I wonder how hard this is, trying to write on the weight machines at the gym? The answer? I can do it, but I kinda have to separate my brain so that one part can count while the rest is trying to write. Odds of my getting dementia due to not using my brain? Very low. Odds of my going insane due to over-multitasking? Very high. Odds of my counting to 10 wrong? Inevitable. Oh well.
I’m juggling things. Badly. Or well. Depends on what angle you’re at.
An amazing thing happened yesterday though: I finally cleared the kitchen table of the multiple landslides of accumulated crap from 7 months of receipts, books, paper, and oh-so-many pens and paper clips. As we go more online, I might have to make art out of my multitudes of paper clips.
I spent three hours in the afternoon creating things in a coffee shop. Two knitters showed up later…
Here’s how far I got yesterday…almost done!
I also copyedited a bit…more of that today. More cleaning today too.
And then I ironed. I did get almost three hours in, like I wanted, but I stayed up way too late. Damn dogs and cats won’t sleep in.
Picking lots of browns for trees and dirt and sand…
Then figuring out what goes where…4 levels of hills, 4 levels of trees on hills, followed by 4 levels of gray concrete and yellow road markings. And then Fire!
That’s about 250 pieces ironed. Since I misnumbered so heinously, I think I have 700 to go. Ok. A goal.
My days are reading about trauma-informed schools, making art about good and evil, house dust and detritus, and the orange baby’s stupid words.
I’m on the elliptical now. Way easier to write here…
OK, as we get closer to August and the start of the new school year, I am panicking more and more. I’m trying not to, but it just happens…like a tsunami after an earthquake. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve been going to all these teacher conferences this summer…it’s been hard to get my brain off school. Plus I’m currently listening to a recording that’s telling me I need to get up an hour earlier and go to school at 7 AM. Oh yeah. No. Yesterday was massively ineffective in terms of my to-do list…although I did get some stuff done. Not enough. Too much down time. Now that down time was exercise and eating food, plus medical crap, and then recovering from that. I don’t do well with blood sugar crashes, and I’m not doing a good job of monitoring all that right now.
But today is still July and I should stop the panic.
Here’s a calming picture of the winery tour…they took photos of us and just posted them yesterday…
It was a warm day.
So my pool guy just took a leave of absence for a family emergency (his words), but no insight as to how long…just a phone number for referrals. I used to take care of the pool myself…but it’s a pain in the butt and a difficult chemical pool anyway, so I hired someone. He’s not the best, but he’s been doing it a while. Last night, I went out there and cleared out a bunch of pine needles (need to do it again today), and found these feathers…
Parrots? Not sure.
I worked on this a little bit…I’ll be doing more of it later today…
I finally pulled the 7 projects I picked at the beginning of the year to work on…I’ve been writing them in my calendar every week and then not working on any of them. Seven months seems long enough to do that. Maybe once I finish the embroidery on this and the last pattern, I’ll be able to focus on those more, but I’m not sure one a day is the most efficient way to do it. We’ll see.
After that, I headed into the studio to start ironing. What’s my plan? Well here’s the first 100 pieces.
It should take me about 10 hours to iron all these down, maybe more. Here’s the set up. I did put all the loose fabrics away before I started. I hang the drawing up so I can see it.
The ironing board is right in the center of the room…Kitten is watching Outlander.
She also likes The Rook…
Ocean waves…
I didn’t get very far. But it’s a start…
My goal is 3 hours today…maybe 4. Plus copyediting. Then more tomorrow…hopefully done ironing by Friday night. That’s my goal. Plus copyediting. I will keep saying that.
This is interesting. I certainly feel that way. I wonder if I can stick a hike in somewhere. Sigh. Not sure where.
Or when. OK, for now, I need to consider lunch. I need to check my journal for the to-do list. I need to copyedit for a while. That’s a lot for the next 45 minutes (ha!).
