Time Compression

So I just realized the silly app on my iPad tossed all these photos into the post in backward order. Sigh. No. I don’t have the patience to move them all. Seriously. Hmn. Wait, there might be a workaround…there is! Sigh. Yes, I’m on three different devices up here and none of them is the best for getting stuff where I need it to be. And one needs to be back in airplane mode before it deletes the book that I am reading…I only have 100 pages left to read, but it’s supposed to be due sometime tonight, and I won’t get all those pages read by then. I’m losing time, it seems. It’s always like that in the days before we go back to school. Time compresses strangely and disappears without notice.

So I wanted to iron the Wonder Under to fabric for the Project Paint piece before I came up the mountain, so I did. Here they are…

Hopefully I’ll get them cut out tonight. I also need to cut the other stuff out, but that’s going to take me longer I think.

I used all the fabrics from the last big quilt, except I added a few…these…

Nothing much…just needed to fill a space.

Here’s the pile from the last one…the fabrics I used are all on top of the boxes.

Plus random dog toy. I meant to leave for the mountains at around noon…well, it was almost 2 PM. Whatever.

I made it up before dark…ensconsed myself on the couch with the computer, and finished one of the hellish grading things I had created. Girlchild with puppy…also on couch.

It was pretty cold, 30 degrees, when I got here…a delightful 27 this morning. I don’t have clothes for this. It warmed up today, though. Mostly we are all sitting around reading or watching things. It’s the boychild’s birthday and he will be cooking…impressive. The sun is already dropping and I’ve gotten very little done. I’m in the middle of grading another assignment. I didn’t do a very good job in the middle week of getting crap done. Oh well. Being a teacher is a crazy thing sometimes. I can’t be a teacher every day.

I did cut some stuff out last night…not a lot…the grading sucked up my brain.

Plus we played Sorry. I lost. But not as bad as some people. Still a lot of cutting to do.

Still drawing. In space. With aliens.

It will maybe be hard to stop doing this? Or not? I’m not sure. I know you have to do something like 30 days in a row to make it a habit. Meditation too, right? Supposed to be doing that. Ugh. Can’t remember to do everything.

So today was some shopping, wherein mostly the boychild and I stood around and watched the other two buy things, but we realized most of the shoes in the Bass outlet store had names, like people names. So we went around and judged the hell out of that…this was the closest to mine (I’m not a Kathleen), and I was thoroughly offended that I was the bog standard loafer. Ugh.

Although I feel like I could be cheaper. Seriously. I don’t think I even wore these in the preppy high school era of the 80s when they were the thing. I think I had knock-offs for a while, but I mostly gave up on that stuff and went Kmart and thrift shop. Much more my style.

Anyway, back to grading after walking dogs, then cutting things up and another drawing tonight, plus some gaming probably. Maybe I’ll read some more too. Who knows?

Hold My Own and Drive*

The new year is creeping up on us. I like to look back at what I made in the year past and think about what I might make in the year future. I already have one quilt in progress that will be done in January (knock on wood), plus two in line behind it that don’t exist even in my head yet…well, the second one does, but only by the seat of its pants. I finished 11 quilts in 2018…one of which was a commission and two of which are tiny, so they don’t really count. Five of the 11 have been in exhibits, which isn’t bad, and I hope the rest will make it out into the world this year. Seven of them were made for specific exhibits in mind, and three of those got into the show they were supposed to be for, which is fine…I’m counting the one or two a year I make for Quilt National and Visions, and I never worry about their not getting in…they will get in somewhere. It’s really just about making a deadline to create a large and meaningful piece.

The one I’m working on now is meant for an exhibit, but can show anywhere. It wanders away from the large and political issues I’ve been working with this last year and goes into my head. Not necessarily a pretty place to be, but that’s what this piece is about and it’s why it had to be made.

The good news on that is that I’ve finished ironing all the pieces to fabric as of about 11:30 PM last night.

There’s a lot of cutting in my future. I’m going to guess about 17 hours of cutting. Realistically, could I be done before I go to Arrowhead next week? Probably not. I have a hike shoved in there and other stuff I need to work on as well. But I’ll get a good chunk of it done, finish it at the cabin, and come back January 3, ready to iron it together. Because then I go back to school and all hell breaks loose and I don’t have as much time to make art again. Ugh. So not ready. One week left. I saved up some of my work to do at the cabin, so no, I haven’t graded anything at all for two days, and barely touched an assignment the two days prior. Oh well. It happens to the best, most motivated of us.

