Late start this morning, not because I woke up late (ha!), but because we walked the dogs early to beat the heat. I usually like evening hikes better, because morning should be sleep time, but my nights have been booked this week.

Yesterday, I managed to finish the chapter I was working on, go to the gym, and then iron stuff…although I don’t feel like I got a lot done. Sigh. Everything takes so LONG! Tiny little pieces.

Well, first I started with the big pieces…and did the mountains and a volcano. A lot of the lighter fabrics will be easier to see once the stitching is in.

I finished the world all the way across, and then pulled it off the ironing sheet, rolled it up, and put it aside for when I iron the whole thing down.

Then I started on the Earth Mother portion, which has a lot of tiny little details…on the right are all the pieces for the next violet.

And at the end of the evening, I have leaves and a raccoon and an ovary (it fit in the hole)…one more violet to do there, and then the owl. I’m gonna be ironing tiny for a good long time…

So I’m in the 200s, but barely. With about 3 hours of ironing done, I think. It’s gonna take a while. And I’m gone most of today, so I probably won’t get a ton of ironing done, but I’m going to do a little now and then more tonight.

The dogs were tired last night…sometimes they do get played out.

I think they’re in the same position right now, post walk…except I need to wash the little dog. Whoever thought furry butt hair on a dog was a good thing should come bathe this little beast. I’m gonna shave his butt for him.

It’s so delightfully peaceful this morning. There’s no hammering or machine noises. Just birds and a puppy running around and yeah someone probably needs to pull pine needles out of the pool motor, but otherwise, it’s quite wonderful. And I got to sleep in for once, because the puppy wasn’t here in the early AM…the kids took him with them to their dad’s last night, because I was going to be in Oceanside for hours.

Yesterday I was amazingly efficient and finished a few rounds through the copyediting, so I’ll finish that today and then have a few days off again. Which is good, because I finished sorting all those tiny little pieces last night…

I pile them up in my hand by 100s…and then put them in the correct bin. It took a little over 2 hours to sort them all. Here’s all the bins, each with 100 pieces…

Someone asked how I find the piece I need…well, this is how. Each bin is numbered and has all the pieces from that batch of 100…

Then I lay them out on my table in the studio by 10s…so this is the 50s, 60s, etc.

It’s pretty damn organized and fairly anal. Some people are much more organic in their process, but I was organic in the drawing and the fabric choosing. At this point, I want it to get done as easily as possible. So this works. Because I want it to look like my drawing too.

Then I started ironing…this is the world at the bottom of the piece…and it’s huge. It doesn’t have a ton of pieces in it though…

So although it’s larger than the ironing board, it only had about 50 pieces in it. It was after midnight at that point, and I was tired. Driving in traffic to Oceanside was tiring.

I never really know what the piece will look like until I start ironing. I don’t color in my drawings…I just sort of imagine it in my head and start picking. So I really like this…especially how the blues flow around the world. I didn’t plan that. It’s just fabric magic.

The talk went well…not a lot of people, but honestly, it was kind of cool to hear the artists talk, because we don’t often hear how our own people in the group work. I enjoyed that.

And I’m going to enjoy the ironing process from here on out, even though it means standing for hours, because this is the part where the image starts to appear. This is the exciting part. So I’m really looking forward to that. But first I have to finish the lesson I’m copyediting, and then go to the gym, and then I might have time in the afternoon. I’m hoping. Definitely tonight. I need to finish ironing the world so I can move on to the minutiae of the Earth Mother.

So I don’t know what my problem was on this quilt. Picking fabrics usually takes me about an hour per 100 fabrics, sometimes a few hours more than that. So this one has 1952 pieces, so I’d put it at 20-22 hours. Nope. Almost 33 hours. Sheesh. Either I was spacey and couldn’t decide on stuff, or there was just a lot of stuff, or stuff. There are 164 fabrics in this quilt. Yeah, I said 169 on Instagram, but I was wrong. I couldn’t even read my own writing. So that’s a lot. So maybe the two of those go together. Lots of fabrics = Lots of hours.

I’m glad to be done with the standing portion, for sure. I always forget how tiring standing for hours is…like during the summer, when I don’t do it, and then I go back to school, and my body reminds me. Painfully.

Now I have about 20 hours of cutting out to do. Although, I was wrong about the fabric-picking part. The time for it. So maybe I’ll be wrong again. I only have about 2 1/2 hours in.

This is yesterday, when I made a concerted effort to finish off the ironing part by blowing off work (it’s OK…it’s not due for a while. I don’t actually know WHEN it’s due, but I know it’s not next week. OK. Wait. I don’t know that. I know it’s not Wednesday. That’s ALL I know.). Kitten is rocking the cone. And often just sits on the chair and stares at me, like she knows I could take the cone off (and I do, when she needs to use the litter tray, because otherwise it’s ugly, like a blind little old lady trying to find the toilet.). So I must hate her if I make her wear it the rest of the time. Except I left her in the litter tray area and went off to deal with a doggie thing, and I came back and she was trying to lick the stitches out. So THAT bitch is why you have to keep it on. Because you won’t follow instructions.