In summer, I lose routine. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, with school routines being so much a part of daily life. It’s good to have some freeform days where you don’t know exactly what minute it is and how many more minutes until you’re allowed to pee. It’s OK to let time just sort of wander…well, unless you have appointments, in which case, you should have some idea of time. I’m not in that freeform place yet. I had a quilt to be picked up in a 2-hour time frame. I had an eye doctor appointment at a specific time. My rug shampoo machine needs to be back by a certain time or I’ll get charged more. So time is a little fucked at the moment. It’s better than when I’m in school, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I am efficient. In fact, I’m really not. My calendar is chock full of things I’m supposed to be doing, and I keep stopping to finish reading my book. Or resize pictures. Or pee a dog. Or heat up a cup of tea…lots of that.
Late at night, I finally get some space in my head and I just sit and read or think about what I’m drawing next or how to finish something. Or how to be more efficient. I’m using my free time, my brain space, to think about how to be more efficient. And then I go to bed too late and get up too early and feel tired all day. Not ideal. Working on that.
It’s OK. This is where I am right now. I have about 17 school things clamoring to be done as well, as a result of our two days of planning, and I’m afraid I’ll forget about them if I don’t do them soon. School brain…SHHHHH.
The dogs are both recovering well…
Although he got a donut (instead of a cone) because he was chewing on the leg that had the IV. I took it off last night…we’re watching the leg for now. The other one hasn’t tried to lick anything, but she’s definitely got a cone on. Because stitches. So there’s that.
Yesterday was crazy chaos of working, shopping, then renting a rug shampoo thing and cleaning carpets that might never have been cleaned. The plus is the big black spot in the hallway is now gone. That makes me happy. My carpet is still from the 1980s and falling apart, but it’s clean, dammit. I kept putting it off because I thought I’d be replacing it, but I can’t deal with that right now…so clean is better.
I did do some of this after dinner…
It’s not fast. I worry that I will run out of thread on these…the more complicated ones. So I’m watching that pretty closely. If someone buys a kit, I don’t want them to run out of a color if they want it to look like my sample.
Then I ironed eventually…all I had left was the face, and then to iron it to the background…
Tonight I will start the stitchdown, which shouldn’t take long…and then I can sandwich and pinbaste tomorrow, hopefully. I do have other stuff going on tomorrow, like half the country (maybe more). I will have no tanks and nothing I do will take away money from the National Parks, though, so you don’t have to hate me for it.
This Desert Daughter is part of a series…Earth Daughter was the first one. I want to draw a bunch for different ecosystems. We’ll see how long that takes me…
These works below were up in the In Between Gallery space that exists in Bread & Salt between the Athenaeum Art Center gallery space and the Print Studio that is also there. I didn’t see anyone’s name attached to them…and I just spent ten minutes on both websites and Facebook trying to find any information. If you figure out who the artist is, please tell me. I’m going to keep trying to figure it out.
They look like paper collages or prints that then have stitching over them…
They’re not straight, which I also like…
I really want to be doing some different stuff this summer. Maybe this is a place to start? Draw on fabric, add fabric or paper, then just stitch? I could maybe do that.
Anyway…I love seeing new things and thinking about how they affect my work. Or how I look at my work.
OK, on to today, which is more than half over, and I need to get going on the next set of tasks…outta here!
Ah, the morning started out with everyone doing their thing and taking their meds and all was good until I checked email. Sigh. Some people. Frustrate the crap out of me. And I need to not get angry at or irritated with them, and just think, hey, do I ever pull that negative crap? So knock it off. To me. I can’t control them. I can just thank them over and over again for something that should have been relatively simple to manage. In fact, I’ve managed most of it. I’ve done the thing I’m asking them to do, and it’s not as big of a deal as they’re making it out to be. But that’s them. (I think I’m going to have to go meditate this one out.).
Speaking of meditation, I’m always trying to get back to the daily practice. Hell, I’m trying to get back to the daily practice of a lot of things, and failing miserably this summer…but I got this the other night…
Totally why I meditate, sure, but look at the minutes I’ve meditated…and that’s just with this app. That doesn’t count the shit I do in my head on a regular basis. That’s almost 106 hours…that doesn’t sound as impressive. Neither does 4 1/2 days. I’ve spent 4 1/2 days of my life meditating. Well. Anyway. ‘Tis the summer of meditation apparently. When I remember.
In good news, this quilt, Not Less Than, is going to Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL, for the 22nd International Open, from August 9-31.
And I finally washed and photographed this piece, the last of the first 6 Earth Mothers…
You can find a pattern or kit for her on the Global Artisans page. I’m currently working on Earth Mother number 7. I need to draw 5 more.