I worked really hard to use as many different fabrics in this quilt as I could. Each head deserved their own vein and heart fabrics. Plus I got to go rooting through bins looking for different stuff. That was fun. Time-consuming, but fun. So this is the most I’ve ever used in a quilt, I think, because normally I try to reuse fabrics throughout the piece to unify it. I don’t need that for this quilt though. No unification needed.

Here’s what 230 fabrics looks like…

The box on the bottom right has all five runs of flesh, one for each figure. They’re all me. I range from pale to pink to purple. Legit. I left out the red I burn in the summer.

I binge-watched the tail end of Fearless and then Seven Seconds, which was troubling and hard to watch, but good. I think I’m going back to The Shield for the cutting stage. Different access to channels in the living room than in my office. I briefly toyed with Derry Girls last night too, which made me laugh. Might be a good plan to watch more of that.

Before I got to do any artmaking last night, I had about 17 errands. I keep saying 17, but of course it was fewer than that. It took 5 hours though, maybe more. This was JoAnns hell. I hate coming here, but there were sales on Wonder Under and batting, and I needed a lot of both. So I waited. And waited.

On all the people who can’t figure out what they need before they get up to the cutting tables, even though they’ve had at least 30 minutes to calculate their shit, plus that one woman who hung out there the whole time, even though her number was well after mine (not in the way or anything). And then the checkout line, with the two old ladies behind me bitching because I wouldn’t let them butt in front of me, because they only had two items (I only had four, and two of them were on the same ticket, so suck me folks.).

That was one of the places I forced myself to go yesterday, and probably the worst, followed by Michaels. Not surprising. But I managed to cross a huge chunk of to-do stuff off the list yesterday (and get nothing else done during the day).

I also washed the quilt that sold over a year ago but was traveling…the future owner is allergic to cats, so I wash at my parents’ house (cat-free) to get rid of the dander (or most of it anyway) and then dry it there, iron it, dehair it as needed, and pack it up there. Seems to work.

I’ll go back in a few days and do all that other stuff so I can ship it off to her. I came back to a sleepy puppy…

He can be a real sweetheart…

When he’s not barking at the zombie apocalypse.

Yesterday’s drawing…more of the spirit animal stuff.

Got my head in that spot, apparently.

Back to the couch around midnight after ironing…communing with three out of the four furry beasts (the other one rarely comes out of my office)…

I didn’t start cutting. I was tired. I went to bed. I feel good that I got all those errands out of the way. There are more of them, I’m sure; there always are, but it was a cathartic moment of crossing things off the list. I finished a bunch of online stuff too, paying for this or that, finding this thing online that I needed. All good. Clearing the way for the new year. May it be full of time for artmaking. Whatever that means.

*Incubus, Drive

To Build a Wall Between Us*

Someone said it was the last Friday of 2018…thus reminding me of what day it was. Good one. Last night, I sat down with my list of errands that I blew off yesterday in order to walk the dogs and iron for over 5 hours…and I made a special post-it note for today of all the things I need to drive around in my car and do today. When I’m teaching, errands get shoved into the few hours before or after school when I can drop by this place or that, or they get shuffled into the weekend. On break, I could go out and do one or two things a day, but then whatever art I’m working on sucks up my brain and I don’t leave the house for days unless forced by others. Yesterday was the oil change…so I had to leave the house TWICE. I know. Crazy. And I did walk out of here with the dogs and come back an hour later. But that’s different. Today I will need to go to a multitude of places and do all the things, because next week is messy and I won’t be able to do that.

