Wish I Knew What You Were Looking For*

I came to some weird conclusion last night that I only had an hour and a half of artmaking in me on any given school night. Now I know that’s not true…there’s been nights when I’ve come home and figured out how to do 3-4 hours of work afterwards…but the week after Spring Break is not one of them. The machine did behave better last night and I was more efficient about the spacing out time on the couch (double time that space-out!), so that was good. But I’m still stitching down. I was really hoping to be done last night. Nope. Nopester. Nopealicious. Nopearama.

Not done.

I did this first…trying to be good and stay on it. The green ferny stitches on the top right on that bush that has been there for a while.

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Then I headed in to work on stitching down the stuff on the top. I had some blobby bits on the back, but got that resolved. I think it’s because the spool was almost empty. I’m using Superior’s MonoPoly right now. There’s no way NOT to read that as the game.

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Found some semi-efficient way to go through the water…I think all that’s done, except the Golden Retriever.

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Not sure how I missed the dog.

And then doing that bloody complicated bush was the thing I did right at midnight. Well that’s it then. Because I still had the torso and head to do, and that was going to be at least another hour. The bush was bad enough, all overlappy and then the bobbin thread ran out.

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I can’t really justify staying up past 1 AM on a school night right now. So I didn’t. Tonight I finish though! And then hopefully sandwich? I’ll have to get an earlier start to pull that off. Because kneeling on a tile floor at 11 PM is my way of having fun fun fun. Seriously. It is.

Kitten too. You can see it in her face.

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Here’s where I admit that she only has half her teeth because of some weird genetic thing. So she often gets this bitchy lip thing going that is really just because she’s toothless.

Anyway. Today? Finish stitch down. I can commit to that.

*The Church, Under the Milky Way

So Motivate, Though It’s Hard to Let It Ride*

I’m taking a way-too-brief break from a day full of grading. I can’t say I’m having fun, but I’m trying to get it done. No promises honestly, because some of this is just a slog. I’m trying to sew the binding on the newest quilt while I listen to the videos…because some of them are a bit um long and maybe boring. But some are kids who never talk in class, and they’re really interesting because of just that. Certainly I’m also reflecting on how to redesign this project to get more of what I want for next year. That’s the hardest part…because I might not remember for next year, so I try to write notes on the calendar and/or revise now. Writing curriculum is a pain in the ass. I’ll be glad when I can just refine stuff and make it more awesome, rather than making it from scratch.

So this is my view today so far…

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Taking little breaks regularly (that’s what this is…a break from the grading) so I don’t go crazy. Maybe I’ll get the binding done too while I’m at it.

Last night, I was just grading until I got to 3 videos totaling 20 minutes from one kid. It was a giant NOPE moment. I gave up.

And I slept in this morning, mostly because there was barking in the night and it wasn’t mine. But it kept me up. And I was tired. You should always acknowledge tired and try to do something about it. Sigh. I try. I don’t know why the stretch from February’s 3-day weekends to Spring Break is so long and torturous, but it is. My patience worn thin. My workload has not abated all year. I’m just done. But I can’t be done. So there we are.

Two more weeks until Spring Break. Then the run through until testing…it will be rough, but it will get done.

I did more of the flowers on the left, filling in between, but running out of thread, so one flower is not done. In the middle. Oh well.

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As with everything else, I will figure it out.

My couchmates last night…the cat licking my arm and the puppy throwing himself into my lap.

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Hopefully the binding will get finished while the grading gets done. And then maybe tomorrow, I can continue tracing Wonder Under on Bathtub 4 (turns out that one is #4, even though I’ve done #2 and #5), although there’s some planning and cleanup that needs to happen first, of course. So much work. Ugh. Overwhelmed. Buried. I really want to go for a walk…but I can’t do that…maybe tomorrow.

I do have plans for tonight, although they’re not ideal. I will get out of the house with my sketchbook. So I have 5 more hours. Use them wisely. Stop wasting time. You will just pay for it later.