See the hawk? He was loud.
That’s actually my neighbors tree. But he was loud. Did I mention loud?
So I started ironing the current quilt together on Sunday night. Night time seems made for ironing when it’s warm out.
I am recording some of this for my Patreon in July. If you think you’d like to watch me work, then sign up for the Patreon. For only $2 a month, you could see me twice a month.
I actually drew this a few years ago, so even though I recently traveled to all these rock monuments, this had already been done. And I made up those rocks in the drawing. I didn’t make up the plants. That’s a Joshua tree on her arm.
And those cacti on her breast are gonna need some embroidered spikes. Lots of them.
Kitten is continuing in the tradition of all cats in here by depositing her fur in this, the most hairy of all the drawers, the big green drawer. It’s not the only green drawer, but it is the biggest.
I’m constantly having to dehair fabric.
This is how far I got Sunday night, staying up way too late. There’s a rattlesnake and more cactus. Some of it will look much better with outlining.
I have Wonder Under release paper tucked under the body in three different locations because stuff needs to go behind the body. It only took me 25 years to realize that was an effective option. Duh.
Yesterday morning…this is not really love. It is a pushy cat and a fairly tolerant dog.
He looks nervous.
He should be. We took both dogs to the vet yesterday. The little one needed a tooth cleaning, and apparently two extractions. No one told me the little asshole’s breed was prone to teeth issues. And the big one is lumpy. She had two lumps removed.
And another biopsied last week. It’s benign. She’s just lumpy. All of us old folks get lumpy. With her cone on, she can’t reach her food bowl. So we improvised…
After dropping the dogs at the vet, my co-teacher and I covered this table with crap and worked for 6 1/2 hours on curriculum planning…
Six of them were paid. We’re going back for three more today, unpaid. Because it needs to be done. Welcome to the world of a teacher. After picking up the dogs, I ironed some more…this is pretty…
It will look better with outlining…
That cactus doesn’t really belong on her face…I just needed to iron it separately before putting it on the piece. There’s also a scorpion. All better with outlining.
I kind of like the cactus in her face actually.
Ah no, it belongs on her shoulder. I also did the clouds, rain, and lightning, although the clouds are hard to see without the dark background. All that’s left is the face.
I stayed up too late again, and I need to leave in 6 minutes. I think. I should brush my teeth and find my copy of The Martian. And City of Ember. Plus find my computer. And get out of here.
Hopefully I’ll finish ironing tonight, then stitch down tomorrow, pinbaste? Quilting? Almost done. Shit. I haven’t drawn the next one yet. Aargh. Don’t even ask me about my to-do list.
Strangely I felt yesterday like the cold had wandered off, but today, it is back and in my face. More specifically, my nose. My sinuses. My head. I think I will remember to take the cold medicines with me today to the design conference. I’m still processing Day 1 of conference. I wonder where everyone sits on the spectrum of How Do We Fix Schools? I’m definitely down at the anarchy end. I don’t have a solution in mind. I just know in my mind that the whole system needs to be blown up and redesigned. This committee I’m on has some interesting people on it…some people I think were required to be on it. Some I wonder…but that’s a different conversation. Here’s the poster my table designed and I drew…
Like I said, there’s a place to start. I want more community in there. I want more about the flexibility…and that’s the hard part to design.
It does mean I’m up early again today for Day 2, but yesterday was good…I came home exhausted, but managed to finish ironing all the pieces down on fabric for this quilt…it took 9 1/2 hours total…so many of my current quilts have rainbows in them.
Oh yeah, before I did that, I finished editing the Patreon drawing for June and posted it to my small community of supporters. My goal eventually is to put all these drawings into a coloring book, a nice one with heavy pages, heavy enough for pens! I love pens. I don’t really color, but I like the idea of coloring. I guess I color with my quilts. I’m hoping to build the Patreon community enough so that I can fund the coloring book with it. Then give those members a hefty discount…
I used a whopping 120 colors of fabric in this little quilt…
Usually the smaller the quilt, the fewer the fabrics, but all the different variations of greens I needed…and browns…hyped the numbers up I guess. Those two middle boxes are all green and brown. I’m hoping it looks good. It’s hard to see it in my head sometimes.