The first stop, though, will be the post office to mail off the drawing from 12/26 that sold, so that’s cool. I don’t really think of the drawings as art in their own space…more a means to an end. And the ones I’m doing now definitely aren’t probably maybe going to be quilts, so it’s OK to draw things I would never try to reproduce in fabric. Like this rug…

I’m pretty sure the concentric not-circles don’t line up and if I tried to make it, my brain would explode. But I might redraw it for a quilt, if I wanted to. I really am considering these brain exercises. I’m enjoying it though. I tried to institute a Friday-night drawing plan a few years ago, since I was usually braindead from school and couldn’t function to grade, but honestly, I was too tired to draw a lot of the time too…OR I would want to get right to whatever artmaking I had postponed all week, if I did have any energy. So maybe drawing one night a week is a thing? I do have two drawings I’m supposed to be working on, maybe technically three, and so I should get going on those.

Art takes time. I fight to make sure I have it pushed into my schedule. That’s how I get so behind on school and grading and errands and cleaning house and gardening.

So yesterday, I was hoping to get a big chunk of ironing done…and I did. Here’s the sun…

I like suns. And moons. And stars. They show up a lot.

I’ve had this yellow fabric for a long time. I had a half yard of it, because that’s normally what I buy when I’m filling the stash. This is all that’s left.

It gets hard to fold up into a logical square at this point. But I love this fabric.

Finally Figure 5…so I’ve used a different run of 5-7 fabrics for each. I find that if I don’t challenge myself to use new fabrics, I’ll use the same ones over and over again (like that yellow). So this is a very pink/purple person. Two of the fabrics below had never been cut into…

Challenge accepted.

And there they all are, laid out, ready for ironing.

Now I’m down to the last bits and pieces…

Heart, wings, lungs, grassy chin (you read that right), a bee, and a beetle. That’s it! I’m almost done. Today, surely…

I didn’t clean up much last night, because I did a bit halfway through the day. It was getting all chaotic and confused. I couldn’t find anything.

I’ll organize one more time, into color runs, before the end. I like to see how much of each color I used.

So besides running a bunch of errands and finishing a multitude of little tasks (move the table, bring the plate, pay the bills, put that envelope in the mailbox, return that frame, buy another one, buy this, return that, find those…)…I will be ironing at some point today.

Girlchild and Simba watching some TV show together.

Not sure how much WATCHING the puppy is doing. But he seems happy.

As was Kitten this morning…curled up with me.

I did not want to get up. The other cat made me. He wanted food.

Well, at least I have a plan. (Just don’t ask me how I’m doing on grading right now.) I couldn’t resist this post title. Politics makes my head hurt. Stupid people scared of unreal stuff make my head hurt. There’s so many things that make more sense than a wall…but that’s the problem with government and law…it’s not about sense.

*Crowded House, Don’t Dream It’s Over

Scissor Love

Happy Boxing Day! Seriously, if you’ve survived the holidays so far, you’re doing great…just a few more things to get out of the way, right? The year is almost ready to end, there’s still some family stuff to do, there’s post-holiday cleanup, there’s trying to use up all the gift cards and certificates before you forget about them. You have a bunch of books to read, if you’re from my family. I have a lot more fuzzy socks than I did before, which is good, because a bunch of mine had holes in them. It’s all good. Well, just don’t think about deadlines or going back to work or finishing grades, and everything will be fine. I think I’m officially halfway through my Winter Break, and my phone map thinks I need to go back to school. Because it’s Wednesday and I’m not at work yet. Eleven days until back to school? That’s less than half left. Or exactly half. Something like that. So many things to get done before then! I tried to grade yesterday and mostly failed at it. Granted, it was Christmas Day, but in between this and that, I thought I could be efficient. Not so much.

First of all, back to Christmas Eve…I ironed in between the morning event and the evening event, trying to finish up all the bits that belonged to Figure number 2, like this bird.

Meanwhile, Kitten is watching real birds outside.

And in the evening, I drew my requisite, geez, aren’t they getting weirder and weirder, drawing…

There is a second figure bending over on the right. It has to do with how I drew the arm. She didn’t fit with the arm any more.

And then I laid out all the pieces for Figure 3…

I’ve been using a different run of flesh fabrics for each person, but honestly have not paid much attention to what might happen when they overlap, which is really just where the arms are. There’s always ink and thread for that issue.

So Christmas Eve, when I gave up and went to bed, this is all I had used. I have tried to keep the fleshy bits for each figure in a separate box, just so I can see them.

There’s lots of fabric in this one. And here’s all the Wonder Under bits that are not flesh but still part of Figure 3.

