Felt It in My Youth, Feel It When I’m Old*

Blessed peace, back to the ironing. This piece is not an easy beast to put together, with all 5 figures intertwining and overlapping…but the challenge is something I enjoy. Although I never think about that when I draw it…I just draw it. And then I realize the crazy I’ve created as I put it together.

So basically, I walked in the door at 7 PM and dinner was almost ready. I ate, stitched a bit on a binding that may never get done, and then headed in here for almost 3 hours of ironing. It was delightful.

I started with the details on Figure 2’s face…

Which I didn’t have the time to do the other night…it included ironing the eye before putting it on the face…

This is a little disturbing to look at. Then face completed. This figure has a bird, a nest, a tree, and a vine attached to her, so those were next…

Those went pretty quickly…

And then I needed to decide what to do about the arm dissection there…it’s the arm of Figure 3, which I’m working on next anyway. Although it goes around the corner and some of the pieces do too, so that makes this complicated…but honestly, it’s going to be complicated no matter what I do. So I went for it…

On the right, the pieces are flopping around, not fully ironed down. Then I set that teflon sheet aside (yes, I have multiples of these things)…and turned the entire drawing 90 degrees to get to the right side…and ironed the other hand for Figure 3.

Plus a syringe. Like you do.

I started ironing the torso for Figure 3 and then the arm…

Then added the torso and legs for Figure 1 (they’d been sitting in a box, waiting to be reconnected to the upper torso and head), and connected Figure 3’s arm around the corner.

You can see this thing is getting a bit large and out of control at the moment…although the center section is mostly connected, with all the heads and hair overlapping parts of mouths, plus arms wrapping around the whole thing.

So here she is so far…the bottom part of Figure 2 is in a box waiting for the arm of Figure 5 to connect it back into the image.

Figure 3 needs a head…which will underlap (that is so not a word) the head of Figure 2. But at some point, I either need another large teflon sheet (don’t have one) or I need to detach everything so far and move it…which I did last night anyway with the stuff on the other sheet.

Tonight? Well, I have a meeting, but I had one last night too. So I’m hoping to get the head of Figure 3 done…keep it moving. I’ve given up on my deadline, which is fine…too much other stuff to do. I have a Women’s March Saturday, I need to make a slide presentation for my quilt guild and then give a talk Monday night. Next week is a clusterfuck of meetings. There aren’t enough hours. There never are. But I’m loving this quilt. So it will be done. In time for something.

*Twenty-One Pilots, Jumpsuit

But I Was Late for This, Late for That*

Adult brain won last night and got me in bed earlier. Not much earlier. Really not even a win, if you talk to anyone about how much sleep I SHOULD get, but better than the night before. So there’s that. Plus I finished grades before we even went to the airport to drop off the girlchild…here’s what the end of doing grades looks like…

Pretty dang happy. Girlchild will hate this photo, but Simba is kissing her. Last time he’ll be able to do that for a while. Next up? Graduation, a trip to Portugal (for her, not me…I won’t make it out of the country this year), and then work like an adult. Who knows when we’ll see her again on that couch. I try not to think too hard about that shit.

So finally, on January 14, I managed to implement my Finishing All the Shit plan for the new year. I assigned one project per day, and I’m supposed to put in about 30 minutes on it a night, after I eat dinner, while I’m still watching whatever show we’re watching, assuming I don’t have an art quilt that’s in a couch stage (cutting things out or sewing bindings) or grading I can do. Or want to do, because I had more grading last night…I just chose not to do it. It will get done. Eventually. But I haven’t been doing a good job of following any of it, mostly because the projects themselves are very disorganized at the moment. So I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to find all the bits that would allow me to just pick one up and work on it.

So I worked on this, Monday’s project…

Which included a puppy face…a puppy who is confused about where his benefactor went.

I don’t know how many years ago I started this, but it was a lot. It’s from a book called Home Sweet Home except I blew off their calm quiet colors. I have I think 6 blocks done? Or this is the 6th one? And there are only 9. Most of the pieces are pretty damn big, so it won’t take long. Here it is so far…

The windows are all done…they just need to go on. This is about 1/2 way done. So there we are. Moving on.