Then I started cutting them out…I got a pretty solid start.
Stuff that’s cut out on the top left, stuff to go on the top right, and the inevitable weird pile of trimmings that I save until the quilt is done…just in case I need a tiny piece of something. I actually spent about 3 1/2 hours doing artwork yesterday, despite being at “work” all day, because I didn’t have to come home and process anything. I didn’t have to grade or plan or answer emails related to work.
That’s good. That’s what I’m aiming for next year…at least some similar plan. Less time at home doing schoolwork. More time making art.
OK, so today we are back to the improv (yeah, it’s weird…just go with it) and hopefully some more design talk and thought. Then home to walk the dogs and cut more things out. Maybe also some planting, although that can wait until tomorrow I think. I’ve been slowly dealing with art group stuff as well…posting things and organizing photos. I have a show to enter, I need to send my kid some money for July, and I need to prep the next blogpost for one group I help manage online. I didn’t look at my to-do list last night. I’ll do that tonight as well. Or maybe I’ll take it with me for down time at this conference. We’ll see. I do need more tea…that’s for sure.
I had two weekday mornings to sleep in, and now I’m up early again. Ah school. Yes. I’m coming. Apparently parking will be an issue, so I’m debating getting a Lyft…what are the odds that they can find my house? Hmmm. Who knows.
I remember this about summer…everything takes a lot longer than you think it will. Here’s the pluses: I have everything I need to fix the sink area. I also learned how to use a tile saw. I hate saws. They scare the crap out of me. I’m pretty convinced I’m going to cut off my hand every time I use one. But I did it anyway. Progress! Home Depot twice in one day! Now that’s summer. Some day I’ll find the money, time, and energy to do the carpet in the rest of the house…that’ll be a crazy summer. Or remodel the kitchen! Need a lottery ticket on that one.
Anyway, I did manage some artsy stuff as well. I think I spent close to 5 hours writing a blogpost about the art and poetry exhibit one of my art groups, Feminist Image Group (FIG), had back in December. Precisely why did I take so long to even start it? Because I knew it would take a long time. You can read it here. There’s finding all the photos and resizing them and finding all the titles and artist names, but then also checking for permissions on the poems and then copying, reformatting, and in some cases retyping those. But it’s posted! Now I can move on to the more recent show. I also posted a quick thing to the other art group whose blog I manage, California Fibers. We had our website professionally redone and I’ve never used Squarespace before. It seemed fairly straightforward. All that stuff takes time. I do it because it matters; it makes those groups better.
My next mental task (despite the work I’ll be doing today) is to figure out what I can do for the refugee problem here in the US…with kids being locked up with no essentials for days, weeks, months on end. I don’t have a lot of spare money. I might have airline miles. I feel like being in San Diego, close to the border, there must be something else I can do besides Paypal. But I don’t know what it is. I can’t even formulate a drawing in my head…and drawings don’t save kids’ lives. Or adults for that matter. It’s true I didn’t vote for this president…and the people who are in office who I did vote for, they are pretty vocal. They need to be more so. Sometime today I’m going to figure out how I can contact those people and do so. In between smart-designing middle schools. Or whatever I’m doing today. The NPR news report I heard yesterday about the conditions in the facilities where they are holding children was disgusting. This is not the America I want to live in. There is no excuse for this. No wishy washy lawyer language that makes it OK.
With that in my heart this morning, I’ll be off to work to figure out how to teach kids. Refugees some of them.
I did some sewing stuff yesterday…I just realized that I missed the leaves on the bottom right. Duh.
That baobab fruit was in the way.
I traced this and it’s in my bag for the conference. I don’t like down time. I may not even pull it out, but at least I’ll have it. And a sketchbook.
Sitting for long periods of time sucks. Hopefully it will not be a lot of that. I need action. Not sitting.
I ironed for a little bit in the afternoon…
And then after dinner…all those fabrics for one succulent.
I had to stare at the drawing for a long time before I decided on hair color. Here’s everything I’ve ironed so far and a chaotic pile of all the fabrics.