*The Roots, What You Want

Now That She’s Back in the Atmosphere*

Well. Tired. Yup. Need more sleep. I try. Well, not very hard. But I do try. There’s just a space between enough sleep and happy because I got to make art, and I lean towards the latter. I also know that should be “toward”, but it sounds weird. Regional vernacular. See even when I’m bloody exhausted, I can figure out grammar. And that’s important. Ha! It’s really not. But whatever.

So yesterday I had quilt class, for the first time since I think September. It’s not going away for a while…but eventually my teacher will move north to her incoming grandchild and I’ll have to find another group of like-minded women (this might be incredibly difficult) who meet locally (also difficult). Sigh. But not now. So that’s good.

I wanted to be handsewing the binding at said meeting, but that would have meant even less sleep the night before, so I just got everything ready. And it’s probably good that’s all I did, because when I started sewing last night, I realized I had been a math dumbass (not surprising after midnight…math is not my strong point and it was an improper fraction too) and had to recut the binding. But the question of what to do at the meeting was easy enough, because I do have another deadline looming (they always loom…they don’t ever just come in and sit down for coffee and biscuits, let alone come in and start doing the dishes)…so I started tracing the Wonder Under for the next quilt. I don’t usually overlap when I’m working, unless there’s a jump in line. I have a couple of quilt tops that aren’t stitched down, for example. And some others that aren’t what I would consider serious art quilts that are in stitchy limbo. But generally I get all the way through one before I start the next one. I think a one-day overlap on these two is not a huge deal though.

I got a little over an hour in and about 100 pieces traced. Hopefully more tonight, but we’ll see…because I had to grade last night and I will have to grade tonight and perhaps every night until June 15.

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It’s such a relief when I don’t have to grade. So rare too.

I started doing flowers on the left side…but I only did every other one. I’ll have to figure out how I’m going to keep handling that.

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Then into the room of fabricky goodness, where Kitten deposited ALL the fur on this quilt. Bindings on, sleeves on…

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Pinned down. Yup. Used an existing fabric, which luckily I had enough of to cut another set of binding strips that were 5/8″ wider. Sigh. I hate to waste fabric. See the cat hair though?

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I think she needs a bath. Not that a bath will solve the hair problem.

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So now it’s all ready for the handwork. Woo hoo! Finished in March. Leaving me 5 weeks for the next one, except I will be gone for one of those weeks. YIKES. OK. Deep breaths. I got this.

Now I know you just come here for puppy pix…and he’s not a puppy…just a little furry asshole.

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Who is often cute. And bitey.

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But yeah…lots of tummy rubs and scratches were needed last night…and this morning, I need to get my butt out of here. Like now. Yikes…

*Train, Drops of Jupiter

When You Gonna Wake Up and Fight*

Hey. So. When art brain is on a roll, it’s hard to shut her ass down. Last night, 12:35 AM (let’s remember I have to get up at 6:30 to get to school on time), I’m staring at the current quilt, thinking…wtf. I need to finish this. I need to finish it now. I can do that. Look at clock. Fuck. Dammit. Aargh. So yeah, I COULD finish it, but bedtime would probably have been closer to 1:30. On a non-school night, no problem. Sometimes having so many school nights just sucks. I can’t just head in an hour later and make it up in the evening. Even calling sick is so much of a pain in the ass that I rarely do it. Get a sub. Make sub plans. Figure out how to get the sub plans to school (once showed up, barely walking, still in pjs, feverish, barely post-vomitous, just to dump three pieces of paper on my counter and then drive back home to crawl back into bed). Yeah. Not easy.

Anyway. So. I did NOT finish. Because I am a responsible adult. Mostly. Really.

I did come home and walk dogs…which was a problem because Calli demanded to go. I wasn’t going to take her because she’s still limpy, but she really really wanted to go. So we limped. She’s going back to the vet Friday. If it’s arthritis, then she needs something else.

Julie! Here’s a bigger shot of that weird plant you couldn’t identify before. It’s not a yard plant…out in the middle of all the wild areas. Multiple plants…

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Spiky balls. And the flowers are red on top, but the lower ones are yellow. Freaky.

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This is Simba when he wants to go outside but doesn’t yet realize it’s raining.

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He hates water.

I have had some issues with dinner lately. I just don’t feel like eating anything. And then nothing I have sounds good. I wanted pie last night. I settled for French toast and Brussels sprouts. Why? They are both foreign? European dinner?

