a wall. Maybe.

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Back to filling in the spaces.

Kitten during tax time…needing entertainment…

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Last night, I finished this block, Block 4 of Sue Spargo’s Folk Tails.

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It’s really bugging me that I haven’t done Block 3…but to work on the embroidery, I have to sew on the wool pieces that are on the block that’s sewn to it…like block 15 or something, I think. I may do some of that first…just a bit a day, to get me onto the next one. It bugs me to NOT do it in order. Left brain/right brain crap. I wanna be really creative and all, but only in a certain order. I’m like that with my own stuff too…I like to iron all the pieces down in order. It bugs me inordinately if I’m ironing stuff out of order.

Here’s the three completed blocks…

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I don’t think they actually go together like this.

So my plan for the week…finish ironing the current quilt down and get it stitched down and sandwiched…then start quilting by the weekend. Seriously, none of that should take very long. By the end of the week, I’ll know whether I should be making another bathtub quilt or something else. Because time is flying past me. As always. This week is less meeting-heavy, so it should be good for dog walking (well the little dog, anyway) and going to the gym, but also for artmaking. I’m hoping. Let’s not think about the grading (again. as usual.). The left eye tried to twitch this morning and then quit. So that’s a good thing. But right now? I probably need to make dinner (ugh). Because my leftovers are my lunches…so that would be a good thing to have done before tomorrow morning.

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*The Smiths, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (OK, this isn’t actually a quote from the song, but from one of the live recordings when Morrissey proclaims this post-song…2004 apparently).

The Soul within Will Tell No Lies*

I’ve just spent 10 minutes I don’t have trying to find my small sketchbook. I know it’s in here somewhere, because I used it less than a month ago or maybe exactly a month ago, yes, that’s what it was, and I’m the only one who lives here, so it IS wherever I put it last. That’s frustrating. It must be nice to at least mentally blame it on someone else in the house who possibly moved it or at least doesn’t remember NOT moving it, or in the boychild’s case, remembers where I left it and can tell me, thus turning it into a win.

I’m sure it’s somewhere logical, at least logical to me at the moment when I returned and photographed the three drawings I did in it at the last staff meeting, because that’s why I need it. I’m already up early for a parent meeting and then I have to sit through two more hours when I am at my tiredest. Yeah. Need drawing for that. There’s no freakin’ way.

The left eyelid is back to twitching. I know at least part of it is due to not enough sleep the last two nights, stress waking me up or some noise or some barky puppy. Last night, I was trying to finish reading the stuff for today’s staff meeting. It still seems vague and undefined. I’m sure that will all be solved by the meeting (insert rolling eyes here). One teacher called it dense. It’s repetitive, actually, and vague. I need more specifics. Presumably those are in later chapters. At the rate we’re reading, we’ll get to that in 2020.

I did manage to get a few things done yesterday, even though work sucked up some time…sending out the weekly parent email for the whole grade, plus warmups for the week, and trying to make a rubric that’s not stupid for these projects the kids are supposed to be completing this week. Behold the clusterfuck! is what I think I’ll be saying on Friday.

I started by finishing the ironing on the newest quilt…only 64 pieces, because it’s tiny…but finally more color.

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There’s all the pieces…mostly tiny, really. And not a lot of them.

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My parents gifted me this book by local author Christen Brown, as an assist on the year of stitches.

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I forgot to photograph what I did on this guy Saturday night…more bullions and the start of some chain stitching…

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And then this one, 60 days or so in…added more leaves. There’s more! I did use a stitch from the book…a lazy daisy with a tiny bullion knot on the anchor stitch.

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Puppy was curled up next to me but got tired of my moving around and so he pretended to be a cat.

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There’s my regular seating corner. The quilt ready to be cut out (I had been cutting until I remembered I had to read about 20 pages in a book for the meeting today), a puppy asleep, a cat mostly not asleep behind my head.

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A random dog toy.