I like to clean up before I start the next day…
It helps me see everything. I honestly don’t have much left…some clouds and rain, and the eyeballs. I think that’s about it. A rainbow. So I could easily be done tonight and starting on the trimming of the pieces.
My cold is still here, but barely. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I’ll have the energy to walk the dogs. I need to start exercising. I’m feeling blah. Heavy. Tired! Still. OK. Work, then political crap, then art. Or all three will merge. We’ll see.
Sheesh. What a morning. I’m efficient, but not efficient enough. Too many threads; not enough knots. What am I getting done? Some things. I filled a bunch of cracks in my driveway yesterday so they can seal it in a few weeks. I need to fill more, but need more sealant to do that (note: trip to Home Depot). The right eyelid is twitching again. It comes and goes. I’m trying to get enough sleep. I did better last night. I think that’s because the cold is getting better. Hard to sleep when you can’t breathe. I don’t know how many nights of 8 hours of sleep I will need to feel human again though…probably more than I can get in the next week. I will have to be up early tomorrow and Thursday, unfortunately.
Hey local SAQA members! We’re getting the group going again. I will be hopefully putting together a monthly meeting in the La Mesa/El Cajon area too…I want to meet once a month to just hang out and stitch stuff, and show what you’ve been working on. Nothing stressful or worklike. Just fun and hanging out. That’s my goal anyway.
What else did I do yesterday? I got a new chiropractor…my neck is still sore, but I think that’s my fault. Phone and computer and all. I spent a lot of time setting up stuff for a new blogpost for one of my art groups. It takes forever to find all the photos, resize them, find all the names of the artists and the artwork, and in this case, write names of poems etc. Some misunderstanding about Fair Use Laws…but I’m still working on that post. I have two more to do for that group and then I’m going to try to do the other group’s blog as well. Sometimes I hate all the stuff I take on for other groups, but I also know it benefits me in the long run. So I do it.
Sometimes it takes me a long time to get it done though. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for everything. This was my post-dinner, still-watching-American-Gods stitching…
Working on the tree. Nothing fancy here. I’m just doing this until I get my act together to start the next embroidery pattern sample. I picked threads and mocked this up…now I just need to transfer it to the fabric.
I’m doing this on a white fabric. I do love the black, but it’s a pain to transfer the pattern onto, and this one is complicated. I’ll transfer it later today and start embroidering hopefully tonight. I just realized I have no mock colors on the nipples, so I’ll have to figure that out. The pen colors aren’t particularly accurate either, but they’ll do to remind me of what I was thinking. I would do it differently if I could use more than 5 colors. I would use about 20 or so!
Kitten was blocking my access to the pink fabrics last night…
Speaking of colors! I was going to keep this quilt all in the muted range, and then my brain said, heck noes, you needz all the colors. So I went a little bright in her chest area.
It’ll be fine. There’s a lot of green and brown in this. Not sure what I’m going to do with her hair yet. That’s another large portion of the quilt.
OK, well I have plenty to do now…mostly filling in poems and sending emails and hoping people respond and then renting a tile saw and trying to figure out how to use it. Minor detail. I might even finish ironing sometime soon. Well. It’s taking me a long time. So maybe not today, but still soon. Ish.
Yesterday, or maybe Saturday, I filled in the big erasable calendar on the fridge for the next 6 weeks…you know, most of my summer break. It’s hairy. There’s a lot of stuff on there. Some of it is going to be really enjoyable, some it will be hard work, and some days there’s just one thing on there…like mammogram or dentist. Sigh. Then there’s the written lists I’ve made, for the week, for the month, for the whole summer. I’m not in the chill spot yet, where I feel like I can relax. I think I need about 5 more days of sleep to get there (um, wait, isn’t there a design conference in the middle of those 5 days of sleep? Oh yeah.). It’s OK. I’m better today than I was yesterday. I slept on the couch after going grocery shopping and then to an art opening I needed to go to. And then I slept in this morning. So I’m working on it. Listen to your body. That’s a drawing.
Drawing! I did some! Ah, I’ve missed it. There’s so many things in my head right now. I need to get them out and about on paper.
Saturday was long and exhausting…but I did stitch in the car in between events…
It’s OK. I wasn’t driving.