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It was actually pretty good. Needed sausage. But my store hasn’t had any for a long time. Things to hide in your freezer for weird-ass nights like last night.

I graded…see, I made puppy tired. Midnight’s look is amusing.

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Then I added another twig branch thing in the bottom right. Another brown thread.

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And then while watching the end of the episode of The Magicians (notice that Midnight is now sitting next to me…puppy’s foot is still over there), I worked on this, the fourth (not fourth) block of Folk Tails…couching threads forever on this one, which is nothing when you consider that each of those brown spots is going to be surrounded by tiny bullion knots. Pray for me.

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Finally into the quilting room. Kitten moves over, mostly, and I quilt the background…

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I think the quilting took about 4 1/2 hours. But it’s done…

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And then I trimmed it…

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And I found a binding and cut it and the sleeves…

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And that’s when I had that conversation with art brain about the importance of sleep. It doesn’t care. If it were summer break, I would have stayed up. Hell, if it were Friday night, I probably would have stayed up. Wednesday though? Aack. Nope. Too much to deal with at school to do that. Need some reserves to deal with the annoyances.

With that, I have a parent meeting this morning…quilt class tonight, but I won’t have time to put the binding on before I go…which does suck, but it’s not like I didn’t try. Sure I could have NOT exercised…but I needed to do that. So. Priorities I guess. Next quilt is ready to go though.

*Shinedown, Sound of Madness

It’s Not Going to Stop*

You know how when you go to a website where it already knows your user ID and password, and it has that box to click Remember Me? If it already knew who I was when I got there and I didn’t click that box, would it forget me? Do I need to remind it to Remember Me every time? I just don’t know. It’s shit like this that keeps me up at night. I want answers. (Actually, that last bit IS what keeps me up at night.)

My head’s going in circles still with the to-do list, but I think if I just bust through a bit of it every day, I’m gonna make it. As my co-teacher said, we both have significant others who will be doing music stuff on Saturday, so we can just GRADE ALL DAY. Doesn’t that sound like fun? I know, right? SIGH. Deep heavy sigh. Then again, I’m the one grading in line. The plus is my eyelids aren’t twitching yet. But the fact that I haven’t finished grading the last unit and the next unit is due Monday is causing me some stress. Yup. Next year it won’t work like this, but for now, this is how we roll.

Yesterday’s teaching was frustrating for me…mostly because even after I figured out how little they knew about graphing and Google Draw (I can deal with that), there were the attitudes, mostly the “Please give me the answer because this is hard” attitude. I’m OK with school being hard. Just try…that’s all we ask. It was interesting to see who jumped in and did and who sat there and stared at it, hoping it would go away. I can’t deny feeling that way sometimes, but you know, it doesn’t go away. Funny…reminds me of one relationship as well…where I know it’s work and not magic and the other person never figures that shit out. The worst of the kid attitudes though were the whiners, the “I don’t get it” crew. WHAT don’t you get? Did you try? Nope. Big fat nopes. Just whiny. My job can be frustrating.

So first of all, here’s the asshole mockingbird. That’s the wires across from my house. He was in the neighbor’s tree.

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Interestingly, he was totally silent last night…incoming storm (which still hasn’t appeared). So I need more rain to keep him quiet? Sigh.

Then Calli is still having foot problems…so she used to run to the mailbox with me, and now she just sits by the car…

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Waiting for me to come back…

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Semi-patiently.

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Unlike this one, who does not know the word patient in any way, shape, or form.

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Um. What did I do? Oh. So I’m going through this tube of threads in order and it was brown next. I didn’t want brown flowers, because those are dead flowers, and why would I want to stitch dead flowers. So I did twigs on the right instead. I’ll deal with filling them later. Like maybe in May.

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Then I spent over an hour grading while the girlchild FaceTimed me. I did finish all the late stuff and the one assignment I had started grading in line, so that was good. I’m getting there. Seriously. It’s just slow and painful. It helps to talk to someone while you’re doing it.

Kitten was ready for me to start quilting again…although moments later, she fell off this. Mean of me to laugh.