Ironing the sun below…

At the end of the day, you can see the mess I’ve been piling up. LOTS of fabrics.

And that thing I always do, where I semi-organize them (I gave up on the greens) and pack them up in boxes, partially so I can see the range for that quilt, but also in case I lose a piece and need to find that fabric, because otherwise it might take me hours to find it in my stash. There’s 164. I counted.

Puppy finally got ran around enough to stop biting and trying to sit on my lap, and settled down for his nighttime nap. Right next to me.

Midnight occupied the other side of the couch. With a pile of stuff. And my bra. Nice. So the left tub is what I cut out last night, mostly big pieces from the bottom of the quilt. I flipped all the pieces into a larger bin, the one on the right, because it was getting too crowded in the smaller bin. So I still have to cut out everything on the right.

I keep a lid in my lap for all the trash.

That’s one evening’s worth. Well, not even the whole evening, because I didn’t start until late. And now there’s competition on the couch and for TV again. Ugh. Because I don’t want to watch the Gilmore Girls. Again. I didn’t really like it the first time around. I could watch and cut in here…not as comfortable, and for some reason, my Netflix in here cuts off the whole world from the wifi on this side of the house. I might not care. I do pay all the bills. I could just start watching.

Boychild also just made a very good-smelling breakfast. My body responds with hunger. Bastard.

I should make a plan or seventeen for today, but I just don’t have the brainpower. Ugh. I’m so much more efficient when I’m working full time.

My brain gets into this art mode and refuses to let go. I have a post-it with some have-to’s on it. None of them are really desperate, but it would be good to do them sooner rather than later. But…ironing…it is all I do at the moment. I’m on a roll. Except shit. I just got paying work. So I’ll be doing that today (and apparently part of tomorrow). Sigh. OK. I need to pay for college. I can do this. But that pushes everything else out of the way too. I’ll work work work until I get it done, and then I have freedom…to go back to ironing, still not getting the other have-to’s done.

Whatever. I’m doing my best here. It’s a forced break. Harder to do on “vacation.” I’m envious of those who just have the freedom to do what they like most of the time, to get up in the morning and consider their options.

Calli hurt her foot. She still wants me to throw the ball, but I’m refusing. She is not happy with me. The rule is that she puts the ball on or near my lap, and I throw it. I am breaking the rules. Yes. I’m still stitching birds. I’m almost done…seriously.

I do this at my parents’ as the girlchild cooks dinner. It’s a Sunday thing.

Eventually she (sort of) gave up and sat with the ball, just waiting for the next unsuspecting ball thrower to not realize she’s injured and throw it again.

I actually spent a good part of the middle of the day at Taste of Adams, 40 restaurants (we only made it to 16 or so, and I skipped the 4 or 5 with fish entrees) in 4 hours. So the afternoon was a little fuzzy-headed from too much food and some wine and a bit of sunburned dehydration.

But I ironed anyway. So I wish I could tell you how far along I am…but I’m skipping around again. I have a few pieces left to iron in the 900s, so yes, I am more than halfway, but this piece is evidence that I’ve done much more than that. This is the fabric I used for the lightest range of flesh tones, and I have very little of it left, which is somewhat unfortunate, because I still have the face to do. But I can manage that.

I went through the boxes and found all the flesh pieces for the upper torso and arms and ironed all of them, including fingers and finger wrinkles and fingernails. So that was a bunch of pieces above and beyond the 900s.

Here’s the box of ironed pieces, ready to be cut out when I move on to that stage.

It’s a little overly full, but the big boxes I have are being used for the higher numbers, like 1800s and 1900s, so they won’t be available until the end.

Anyway, I have 19+ hours of ironing in. Sheesh. I’m going to go over my original estimate of 23 hours by a significant amount, I think. Yesterday and Saturday…I ironed a gecko, some cocoons, a few butterflies, I got through all the grapes and the vine, also a passionflower vine. Then I did all that flesh…and the pine branch on the right arm. The next step is the crane, shades of white mostly…then up the arm into the kelp and cactus.

So by the time I was done ironing last night, the fabric pile was a mess. I rummage through it looking for stuff that will work for what I’m ironing now…I don’t need to pick brand-new fabrics for each section, although I did pick some new ones…

I cleaned up so when I start again, I can see everything clearly. By color. Sort of.

Still heavy on the greens and browns.

So there’s still a ton of work to be done on this, but I’m past the halfway point. It’s really really hard to put it down today, to walk away from it, but I need to copyedit. So hopefully tomorrow I’ll get back to it. Or maybe post-hike tonight (yeah right?). If I think I might do more tonight, that might be enough to get me off the couch after the hike. We’ll see. Until then, I’m staring at a computer and trying not to go cross-eyed.