Saturday night was exhausting…we went to bed early, but I was fighting the nose snots and achiness of this cold, so I got up at 2 AM and read for an hour and took meds and then went back to bed and fought night sweats and hot flashes. Ugh. Blanket on. Blanket off. Fun stuff.
This is Satchemo. He wanted to be really close while I calendared the week.
I was on the phone with my mom for most of this. My cousin is sick. Really sick. Better since Saturday, apparently, but still…the only info I get is from mom. So I called. Also to confirm that they didn’t want my sick ass at their house for dinner (they didn’t).
I don’t drink beer, but someone in my house does. Say this 10 times fast. I can’t.
So after a nap and making dinner and getting the man to record some music for my first Patreon video for July (hey, this is cool…although I feel bad using his skills without paying him. But only a little.), I decided it was time to simplify the drawing I did a few weeks ago for the next embroidery pattern. I’m not really sure that it’s a LOT simpler…
Laughing at myself. I did reduce lines. I got rid of toes and fingernails. I still wish I could use more than 5 colors, but it’ll work. More Satchemo assistance. The original is on the right. The original (more complicated) version will be released to my Patreon community this week, so if you want to embroider that one, join in! You get a drawing a month for personal use at the $5/month level.
I wish I had more time to embroider some of these. I will need to do a sample of the one on the left. I scanned it last night and printed it out. I’m going to do this one on white fabric…but I need to pick threads first. Tonight maybe…
Sleepy puppy. He plays hard on Sunday mornings…
That’s an interesting stash of stuff on my coffee table. Why tape? I don’t know.
I took more meds and managed to come into the studio and pick all the flesh fabrics.
I was looking at the background fabrics and trying to decide what I wanted to do, and I kind of went for stuff that will blend a little bit with it. I might hate that later…but it’s done now. This fabric…is just gorgeous…
Hopefully I put them all in the right place.
Here’s what’s done so far…they aren’t in order, because I pulled flesh from the 100s through the 500s, so I have no idea how much more I need to do.
I just know the flesh is done and I started on the plants that are on her…not a lot of color yet.
Honestly, I’m going to stick to some desert/earth colors on this one. There will be blues and purples though. More on that later today. The only thing on my calendar is the chiropractor and filling asphalt cracks, plus maybe a Home Depot trip for more asphalt stuff and the materials to fix the sink/counter/tile issue.
This morning…the boychild is a fur magnet…
I had all four animals in with me this morning. In my face, boisterously cleaning nether regions for one of them. Nice guys. Thanks.
Anyway, there’s art in the day…so that’s a plus. And hopefully continued recovery from this stupid cold. Being sick in summer sucks.
First of all, I would like to thank that hyper little guy RB who was sitting in the front of my classroom playing Uno and coughing all over the desk (I even moved away from him) for the oogy feeling in the back of my throat right now. Ah yes, the gift that keeps on giving…a student cold. Woo hoo! Thank you thank you. C’mon immune system…I fed you avocado and bok choy…do your thing! I know I’m still tired and running low, but you can’t make me be sick on top of all of that. I need recovery time…not something else from which to recover. Sigh. Head down on desk. Go take your vitamin C. Again.
So things are happening around here. Cleaning (a little) happened. My office got straightened up so I could iron in here. The kitchen table is slowly appearing. This space…this space, I have not touched. At all.
Really, I could just blame the cat. But it wasn’t her fault. I’m not sure how to organize some of the stuff over there. That’s part of the problem. I think I need to buy two frames and maybe some matboard. And some organizers (NOOO…I hear my son yelling that there is no need to buy MORE things. I should just throw some out. I did do some of that yesterday too.). Whatever. I am a messy person, but a mostly organized messy person. My studio is a prime example. Of course, I would love to have a studio two or three times this size, but I’ve seen the genetics, and my mom’s studio looks just like mine. Except bigger. With more organizers.
I am considering boxing up the crazy quilt stuff and opening up that space…but it’s largely inaccessible space…so that doesn’t necessarily help. I’ll think about it. Certainly the blues, greens, purples, and whites have expanded beyond the bins I have. This was my straightening up before the new quilt…found a place for the completed embroideries, put all the fabric away from the last quilt, swept the floor…
Now I’m ready to iron. I didn’t actually do any of that until around 10 PM.