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I caught her. And then went back to outlining.

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The machine was being cranky…I’m not really sure why. I cleaned everything out and rethreaded the whole beast, but the tension was off. Then I noticed the feed dogs were half up and half down. I can’t figure out why that would have an effect, but it started stitching correctly when I fixed that.

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So I kept outlining. But I thought it should go faster. I always think that though.

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I have about three hours in…

This is the pile of dark blue fabrics I’m apparently collecting.

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It’s my favorite background color. So when I go buy enough for the next quilt, I often can’t choose, so I buy two. Sometimes I end up using one on the back, but sometimes I just save it for the next quilt.

Not this one, obviously. There’s a vagina in the peas.

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And a ribcage in the carrots.

My favorite part is when I finish the outlining of the face…it’s where all the character of the piece is…the duct tape section came out perfectly. I still need to deal with the blue spots on the forehead…damn batiks.

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So that was well after midnight, which explains my grogginess this morning. I did start (barely) quilting the background. It won’t take long…tonight for sure. I swear. I need a binding too…hoping there’s something here that will work. Otherwise I may have an issue. Sigh.

Here’s the old lady in one of her favorite sleeping positions…

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She’s a sweet girl. Even the other one is sweet at this hour, until I try to get him to go in his crate. Then he’s a bitey asshole.

So yeah. Day sucked until I got to tutorial and kids actually were thinking, and then coming home and hanging out and then getting shit done that I actually cared about…then it got easier. Deep breaths for today (the assignment from yesterday continues!) and remembering dogs and quilting will be at the end of it.

*Aimee Mann, Wise Up

Like a Ninja

I appear to have misplaced my brain this morning. I can’t think. I can’t even direct thinking…like “why don’t you think about art? or school?” Nope. The brain is just like NOPE. Girlchild called last night about all this stuff piling up, and I was like, yeah. There’s too many things. That’s how you get overwhelmed…too much to calendar, or you calendar it and you keep having to move it, because you’re in the middle of doing one thing when the other one (or 5) pops up in your calendar. I just moved 4 things from last night to tonight, because I didn’t have time to get them done…and then I added a new thing. I’ll get caught up (or die) eventually, but at the moment, it does seem like I’m running around with my hair on fire. I’d like that to mellow out a bit please. If you’re taking requests, that is.

So here’s how it looks in real life…I don’t think I’ve ever been to a book signing. I mean, I feel like I have (wait, I know I went to a kid one with my own children)…but Jenny Lawson of Bloggess fame (and hopefully fortune) was coming to San Diego. I’ve been reading her blog for years and own the other two books. She’s funny. And deals with depression. Two of my favorite things, right? Anyway, what the hell, I wanted to hear her talk. So I drove up there, early, hoping to get a seat. Well. That didn’t happen, but it was OK. I did however grade in line, waiting to get in. Seriously. Because I don’t wait anywhere without something to do.

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I’m behind. I told you. But this is me on Google Classroom grading warmups while standing in line. Like you do.

She was awesome, as rambly and sarcastic and savage and funny in person as she is on her blog and in her books. I’m glad I went.

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I did not even try to wait hours in line for a signature. I’m good. I didn’t have that level of hardass fan in me. I was tired and I hadn’t eaten dinner and I still had shit to do last night. Besides, I totally forgot to bring a book. I could have had her sign my sketchbook, because I did have that (of course)…and she probably would have done that, since her current book is all the crazy drawings she did to fight through depression. Gee, I don’t know anything about that shit. But I couldn’t handle the number of people in there any more, so I drove home.

And did the stuff I can handle at the end of the day. I mean, sometimes I go out at night, but it’s usually with people I know really well by now. So that helps. I don’t have much energy left at the end of the day for dealing with things I don’t know. There has to be incentive, like cool art or something. Crazy authors. That shit.

I did the French knots on the left side, which will be the centers of flowers…they rambled down into cross stitches below to use up the last bit of thread.

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And then I quilted! Now that’s what I wanted to be doing. Not that I didn’t love listening to The Bloggess talk…but if she could have just shown up in my studio and talked to me while I sewed? That would have been awesome sauce.