I didn’t get to those until Christmas Day…because in the years past, I have managed to stay out of the cooking/food prep part of Christmas evening (mostly) and so I can do art stuff in the hours in between. I would have walked dogs too, but it rained most of the day, so I opted out of outside.

Rushing ahead though. Here’s the pile of stuff to be cut out from Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day is opening presents and cuddling animals…

Animals with chew toys.

Animals who resemble presents…

That tile is from Spain. Or Portugal. Now I can’t remember.

All the animals…

Well, until he’s ready to guard us from the rain. It really did pour for a while.

We got over half an inch. Which reminds me…I need to go turn the sprinklers off again.

Kitten did a damn good job of guarding the bed…

I brought her a catnip toy to entertain her. She’s kind of antisocial.

Rainy driveway.

Today of course is beautiful and sunny. But we have an afternoon thing that will keep me from enjoying it. Oh well.

I did fabric stuff for about an hour in the afternoon, and then we headed off for Christmas dinner, which is a mix of stuff to keep everyone sort of happy.

Girlchild is a good cook. Which is nice.

I worked on the zebra for a bit.

No, he’s still not done. They’re never done.

And then I mostly drew this in the dark. Which might explain my spelling issue.

It might explain a lot of things. This would be a hellish quilt to make. But it was relaxing to draw.

Back to the ironing. While I’m actually picking fabrics, this is what the fabric pile looks like.

It’s a little chaotic. When it gets really bad, I clean up…here’s everything used so far…

I got through Figure 3 and all the attached bits…like this snake…

I’m ready for Figure 4, which has snakes for hair. Complicated overlapping snakes for hair. Yup. What am I, nuts? Don’t answer that.

I’m 12 1/2 hours into the ironing, and barely over the halfway point for pieces…about halfway through the 800s, I think.

The box gets more and more full.

My hours per week are up in the last 7 days, but still not where they need to be. I need to be fully ironed to fabric before I leave for the cabin, and honestly, I’d like to be done well before that and cutting the pieces out already. Done with that by the time I get back, and then ironing down, because then I go back to school. Yikes. No time for that. The next figure is also on fire. I really am trying to use totally different fabrics in each figure, even the reds for the hearts, although the last one had a gray heart. I want to cut into fabrics that have never felt scissor love. I want to use up things that I have large pieces of and that don’t need to be quite so large in the stash. Kitten just tried to turn on toggle sound on the computer. She’s using the keyboard as a pillow. Nice one, cat.

OK, but for now, I need to get ready for the last official family event, which means breakfast and a shower. And then maybe iron a bit before we leave. Figure 4 for tonight then. Some more grading at some point. Ugh. Some exercise some time. Tomorrow probably. Scissor love though. Gotta love me some fabric.

Crooked Spin Can’t Come to Rest*

Merry Christmas Eve. May yours NOT involve the grocery store, the liquor store, the pet store, anywhere with a parking lot, or anyone under the age of…um…well…I’m honestly kind of at a point of no people right now. Furry beasts only. Cocktails definitely. And pajamas would be my preference. A roaring fire. Except we’re in Southern California and it’s currently too warm for that. Sigh. A good book! I’ve got one of those. But unfortunately, most of the rest was on my list for today, and there’s more coming. So there we are. We all decide on how to do our holidays and it often involves those of the human persuasion.

Furry beast number 1…happily terrorizing the other cat in the house and trying to eat all the people’s foods.

Furry beast number 2…who mostly has been hiding from all of us and kneading the batting.

She’s come out to say hi to me. That’s it. Gone again.

Furry beast number 3…happily chewing Katie’s bone at the grandparents’ house last night for dinner.

Girlchild cooked. I stitched. Puppy didn’t make it into the photos yesterday. Oh wait. He did. There he is…with the girlchild.

She enjoys the furries.

Last night’s drawing, after I shut myself in my office for like 3 hours.

If the head doesn’t fit, bend it. OK, I actually drew the head first I think. Repeating imagery. Only so many things to draw in the world.

I ironed for about 2 hours last night. I finished all the parts of Figure 2 that weren’t flesh…so lungs, hair, heart, etc.

