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.

When you’re already tired, the best thing in the world to do is have to get up even earlier to go to a meeting. Seriously. You should try it. The alarm goes off and you think, WTF. I know I don’t get up now. And then you remember. Oh yeah you do. Because you have to go to that meeting. Damn responsibilities. I did go to bed a little earlier last night because I knew this was happening, but I didn’t want to.

Because I finished ironing this down…

And here’s what’s so funny about that background. I just realized it was the wrong one…but I like it. I had pulled one of the many dark blues I have lying around, just for this purpose, way back when I started picking fabrics (OK, not really WAY back, but a few weeks ago). This one was in the reject pile. But I didn’t remember that last night after a 2-hour union meeting and another 2-hour art meeting (both necessary and useful, but exhausting after a long day of persuading kids to write about bird beak adaptations). I just reached for the one that was at my eye level. The other one is on the floor. With the fabrics I used in this quilt. A perfectly logical place really, but not in my line of sight. I just saw it this morning.

That said, I think this looks good…it’s hard to see the swirly batik in the photo, but it works well.

But that’s what tired does…picks a different background.

So I wanted to start sewing as well last night, but it was a quarter to midnight and you already saw my note about sleep, wonderful sleep. So I went to bed. Ironing took a whopping 5 hours and 42 minutes. I really should do more of these small pieces, just to remember what easy looks like. Says the woman whose next quilt is crazy complicated. As usual.

Oh well. This is my life. I was reminded last night that I have to do a weird project this summer involving a nightstand. I say weird because I can’t quite get my head around it. I’ll have to figure it out sometime in the summer. They haven’t set a deadline yet, and I’m hoping it’s not until September or October, but who knows? We did a catalog with our most recent show. It changes the deadlines. In fact, the show I was helping to plan for 2017 will have a feminist coloring book, so if you’re one of the people who’s been trying to tell me I should make a coloring book, well there will be one of my pieces in it…I’ll let you know when that’s available…hopefully by November.

Which means having to draw something to size. Ah well. Opportunity knocks and then you are buried in work. Seriously, my summer is chock full of have-to’s already and it hasn’t even started yet.

So I’m hoping to have enough energy to stitch this down tonight. I don’t think it will take more than a couple of hours at the absolute most. And then I can sandwich and pinbaste…quilting next week? I still need to finish the other drawing as well. I have another meeting tonight and two openings tomorrow night, so hopefully I’ll find some free time and energy in all that. Maybe.