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Even though I was tired, I had energy for the quilting. I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s there.

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Last night, it was mostly because I wanted to see her with the outlining. This is where stuff starts to pop.

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I stopped there because it was after midnight, but I didn’t want to. I just knew I had four more days of school to get through, so I needed to. Sleep is important, folks. Don’t forget that.

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I’ll definitely finish the outlining tonight…and make a good start on the background stuff, if I don’t just outright finish her. We’ll see. I have quilt class on Thursday, so it would be nice to get a binding on her so I can sew it down. And then start the next one. Like a ninja. An art ninja. I’m kind of a grading ninja too. That explains all the black I wear. In case you were wondering. Now before I have to leave, I’m going to do one of the five things I just moved on the calendar. Like a ninja.

Motherland Cradle Me*

I did finally start stitching down last night, late of course. This week is always a hard one because of the time change. You start out OK with the early rise, even somewhat invigorated by the daylight hours after getting home, but I find by the weekend that I’m usually exhausted. Oh wait. That’s every week. Ha. Whoops. And I’m up early three days this week, even earlier…meetings for two days, and then today we have a couple of concrete companies coming to science, so we’ll be outside all day. Luckily it’s supposed to be cooler than it was a few days ago. But it will still be a long day. I might pull my mom’s “come home and fall asleep on the couch”…what she would do when it was her day to work at the hospital as a volunteer. Except I have those dogs. Hard to sleep with them around.

My biggest problem last night was forgetting Kitten had been sleeping behind and next to the sewing machine for weeks. I should have cleaned before I started stitching. Whoops.

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I didn’t stitch for long. But I got started.

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Honestly this wouldn’t take long…so maybe tonight I’ll finish. If I’m still standing. Wait. I don’t have to stand to do this. That’s a plus. Ugh. I’m already tired. And nauseated. That’s always fun.

Seriously though. If I didn’t have so much going on this week and weekend, I think I might be able to finish this quilt completely. It’s so small.

I’m still reading about Toyen…I originally thought I might be able to post two or three artists a week, but apparently the one I started with is so deep and complicated that it might take me longer than that. The internet has so many rabbit holes to fall down. Intriguing stuff.

OK, gonna go put sunscreen on and hope this day turns out to be interesting for the kids. Because if it is, it will be easy to manage. And that would be cool.

*Natalie Merchant, Motherland

I Wait for the Minutes to Burn*

Well damn. I finished quilting the background. It was like a go big or go home moment…I was determined to sew until I finished. Luckily it wasn’t TOO late…just after midnight I think. Here? Here it seemed like I had forever left to go, a vast expanse of blue to fill in. I would never finish.

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Kitten is missing some teeth. She makes funny faces because of it.

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That is her new place to sleep. Because it’s right next to mommy while she quilts. When I move back into the living room to trace Wonder Under, she might follow me in there. That room is scarier apparently. More dog access. She and Simba still aren’t friends. I tried to tell her how good he is at cleaning kitty ears, but she won’t listen.

This is when I got all the way up one side, over the top, and into the blue that was left on the other side…I could see an end here…but that’s still a lot of blue.

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It took about 2 1/2 hours yesterday, totaling up over 19 hours…but all the outlining and quilting in the background is done.

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But I think I need to quilt in the cloud. Just a little. Not sure if I have the right color, but I don’t have time to go shopping.

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Either way, I can put the binding on tonight. Finally. A relief really. It’s not done, of course…it needs ink…maybe a little embroidery. Cat whiskers? Maybe. I haven’t totaled all the hours yet. I’m afraid of that number. The next one is much smaller.

At the quilt store, someone called this quilt “cute” (she couldn’t see all of it) and then asked me how long it had taken me. I said I’d started around Christmas. Not quite true. I did the cut and paste on December 11. So more than two months. It’s big…not surprising. But I did have a focus problem on this one too.

Puppy fell asleep in/on my embroidery bag…

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I filled in green leaves to go with the pink flowers from yesterday.

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Remember to fill in all the empty spaces…

I found all the balls last night. They were all under the coffee table.