I’m ready to start Figure 3, but first I have a bird, a nest, and a vine that are all attached to Figure 2. And I have a Christmas Eve thing to which I must go, so who knows if I’ll get any of that done. It’s my plan to do some now.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far. Much more colorful than some others…

I’m trying to make sure I use different fabric ranges in each person. They are all different people.

I did some of the flower bits. I didn’t do two of them because the instructions for them are at home. Here. Not at my parents’ house.

I started the zebra. I obviously haven’t started the official plan for 2019, wherein I work on something different each night. This is easy for traveling to people’s houses. Easier than many things. Stitching is relaxing. I need to do more of it. Right now. Like RIGHT NOW.

Or I could iron. Also on the list. Hope your Christmas Eve includes some calm and mellow times, if that’s what you crave. Or not.

*Elliott Smith, Say Yes

I Wait for the Minutes to Burn*

OK I’m writing on a Sunday because I didn’t realize it was a Sunday because I’ve finally reached the part of my Winter Break when I have no idea what day it is until someone tells me. And this clears my brain and lets me set goals for the day or even the week, although right now, let’s just focus on one day at a time, because more than that makes me panic about deadlines and stuff like that, and that’s not a good place to be right now. Right now should be all cookies and kittens, people. Maybe some puppies or bunnies too, and a cute little sloth or hedgehog would also be appreciated. Plus clean floors. Still don’t have those.

So with that, I spent a lot of time yesterday ironing…for good, not evil, no worries. No clothing was harmed in the process. And I’m totally OK with having all that time to iron. I wanted it. I did not leave the house. And it was fine.

Before I did that, I cut some background blocks for the moons I bought from Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth…I’m planning some of my typical fusing on each block and then a bunch of hand embroidery.

It’s not something for a show…it’s just something for me. What a concept! Trying something new anyway. That’s always a good thing. This is the project that will occupy me on Sundays, so I needed to get it up and running. Fusing next.

Then I hung the drawing for the new piece…twice, because it does have a top, but sometimes I get confused by where that is.

Goddess forbid I label the damn thing with TOP. It’s big…more horizontal than usual. More horizontal than vertical.

There’s a lot of flesh in this. Five heads means five different flesh runs. This is the first and the smallest of the figures. Kitten is fascinated.

Geez. So there it was after I found all the pieces for that person…I think it’s the only one that has a torso down into the legs. They all have arms though.

Some of the biggest pieces in here are arm parts.

For once, I numbered intelligently. I numbered everything in each figure and then everything that touches it that’s not another figure. So logical. This is the third fabric in the flesh run. Fitting all the pieces together. I am giving a talk at my local quilt guild in January and I need process pictures.

I don’t really like puzzles, but I also don’t like wasting fabric. So I’m very thoughtful about how I iron.

Then I started picking fabrics for Figure 2…bigger pieces, but still only a run of 5 fabrics for the main fleshy bits. I have to worry a bit about having enough of each fabric to actually cut out the pieces…the second one was a bit tight.

Or maybe it was the first one. Can’t remember. It’s OK. I want to use up fabric and have them be in quilts. I don’t want them to languish away in drawers, lonely and bereft of admiration.

I did take a few hours of a break and finished grading that big assignment (yay! Yes, there are 6 more, but they’re all smaller, hallelujah) and then drew this crazy thing while watching a movie with the sick man.

I can’t explain it. I just didn’t know what to do with the legs. They were too far apart to put a body on them, and besides, the paper wasn’t long enough for that, and it was really about being underground anyway, and someone was making me watch the news at some point, and that’s never a good thing.

When the sick guy went to bed (hope he’s better soon…he’s miserable), I went back and ironed down the last of the fleshy bits on Figure 2. Here’s everything ironed down so far.