I have still not managed the sleeping-in portion of summer vacation, mostly because of other living creatures. The neighbors banging things into a dumpster at 7:12 AM on a weekend. The house that’s being built at the bottom of the street. The girlchild getting up early to work for Grandpa, but leaving the dogs under my care. Whine whine whine. They do that until I get up. I lie there very quietly, barely breathing, hoping they’ll forget I’m alive, but it does no good. Sure, I go to bed late, but the boychild and I were up trying to figure out the wifi issues and then looking at music (like you do). He’s stolen a good chunk of what I own.

So I’m often tired. And it’s vacation, so you’d think I’d nap, but no…I’m determined to be awake and getting work done, artwork preferably. Yesterday, I spent over 6 hours ironing Wonder Under pieces to fabric on this giant piece. I’m just over 13 hours in, and I’m not halfway done, so I think it’s going to take a lot longer than I thought it would. It’s fussy little things…like owls…so I’m working from a few photographs on most of the animals and plants. If I google “owl in flight,” I get a ton of pictures and then I pick a few and draw something using those as reference, but if I want to use the colors of the actual bird, it gets a little wiggy sometimes. I’m supposed to be doing this owl as a commission as well, but I think I’ll do color a bit differently on that one…still realistic, but…well, until I iron it together, I really don’t know what it will look like.

I guess that’s the more experimental part of what I do…I don’t color my drawing or cut out little samples of fabric…I imagine it colored in my head, and I find the fabrics that match that. Which sometimes takes a lot of time, because I’m looking for a range that flows well, and that’s not always easy.

The giraffe below took forever because I couldn’t find the right background color for his spots. I’m still not sure it’s right, but it’s more right than the first four fabrics I started with. So I think that’s why it’s taking longer…

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The iPad has all the links I saved while I was drawing, so there’s about 700 tabs open, and I go back and look at whatever I was looking at when I drew the animal or plant, so I can try to color it appropriately. Although since I’m looking at multiple pictures, that’s not always helpful.

I’m less worried about the flowers and plants, but it’s important to me that the animals look right. Realism! Strange for me, I know, but I liked the parts of the last Earth Mother that approached realism. The snake, the elephants…and yet the mother herself is obviously constructed of all these real and semi-real organisms.

There’s lots of time to think while I iron, but really, it’s meditation…artistic meditation of the best kind.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far…I’ll reuse some of them as I keep going up the body.

Lots of variation in greens and browns. Seriously, there’s about 20 greens in there so far.

So one thing I was having problems with on Thursday was sore feet. I’ve been hiking and working out at the gym, and then I’m basically standing all day to iron. I don’t want to wear tennis shoes or the equivalent, because it’s hot and I don’t do well with my feet enclosed when it’s hot. On the other hand, my feet hurt too much to stand for long. I can’t afford to replace the flooring in here (but when I do, I will be doing something with padding or rubbery bouncy stuff for sure), and I thought a mat would even be too expensive…oh cool, they’re called anti-fatigue mats. But whether I do that or not, and I’d have to do a better job of standing in one place than I do, I needed a solution for NOW, because Friday morning, my feet were already aching.

Yup. Crocs. They’re cushy. Still pretty open. The blister on the back of my heel (which is ugly as hell) could be avoided by pushing the strap up. I didn’t need to go find or buy anything, and they move WITH me…I don’t have to try to remember to stand in one place. And? They worked. So cool. Well, Crocs aren’t cool, but they serve a purpose. And this is one of them.

I just have to keep them away from puppy. He likes them too.

So I got into the 500s yesterday…although again, I have pieces ironed higher up than that, like ribcage pieces etc, which I did all at once. I did an owl, some daisies, some trees, a uterus and its accoutrement, plus a giraffe. I’m still in the main torso area, but I’ve done more than half of it.

It’s time-consuming, for sure. But I think it will be awesome when it’s done. I probably won’t get 6 hours of ironing in today, because of the Oceanside opening, but I can get 4 or 5 in. Here’s where I turn into an art hermit: I don’t leave the house unless I have an event or an appointment, or I have to go to the grocery store. Or a hike. But otherwise, I hole up in here and iron and sew and cut and just be a full-time artist, because although I consider myself a full-time artist ALL the time, it’s hard to just spend an hour or two a night working on something that I am so obsessed with…and going to work in between and having a job that eats so much time and energy…this is such a relief. I can just BE what I’m supposed to be.

Meanwhile, I forgot one of the shows I was in this weekend: SAQA’s Oasis exhibit (which disappeared for a bit last year) is currently in Reno, Nevada, at the Sew Original Quilt & Creative Expo, probably scaring people. I’ve put the catalog somewhere very safe, unfortunately (cough can’t find it), so hang on…mine’s on the right, Part-Time Oasis…

Crap. I really can’t find the catalog or anything online that shows me who the other artists are. Sorry. I’ll fix this if I find it, but now I really need to start ironing grapes. Lots of them. Like fabric grapes. Not real ones. That would be really messy.