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So yeah, we played for a bit, but there’s this interesting conundrum. Do we need to check under there more often? Or do I need a new coffee table that goes all the way to the ground? Or just buy more balls? The choices…

The dogs don’t care, as long as I throw them. They really really want me to throw them.

*IAMDYNAMITE, Hi Lo

Hold Me, Wrap Me Up*

First of all, Happy V Day. I’m not really a fan of how this day fucks with many people’s heads, but I still think it’s important to spread the love. Lots of hugs today…we need them.

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And if you don’t, then just pass it on to someone who does.

I had three dogs for a few days there…mostly the two smaller ones played with each other while the other one stared at me as if I should stop it.

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I did not. But Katie is back with my parents now.

So this weekend. Damn. I know I did some stuff. I cooked a lot of things and froze bunches of it for later weeks, packed some other stuff up to eat this week. I know I talked to my daughter twice and my SIL once…well twice, if you count multiple conversations in a day. I know I graded stuff too, but honestly, not too much, because mostly it hurt my brain and took way too much time. And there were other things I wanted and needed to get done. At some point, I just accepted that sometimes talking to real humans is more important than grading shit.

So I had figured out this drawing in my head and I started it at some point on Sunday, before going back to grading…but I fucked up the fingers.

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Facing the wrong way…palms of hands up means fingernails behind, not in front. Liquid paper to the rescue.

I penciled in where one of the heads was supposed to go. Yes, I said one.

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Yeah. That was a good start. Then I worked on quilting for a while…

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That was something I wanted to finish this weekend, but I did not. Because. Shit happens, right? I did get the binding fabric, so I have that available for when I do finish, hopefully tonight, but honestly, probably tomorrow. But I still need to go up one side from the shoulder, over the head and the cloud, and around. Not a small amount, but again, not a huge amount. Close to done.

I wanted to hike the dogs yesterday, but our path is still underwater…

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It’s easier to get around it now, though, after two weeks of mostly drying out (we keep getting more rain…two inches predicted for Friday…in California, we don’t ever just the right amount of rain…it’s either not enough or way too much.).

Now that view looks nice, doesn’t it? All green and lush? (well, for California) We got about a 1/2 mile out and I saw three coyotes on both sides of the trail.

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Now if it were just me, I’d be OK with that. But Calli is older and Simba is a tasty treat. So I guess we’re not hiking here for a while…until the water disappears so it’s not an easy source for them, or until I get a bigger group of people (hello, children) to go with me. I don’t think they’d come after me with two dogs, but there’s no one else out here most days, so I’m not willing to take the risk.

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It sucks, though…the other options are full of other people. Ugh. I like to hike without a million bikes and kids and dogs.

The dogs wanted a longer walk…hell, so did I…

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Oh well.

So then I came home and drew this for school.

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We couldn’t find exactly what we wanted, so I drew it. I might need to redraw it, but that’s easier the second time around anyway. We’ll see. I still need to do a word bank for it.

I sat and sewed for a bit, making up for Sunday and Monday. And realized at some point that I had both Midnight and Simba were curled up next to me.

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I did the bright pink flowers and their centers in Long.

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They still need leaves.

Then I went back to the drawing, because it was yelling louder than the quilt…

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It’s borrowing ideas from two other quilts (maybe more) at this point, but it’s going where I want/need it to go. It’s not done though. As I went to bed, another idea popped into my head for filling arms/legs. So I wrote it down…maybe tonight. ALL the things are maybe tonight.

Midnight eventually moved behind me on the couch.

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A closeup of the faces…because that. Yeah.

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You can’t make me. It’s funny…I drew the center face and thought it turned out really well, and then realized I was going to censor her in some way (muzzle, gag, whatever). But I’d already done this perfect face. So duct tape it. And what’s behind still shows, because I want you to see what you’re covering up, what you’re trying to shut up.

So in reality, I didn’t get anywhere near enough done this weekend…which sucks. But it’s not like I did nothing. It’s progress, stuff that needs to get done. I’ll get there. Slowly, apparently, but I will get there.

*Sia, Breathe Me

They Tell Me to Breathe Easy for a While*

I didn’t post yesterday because I didn’t do anything Friday but teach and veg out really. Not really, but close enough. It happens. I’m a fan of giving oneself a break when one needs it, best one can. Sometimes the best thing you can do is go to bed early with a cup of tea and read a book. Not that I did that, but sometimes I do.