I still have to do all the non-flesh bits of Figure 2, like the heart, lungs, and eyeballs. I ironed for almost 5 hours yesterday. Perfect! Hoping for a repeat today, but…well…we’ll see. More stuff going on today. I’m not sure where I am in the pieces…I pulled from the 200s and the 300s, but didn’t iron all of them down, so I probably have at least 300 pieces ironed. I’m guessing it will take about 20 hours to iron all of this…so it’ll be sometime this week. I think. I do have other stuff to do, lots of family stuff, which is good, but eats into my artmaking time. That sounds cranky, but I am in serious hermit mode right now and didn’t leave the house yesterday. I won’t be able to pull that off today. I will have to fight holiday grocery store crowds and be nice about it. Ugh. And I should grade something and I will definitely draw again. Hopefully something less psychotic, but honestly, it doesn’t matter, because I’m just drawing to draw…and I finished that sketchbook last night (from 2014), and found another one that I started in 2014 (why? Why two in the same year? I cannot say.), so now I’ll try to fill that one.

But for now, I’m waiting on the children, so I can go to the grocery store and get that over with. Woo! Love it! Yeah! Then ironing. Please.

*iamdynamite, Hi Lo

Better Than Pie

Things that keep me up at night: wait. Happy Thanksgiving first. Happy day of eating and family and friends and eating and maybe football or whatever. And sleeping and drinking and avoiding political discussions like the plague.

Things that keep me up at night: my kids. Seriously. They do. Where they are and whether they will survive. Also worrying about whether or not I have enough batting to quilt the damn quilt that is trying to get done. Because today is a freakin’ holiday, duh, and I should have checked that yesterday and gone out and bought batting if I didn’t have enough, because I’m probably going to get to the sandwich stage today and delaying until tomorrow to wait for the store to open (on Black Fucking Friday, oh god) and then buying it and washing it and drying it and THEN sandwiching, and I’ve lost half the day right there.

Damn. Well. I should check now if I have enough, because maybe all that worry is beside the point. I should have maybe gotten out of bed at 3 AM when the rain woke me up (ah beautiful rain, thank you for existing) and done it then.

So the answer is sort of. I have lots of long narrow pieces of Warm and Natural, which is what I prefer to quilt with. I just checked JoAnns hours and they’re really not open today. Tomorrow at 6 AM. Which implies sales and crazy-ass people lining up like loons. So back to the sort of answer. I have a batting remnant that IS big enough…I just don’t know what it is. I used to take classes way back in the day and they would recommend batting types and I would try them out, but I love the W&N because it sticks and I don’t have to quilt super close together and it’s not super lofty. This is not W&N. It might be bamboo, because I remember someone saying how wonderful it was for wall hangings and maybe I bought a small one, and if I did, then I used a piece of it for a smaller quilt, because there is a piece gone. No labeling at all, of course.

On January 10, 2014, I also pulled this piece of batting out (yes, I’m mining the blog for answers to my brain right now)…and I chickened out and didn’t use it, because unknown results! I hate unknown results when I’m on a deadline. It has a weird edge, plus a scrim or something inside it.

OK, I officially skimmed the entire blog for mentions of random batting (I talk about batting a lot), and there’s nothing. I also checked for the word “bamboo”, but apparently I use the word “bamboozled” a lot, so that was unhelpful. So I’m gonna use it. Seize the day! Even if it might fuck up everything! Of course, I’m not actually ready for it yet. Plus, it’s batting. How bad could it be?

Yesterday, I rolled up the bottom bit and put it aside for a while so I could deal with the head and resultant plumes from that area…

Head start. Ah ha ha ha.

Plume to the right is done…plume to the left is started…

Working on a net full of fish…

And a boat…most of the plume is done here.

I did eventually find all the eyeball parts that were missing, but never found the fish part, so I had to recut it. I also found a missing tree part from the 200s…so I inserted that as well. No waste! Well. There’s waste.

And ironed her down…before dinner even. It was a productive day. For art quiltmaking. Not for life in general. It took 13 hours and 46 minutes to iron her together. Not bad.

She’s ready for stitch down. But first some grading…two assignments down and input into the system, plus a sleepy puppy. And I brined a turkey and hard-boiled a bunch of eggs. But that was earlier. I even put a bra on and went to the store, where I forgot the Miracle Whip but remembered more cheese.

Cheese is always good. Turkey is in the fridge in the mop bucket. It’s clean (plus it’s in a plastic bag for the paranoid among us). Then I started stitch down. No wasting time! Must finish!

I got a good 2-hour chunk of it done. My goal is to finish the stitch down before I have to be presentable for social interactions with other humans.