We spent 2 hours at the vet…ugh…Simba needs his teeth cleaned and Calli has some huge lumps that need handling.
We’ll be back on July 1 for those things. Fun stuff.
After dinner, we (I) had finally decided to get STARZ so we could watch American Gods. And I love it. Totally worth it. After eating, I finished the house on the first September Folk Tails block, which has been sitting around for months.
I think I’m taking this with me to all the design conferences I have this summer…I can’t sit and listen to people talk for hours. Then again, the one next week has 3 hours a day of Improv. Um. OK. My social niceties will be challenged. I guess it’s a good thing I’m there, for the introvert insight. Like you’re killing your introverts with all your plans! You need to give them the space to learn and create in a comfortable way too. I think people forget that when they plan shit. Unless they are one.
So after all that and whatever else I was putzing around doing (I exercised), I laid out the first 100 Wonder Under pieces…picked a background (I always have a few)…you can see it in the back there.
And starting picking fabrics. Ah bliss…
Here’s where the stress relief is…right here. This is what I’ve been waiting for…
Dirt and rocks…
Yeah. That’s good. Strangely, the quilt my Patreon community picked has those red rocks of the desert that we spent all of Spring Break driving and hiking around, but this drawing is a couple of years old. I had Earth Daughter and wanted to do some different versions of it, and this is the next one, Desert Daughter. Next up? Body parts and cactus. All good. This won’t take long. Then I should draw Ocean or Mountain Daughter? Maybe.
Today is not the day it will happen though. I’m fully booked, I think. Maybe tonight? We’ll see. I might just collapse.
Speaking of the Patreon, I just posted a video on there of me ironing a tiny face. It’s the second video of the month, so almost all my patrons will be able to see it…for only $2 a month, you can see me ironing the most tiny eyeballs ever. The next video is already edited…it’s me drawing…which is kind of cool to watch, I think. That will release the first week of July or so. Next up I need to do my June drawing for the Patreon…looking forward to that in the next week.
Progress on all fronts! I finished grading one assignment (of the 3,000 I have left. Not really. It just feels that way). I made it to the post office after tutoring with 3 minutes to spare to mail the embroidered piece off to the buyer. I laid around on the couch feeling half dead (that’s the part that stayed up too late) for a while. I finished my book! For May’s book club meeting, which already happened and which I didn’t go to, and I really didn’t like the book, so there’s that. But It’s Done. I like done sometimes.
I forgot to say that Womanscape won an award at Form Not Function, the Inspired by Nature award given or funded by Juanita Yeager. I used to read her blog all the time…I was fascinated by her flower quilts. That was a million years ago, I think. I’m not as good at reading blogs any more. The piece was also featured in this article from Insider Louisville about the show…that’s it in the middle.
She looks good. I really like that a quilt about women’s rights won an Inspired by Nature award. It seems right to me.
Anyway, here’s an artsy photo of me getting ready to iron down the image of the current quilt onto the background. You should be able to see it sometime in July. I think. It may not even get in. I think it’s cool, but that’s just me.
I did get it ironed down and started stitching down last night. It’s not huge, so it shouldn’t take long. I’m hoping to get it fully stitched down tonight and then maybe get it pinbasted? We’ll see.
I’ve been having a hard time getting my brain to shut down late at night, so I’ve been trying to draw a little. This is for my Patreon…it’ll hopefully be scanned and emailed out to them tonight…
I may have to stare at it more and decide if it needs more. Well art brain will tell you it always needs more. But does it really?
After that, I think I’m going to put it up to the Patreon as to which smaller quilt I work on next…since I can’t decide and I have end-of-the-year brain. Maybe. I like to have control of things, so that might throw me. Or not. Delegate decisions! I should do more of that. Anyway, I have a bunch of drawings ready to go, so I think I’ll do that.
Awww. What a sweetheart. He was upset because the boychild bopped him for biting while the boychild was trying to pull those nasty twirly twigs out of his butt fur. This is his sad face. He got pets later, so he was fine.
OK, off to work…today is menstruation and sperm production. Oh yeah! And gender. It’s a fun day. Really. It is. Just tiring is all. It’s getting near to the end. That’s a good thing. I’m looking forward to some artmaking time. Seriously.
Kathy Nida 