So I didn’t get much cut out because of that book. I was trying to read and watch TV and focus on whatever and it was largely ineffective. It didn’t help that it was after 11 PM. Oh well. He (the principal) can’t expect much the weekend we were all working on grades. And I can’t expect much to be cut out. Tonight I’ll do better…

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I keep thinking I should solidify my schedule on this one, especially if I need to get another one done after it. It’s March 6…I should be able to get this cut out and start ironing this week, maybe get the ironing done over the weekend (remembering that I have to do taxes and probably grade some shit). Then iron it down to the background by the 13th, and do stitch down that week. Quilting the week of the 19th? Be done by the 25th…that’s late though, if I’m really going to get the next one done. Huh. Well. I should pull the next one out. I have to make a decision about making another political one or making one for the show in July, which is fully dependent on a show I entered that notifies March 15. OK. Well no decision until I have that notification. If it’s a reject, definitely do the next bathtub. If they take one? I’ll have to make an executive decision. If they take both? Do the political one. The one that’s not drawn. That might make the decision right there, if it doesn’t get drawn before the decision has to be made.

At least I can see it all in my head now. I needed the space to talk it through. Reasons why I have a blog…it’s not for you…it’s for me. This month. Sheesh. And I lose a week in April…for a good cause though, my mental health.

*Nightmares on Wax, You Wish (there was no actual singing in the version I was listening to…)

Am I Already That Gone*

Field trips…usually I like them. I suspect some of the annoyance this time was my incoming mood. But whatever. I liked the movie…this ice chest frightened me. I think it weighed 100 pounds, all ham sandwiches. And the seatbelt wouldn’t fit on it. And every time the bus driver took a turn, it would shift ominously toward me. Death by ice chest.

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We arrived safely…my upwards sky view of the Fleet Science Center…

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This is when my group of kids started to realize I was one of their stranger chaperones. Whatever.

I’m posting this for Julie…because it’s a bike. With fish cutouts. That were used (?) to print the fabric. Except I can’t figure out how they did such tight turns in the middle. And because I was trying to follow and keep track of 10 diverse individuals in the museum, I couldn’t even find the card to read it…

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Same with the Sherlock exhibit. I went through twice, but so totally didn’t have the brainpower to figure out the mystery.

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But I took selfies with the props.

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Which makes me kinda like a middle schooler. No attention span, but damn, I got a selfie. I dare you to solve that mystery while you’re trying to keep track of 10 12-year-olds.

This was cool…it was at the start of the Sherlock mystery.

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I wish I could say I’m gonna go back and figure it out, but I think the Fleet just makes me think of school field trips and I’ve got PTSD on that right now.

This is what happens when you send photos/video of Simba to the girlchild right now…

She misses him. She can have him at the moment, because when you have a lot of work to do, he’s an annoying butthead.

So I stared at this a lot last night. I did start drinking at some point. It’s OK…by then, I was watching videos the kids had made and was laughing.

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Maybe that was the wine. Fuck. But you know if you’ve never been a teacher or lived with one, you just have no fucking idea what it’s like. I stress over my job and the kids and the time it takes constantly, and there’s no easy solution to any of it. And this year has been so hard with all the planning. I’m done. But I can’t be. Because I’m a responsible adult. No really, I am.

I’ll be staring at that screen for about another hour or two this morning, and then I’m done. Seriously. For Trimester 2. There is still another trimester. Sigh.

For those of you who were worried that I had lost Block 3 of the Folk Tails quilt…I was pretty sure it was sewn to another block…and it was. There it is…something about elephants needs to be sewn down.

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For a while, I was trying to get all the wool bits sewn down first and then I thought I’d do the embroidery, but at some point, the embroidery needs to be done before you can sew stuff together, so I started doing that. So freakin’ organized. Anyway. I’ll figure it out.

I did two nights’ worth of stitching on the tree…it’s looking better with more variety of color and stitch types. I added a double fly stitch and more lazy daisies, but in a different color.

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I’m glad I picked black for a background. It’s nice…although I can’t use any really dark colors. Pros and cons. Probably this is why I usually pick dark backgrounds for my quilts…I like the color pop.

Then I headed in to the studio to cut more fabrics, another hour and a half in. I did the heads and some of the hair. It doesn’t seem like much…

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And there’s still not a lot of color in this piece, besides the flesh. There will be more. I’m hoping to finish the rest this afternoon. There’s not a lot left…

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But I have to finish grades first, so they’re out of my hair. I still have kids trying to turn in late work. This morning. Nope. NOPE. Gradebook is closed. Respect my time. I have a hard enough time doing that myself.

And then art…because I’m tired of grinding my teeth and having my eyelid twitch. Gimme a break.

*Sarah McLachlan, Sweet Surrender