Besides the two antisocial beasts I live with. You know. They ignore me anyway. Oh, I made deviled eggs this morning. Because I wanted them. So there. Tomorrow I will make turkey and some other stuff so I can have turkey sandwiches for a couple of weeks (I freeze it…don’t panic). But today, I stitch down and hopefully sandwich and pinbaste and maybe even start quilting, if the tryptophan doesn’t kill me. That’s the goal anyway. Better than pie. Well. Pie is pretty good if it’s apple pie.

I Suggest You Switch Your Mind State*

Well, my perfect-laid plans of finishing the ironing yesterday and starting the stitch down did not come true. A shock! Holy crap, is it Wednesday already? Sheesh. This quilt. Life! It takes time, doesn’t it? I’m debating a longer hike for Friday morning, but realistically, it depends on how much I get done between now and then as to whether I can do that. Sigh. Deadlines. Grades. Stuff.

Yesterday I ironed for close to 5 hours. I also graded one assignment and recorded another one that a program graded for me. We walked the dogs. I picked up two of my quilts. I didn’t do a lot of things.

Ironing this quilt has been a challenge. I numbered it in logical order for ironing Wonder Under to fabrics, but it doesn’t iron together in the same order. Hence having to iron the feet (in the 400s) into the 100s of the landscape. So that continued as I ironed upwards from the ground…I got the legs done up until the hips…

And then started working on the rest of the hill to the right…

Bobcat and mule deer…

Some manzanita. And Satchemo…asleep in the sun. He’s there again now.

Wait. I didn’t iron the cat.

The hill…minus the poison oak.

The poison oak went in, bridging the hill to the leg…

Then some dog walking…we did over 3 1/2 miles…

Mostly trying to tire out the little one…

Back to the ironing. So when I got to the torso, it was all in the 500s, but the plume of water and trash coming out of the chest is in the 800 and 900s. I couldn’t make sense of trying to iron the whole body without putting the plume in, so I started pulling from the last two boxes.

And then continued the body above that plume. So I’m about halfway through the 600s, plus I’ve ironed all the 900s and about half of the 800s…although there are a few of those still floating around. Haven’t figured out where they belong yet.

And I’m missing parts of two eyeballs. Plus a piece of a fish. Huh. Well, hopefully they’ll show up sometime today. So I think I have about 200 pieces left to iron. I think. Honestly, it’s hard to say. I’ve been ironing it together for 9 1/2 hours…at least 2 or 3 hours left, I think. So I should be able to finish ironing today and start stitching down. That’s the plan anyway. Plus grade an assignment or two. And maybe an errand. Sigh. I really don’t want to do anything else…but there’s stuff that needs doing. Hate that. Oh well. Moving on.

*K.Flay, So Fast, So Maybe

Not Sold on That…

Seventeen things on the list for yesterday. I think 5 got done. Not bad. Love the kid who is currently complaining that I haven’t finished grading her late work yet. Nah, I’m doing the on-time work first…all 8 assignments of it. Strangely, every time I finish a task, it seems two more jump up to take its place. I need to be serious about ironing today though…so maybe I do that first. I know from experience, though, that if I do that, I rarely get anything else done. Sigh. Quilt must get done. Grading must get done.

I just read my blog from last year’s Thanksgiving week, and I’m not going to Costco today. I did it last year on this day. It will be hell. It was hell. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I’ll do a drive-by. We need toilet paper. But not that bad.

Calli wants something here. You can tell by the way she’s looking at me.

So I ran errands and graded on and off, and then I went to the gym, so the day just sort of slips by. And then I made dinner, but at some point, I started ironing a coyote together. I think it was pretty late, actually. Like after 9 PM.

I got the hill done behind her…well, not all of it. There’s more on the right. I just decided it would be easier to iron some leg parts in there first.

Coyote landscape. Fire. Yeah, I drew this before all the fires last week. California fire season…

Unfortunately inevitable…but not that bad. Not as bad as it was this year.

The other bird. A hill…

And then I started ironing legs. Up to the knees…actually, I think I got up to the hip on one side, and then realized I hadn’t cut out the other side. I have no idea how that happened.

Kitten is surveying it all…this was bedtime. After midnight.