After all that and the dishes and trying to figure shit out and get my brain on task (a difficult thing sometimes), I moved into the room with the iron…

And I did things with it. So this is the bottom section of Figure 2…and I put the hand in that overlapped it. I’m pretty sure that pink hand is from Figure 5, because I pulled it from the box with the 1300s…but it’s missing the finger creases. I don’t know where they are…hopefully in the box with the other fingers (not the 1300s box. Trust me. I looked there more than once.). I just didn’t go looking for them.

Then I pulled that off the teflon sheet and started on the section of Figure 2 above the arm that crosses over it…

Skinny piece…with another arm above it. For now, I just kept going above that arm…

I don’t think I’ll try to iron that arm over the body now. Too complicated. No logical break like with the other hand.

I didn’t finish the face, because however much I WANTED to, that’s when adult brain looked at the clock and said no, go to bed.

Which is good, because it takes me a while to get everything cleaned up and settled and brush my teeth, find the dogs, settle them, take insulin, etc. But there’s Figure 1 getting swallowed by Figure 2, which is almost finished. Although she has a tree, a nest, a bird, and an ivy vine that go with her, so not quite THAT close to done. I’m in the 400s, so I only got about 150 pieces in last night. Not bad. I started around 10 PM. Only 1100 pieces to go! Yeah. Uh huh.

I got rejected from another show last night. OK. Well. There we are. Now I need to figure out what’s available to enter in the next one. Which reminds me that I still have one out there that should be returned this week…haven’t seen it yet. Sigh. Six made it home…no, seven made it home. Sheesh. That’s a lot. Need to deal with putting those away. I emailed about the eighth one. Usually they send tracking info. Well. Sometimes they send tracking info. No guarantees.

OK, more ironing tonight, but also tutoring and the gym…which bites into that time. All good and useful things…but time is a limited resource.

*The Lumineers, Cleopatra

Come Back Sunday Morning*

So once I start ironing a quilt together, I’m finally seeing the images in color that were in my head, seeing them for real…and it’s very hard to stop ironing. Like to eat or sleep. This weekend was such a clusterfuck of work work work and running around getting stuff done that I was going a little bonkers with no art. So I SHOULD have finished grades last night, but I didn’t…and I may regret that later, but I will deal. And the girlchild goes back to school today, so that’s sad. But I needed some art before my brain exploded, so that’s what I did last night. Put the school computer away, cleaned all the dishes, and walked into the studio. Where the fabric is.

And I started ironing this monster together…five overlapping heads (only one has a whole body…most just have arms and maybe part of a torso).

Tiny little hands that will show up when I do the outlining. I picked a different run of flesh for each figure.

She’s one of my favorites…

Her body is in two parts, bisected by the arm of one of the other figures.

Putting the face together…

I did try to keep them simple…well. You know. I’m not good at that.

There she is!

One figure done…except I forgot she had stuff on her shoulder…

Like you do…so that’s Figure 1 done.

Here’s the whole setup…you can see how big the drawing is…

It’s draped over the ironing board and I put the teflon sheet (or sheets, depending on how big what I’m ironing is) on top.

It was late, but the thing is, when I’m on a roll, it’s hard to stop. If I didn’t listen to the adult brain in my head arguing with art brain, I’d iron ’til the cows come home. And I don’t have cows, so that would be a really long time. As it was, I went to bed way too late and I will pay for it today. Ugh. But I was feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, and art helps with that. So here is the start of Figure 2…also bisected, perhaps trisected…so this is the bottom part of the torso.

I ironed the first 300 pieces and a bit. Not bad for the first night. I’ll see what I can get done with grades today during prep…maybe I won’t have to work on school all night. I will have to go to the airport. The thing about the girlchild leaving is that she probably won’t ever get to come home for that long again (it was only 3 weeks, despite her claim it was 4, and she was gone for 6 days of it on a road trip)…and right now, it’s unlikely that she’ll move back here. So there’s that. Trust me, I understand needing to live away from your parents…but I still miss her when she’s gone. Normal mom stuff.

Other random things. This bee rode the windshield of my car almost all the way to the grocery store…

I don’t know if that was its plan, but it’s what happened.

This is perhaps the only documentation I have EVER of my dad attempting an artistic endeavor.

My parents were in Portugal on a tour and painted tiles. My mom did one too, but she does art stuff all the time. Dad does not. So there it is…a Bob original.

I was on this couch by myself. And then this happened…

So I went back to ironing.

This morning’s sunset…the rain starts this afternoon and doesn’t stop until Thursday night sometime.

So I was thankful for this. Sheesh. I lied. My weather app says the rain is starting in 15 minutes. Sigh. I guess I should be glad I saw that this morning at all. Got up early! For this. That’s OK then. Now I need to go find my rain gear.

*Portugal, the Man, Live in the Moment

I Finished…Something.

It’s Saturday. Y’all probably already know this, but I keep having to tell myself what day it is because I conveniently forget when on break. It’s a nice thing to get to that point, except when you have to be somewhere at a particular time and people want you to be there ON time and with all your crap so they can leave with you. So I’m watching the clock and probably need to get my act in gear soon.

In awesomely good news, I finished the Project Paint thing yesterday…in fact, it’s all I finished, although I left the house twice for things I had to do, and in both cases almost got creamed by another vehicle who was driving idiotically in my lane when previously they had NOT been in my lane, so it kinda makes me think I shouldn’t leave the house like ever. Not happening, of course, but it’s what my core brain is saying. Don’t leave! People drive badly! Just stay home! It’s nicer here anyway!

OK, brain, I hear you. Still not happening.

I started with ironing bits together…this is the easy stuff…

These are part of the strips for top and bottom.

I wanted a relationship between the people and the place they live…the bigger place.

And that one monkey made it underground.

Plus a rocket into the sky.

It’s so fast to do these little pieces…

Then I put each one onto a background…

So I could piece things. Here’s where I admit that I suck at measuring and piecing. One reason why I’m not a traditional quilter. The second one being that I hate all that repetition.

I pieced the top, adding a canvas square in there for my collaborator to paint something on.

He says he’s more abstract normally. So he can go sky abstract here if he wants. Or whatever.

And here’s the bottom strip getting stitched down, with another canvas square in the ground…for ground abstract.

We’ll see what he does with these.

This part made me nervous, the stitchdown on the actual canvas, so I tried it out on a scratch piece first.

Seemed to work. So I went for it…

Slow and steady.

I did all of it…with no problems…there’s the back…

OK then. Now piece it all together…strip on top and bottom…

I was thinking about how I didn’t want to bind it, but I needed to finish the edges and figure out how to hang it. I need it to be able to go back to the original guy so he can finish painting, but I won’t get it back before it goes in the show.

So I put wide-enough strips on that I could use it to finish the edges.

Then I made the backing. The rules are that I can’t use a piece of fabric that’s bigger than 6″ square, because they might be able to use it as a disguise.

I’m not arguing with the prison system, but I feel like once you sew them together, they are still a really bad and ugly disguise. Bleck.

Batting, backing, oh I skipped the whole thing where I quilted around each box and then inside the fabric stuff, but I tried the quilting on the paper and decided it would be a clusterfuck.

So I left the center piece unquilted. I pinned the extra around the back and then put two sleeves on, top and bottom, for hanging.

And then sewed the whole thing down…

And stitched the sleeves down. Done. A day early. I still need to do a write up before I leave this morning, but it’s getting delivered today. Whoo! Off my plate! I’ll see it again in May. We’ll see what he does with my crazy. Me? Outside my box. It’s good to do that sometimes.

Speaking of crazy. This dog.

She’s such a weird sleeper.

I finished that other stuff around 9:30 PM after working on it a goodly chunk of the day. Then I drew this…

Cool. I like the idea. Might run further with this someday.

And then I cut stuff out for a little while.

Still way behind where I wanted to be. Oh well. And I’ve graded nothing for two days. Probably need to do some schoolwork. School starts Monday. Ugh. So not ready. Never ready.

And there’s this. The second installment in the weird mailing I got a few weeks ago about an imaginary relative…now bringing in time travel and artifacts and my duty as the descendant of this relative.

I still don’t know who set this up, but it’s cool…we got all the letter snippets into some order and will wait patiently for the next installment. Don’t ruin it! I know it’s a gift thing and I am appreciating the mystery. Plus looking forward to time travel.