That’s why I’m tired. I go to bed late and then people and animals are up early, and it’s hard to sleep. But late at night is when I get a lot done.

Today I will iron. I will grade one assignment. I will go pick up my quilts. I might take the car in for an oil change. I might go to Costco. But I’m not sold on those two at all.

To Arizona and Back Again…

We’re back. Quick trip. More driving than anything else, I think. It was worth it…I wanted to see the whole Things That Matter exhibit in one place…although now I think I might be able to see it in St. George as well! On the way to Zion for Spring Break anyway. We’ll see.

So I had some pieces left to cut…my plan was to cut in the car, so I set this up…double-boxed. I’ve done this before. It’s a little crazy, but it works.

Arizona is so flat. This might even be the flat part of California.

Cutting while not driving…

We try to do 2-hour shifts…after that, you need a break. This section was pretty, through the Sonoran Desert National Monument. It was the short way around Phoenix to get to Chandler. We never went into Phoenix.

So we went to see the official opening of the entire exhibit of Things That Matter, an exhibit I was invited to be in last year. The preview exhibition, which didn’t include all the work, was at Visions Art Museum in Spring. I really thought I had done a good job of taking photos at that exhibit, but it turns out I didn’t take hardly any…and this trip was no different. Honestly, my phone camera sucks for this stuff, and the sun was going down and causing issues with lighting. So go see the exhibit or get the catalog on Amazon. Because I suck.

But here is Virginia Spiegel’s Boundary Waters 90 on the left and Pamela Blotner’s Miss Pustelschwein Regrets, a fascinating piece.

Deidre Adams‘ Connections and Susan T. Avila’s Time to Relax, which needs a front view to see the words.

My piece Not Less Than, with Rachel Meginnes‘ Don’t Tell Me It’s Raining, then Catherine Kleeman’s Clean Water and Linda Colsh’s And the Deep River Ran On, on the other wall.

Paula Chung’s PTSD: Betrayal…amazing stitching in this piece.

Betty Busby’s Let Your Light Shine…

And another view of my piece that includes Susan Else’s amazing and terrifying When? on gun violence in schools, and Alice Beasley’s very cool From Russia With Love.

Obligatory photo with my piece…

Elena Stokes‘ Horizon XII-Peace and Quiet…

And another Blotner piece, this with Elizabeth Addison…Hanuman’s Journey.

Please remind me if I go to the St. George installation to take WAY BETTER PHOTOS. Sheesh. And all the pieces. Seriously.

So then we ate and went back to the room and I finished cutting out the quilt pieces. California, Massachusetts, California, Arizona. Impressive.

It took 13 1/2 hours total. Kind of long.

Back in the room, interesting accent wall, especially this bit, which is totally out of reach, even if you’re standing on the bed.

But don’t hang anything on it with a coat hanger. Warning noted.

I drew…this is a baby start for something that’s in my head and is much bigger and fancier. Or more detailed anyway.

I haven’t been drawing much lately. Need to work on that.

The next morning, after a solid American breakfast, we drove back.

There was crankiness. Sigh. 10 hours of driving does that. I finished the owl’s eyes though! And the giraffe, but I forgot to photograph him. I still need to finish the hut for that block to be done.

Now that I’m home and ready to work on the quilt that has to be done in like 7 days, the wool stitching is not really a priority. So yesterday afternoon, I sorted all the pieces…

Less than an hour for that…

And then I started ironing…a snake before dinner…

Then the landscaping starts…hard to do because the water goes over and under the feet, and the water is in the 0-100s box and the feet are in the 400s box, so there was searching and I lost a toe so I had to recut it.

Then a couple of birds went together…

And the background behind them…

Here’s where I’m at so far, with about 150 pieces ironed…well, more because of the toes.

There’s a hill behind the legs, or two hills really, that have to be done, and another bird in the sky. My goal today is first to bang out the 17 errands I need to do, and then iron until the cows come home. Except also go to the gym, make dinner, and grade at least one assignment. Not a small list. But I’m glad to be ironing. It would be good if I were done with ironing sometime tomorrow and then stitching down. I think I need to be quilting by Wednesday. Seriously. You think I’m joking. I’m not. But first, groceries. There’s no food here. Can’t sustain artistic focus without food.