OK. Shower, food, pack stuff up to take with me to meeting, long drive to and from meeting, long meeting, need more time before Monday, but maybe it’ll all be OK anyway. Don’t even ask about my blood sugar. It’s a disaster. I am, as always, a work in progress.

Well, I Got One Foot on the Platform*

OK. I need another week. I realize most of you don’t get a 3-week break around Christmas, and you think I’m a whiner about this, and maybe I am, but all of the deadlines and to-do list items just slammed into me like a Mack truck and I’m panicking. It’s OK. I do this every Winter Break. But when your diabetes nurse is telling you that stress increases your blood sugar and you’re still trying to get that under control, thinking about stress causing that just causes more stress and maybe I should blow off everything and just go for a long hike. There are many arguments for that.

But I am also a responsible adult. Apparently.

So I drove back from Arrowhead yesterday morning. We all left early to get back to life. And deadlines. And stress. Aack. Seriously. I need to get a hold of this.

So let’s remember this…because it’s pretty. Although effing cold.

I don’t think my feet got warm until like 6 PM yesterday night.

Lots of lolling around with dogs. Reading books. On devices.

I didn’t finish mine, but I checked out three more and then went on airplane mode so the library couldn’t suck back the book that was due yesterday that I’m almost done with but literally have no time to read what am I thinking. Sigh.

Wednesday was the boychild’s birthday. He made everyone dinner and cake, but then the sprinkles container exploded all over the kitchen.

Well then. Impressive.

More sleeping puppy.

We played Settlers of Catan (need to get us some extensions I think) and I drew and if you follow my Insta, you saw the in-progress drawing that I did while gaming. Yes, I’m not a super serious gamer because I draw or stitch (or sometimes grade) at the same time, but I almost won this time. Maybe. Or we all almost won and the girlchild did win. But here’s the drawing…

This one could be a quilt. Totally. In fact, it shall be. I don’t know when though. Don’t ask me that.

Wednesday night’s cutting…I am so far behind on this.

But there is progress. That’s a plus. I didn’t work on it yesterday though. Yesterday I panicked about a piece that is supposed to be done by Sunday, but it would be really convenient if it were done by tomorrow. Noon. So. Yeah. I don’t know if I can pull that off, but it’s what I’m trying to do.

Yesterday afternoon, I trimmed all the pieces for the Project Paint piece…

There’s about 161 pieces I think. Not a ton.

Then I ironed the first section together…

Ironing eyeballs separately. So the inmate I’m working with had painted a young boy picking his nose and playing with a barrel of monkeys…so I did his older sister…

She’s playing solitaire, because her little brother is too annoying to play with. You know. And then I ironed her onto the canvas that he had painted on…

Now honestly, I could stop there. Well, I need to stitch some. But I didn’t stop there. Because I wanted to go beyond relationships between siblings and games and older/younger…I wanted to go out into the big wide world.

So I’ll be working on the top and bottom strips today, then stitching down, and deciding how to finish it. And wondering why I do this to myself, except I think it’s a good cause. I still need to write a response to the inmate as well and figure out how to get it done before noon tomorrow.

Don’t talk to me about the other things I need to do today.

I did have my stitching meeting last night. No, I haven’t implemented my one piece per night thing yet. I’m still on break. Plus I’ve been working on this one at stitching meeting forever. I finished the zebra and started the antelope…

But realized I am probably going to run out of the thread I’m using. I can’t figure out what it is, and I thought I had more of it. I lost the label for it. I haven’t looked too hard yet though. I will see if I can get around the antelope’s body and then maybe find a replacement. I still need to do the other flowers on this block too…but they are on the other instruction sheet…the one I don’t carry around.

It’s interesting. I put stuff on my to-do list that really isn’t necessary, like the drawing a night thing…here’s last night’s.

But I do that for my sanity and to make sure that the job stuff doesn’t take over the world. Because it would if I let it.

OK, I’ve got work to do. Later today? Dog walk and probably phone replacement. And more of this stuff. A drawing. Maybe some stitching. Most definitely trying to finish the Project Paint thing. Some school stuff maybe. Not forgetting about that quilt I have to ship. Aargh. Too much. (Do not ask me about grading. My principal called me yesterday. On break. Yeah. Teaching. The job that sucks up your brain and spits it out.)

*The Animals, The House of the Rising Sun

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