I have too many things I need to do this weekend. Yesterday I started with the quilting…wanting to be done with the background this weekend. And then I couldn’t stop. I was going to grade stuff first, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. So I didn’t. There’s three days. Surely I can force myself to grade at some point (ugh).

So I fixed the bits I hadn’t stitched down…and then started quilting the background.

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Trying to remember to not do it really small and tight…it’s not necessary on this quilt and it would take forever. It wasn’t always easy though…I broke two needles (probably going too fast) and a lot of thread. Sigh. It’s frustrating sometimes. I think I did about 3 1/2 hours or so…and got more than halfway around. So that’s a good sign for today.

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Because my goal for today is to finish…so after dental cleaning tomorrow, I can go to fabric store and buy yardage for binding. Seriously. It’s almost done. That snuck up on me.

I have the parental dog at the moment, on top of the other two. It’s OK…she entertains the little one.

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When she’s not lying on my floor.

I kept getting distracted while quilting. I need breaks every 45 minutes or so (yeah, I know, it’s supposed to be every 20 minutes, but whatever…I get on a roll)…so I was trying to find the stuff for this quilt. I had all the blocks and the stuff for the borders, but I couldn’t find the instructions until I stood motionless in my living room for about 10 minutes with my eyes closed, visualizing what I had done with it (taken it to stitch meeting to confer with other stitching people about how best to do the borders: attach before or after). Now it’s where it should be.

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Not that I have time to do anything about it. At least it’s organized. That helps.

I also tried organizing all the BOMs I have collected. Probably should stop collecting and finish them instead. Easier said than done.

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Anyway, eventually, each time, I would come back to quilting.

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With or without Kitten’s help.

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Well, hello. Get off the quilt.

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Mommy, you called me. Did not.

So then last night and this morning, I was trying to make sense of all the shows coming up, deadlines all over my head, images all over my brain…nasty nightmare last night that’s still in my head, but not relevant to ANY of this, dammit.

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Straight up, honestly, hard to focus. So I pulled up a calendar this morning on my phone and talked my way through it. “If I do this first, the drawing doesn’t exist, so I need that done by say Wednesday, and if I make that a 6-week quilt, which is one that’s a reasonable size and number of pieces, instead of the crazy-ass thing I’m currently doing, then I could finish it by this date, and that only leaves me this many weeks to finish that one, and that’s not gonna work, and then there’s this other show, and I would have nothing for it, and that’s my local group and I’m a juror/curator/someone in charge, so I want to have something for that, so that’s not gonna work. But what if I do this one and draw that one and then I’d have two of those for that, but no, that still doesn’t solve the problem of having a piece for that show.” Dammit. There’s so many political quilts in my head at the moment that I can’t focus at all. But that’s one thing I need to get through in my head right now. What to do next, with no fucking down time, which is fine, because down time is focused on bad shit and I don’t need that. I need to DO, to MAKE, to SOLVE.

You should go read what I wrote for Through Our Hands though. They approached me and asked me to write about censorship if I wanted, or just about my work. I kinda did both. And that’s where this next drawing was going…

I had had an idea back in November or October? for the local show and I didn’t write it down, but just held on to some piece of it in my head, so last night, while watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the 17th time (still good, but not the female character…she sucks), I tried to draw it.

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So I’m not saying I can’t do this quilt…on a redraw…but this isn’t where I want the piece for this show to go. So I stopped. Right before the big money moment, yes. This is still a thing, it’s just way far fucking out from where I need to be right now. Ugh. So I quit.

And then had that conversation this morning. And then driving home, the entire drawing for the local show popped into my head, PING, repopulating itself as I drove. Seriously, my brain erased bits and then added more and then adjusted and drew more. I wish I could just download that. Well, I can. It’s called drawing. I’m afraid I’m going to lose it. The boychild gave me these artsy notebooks for Xmas. I used to have a small sketchbook for jotting shit like this down, and then got out of the habit. I’m back into it. It sits by the side of my bed or in the living room (I carry it around) and all these ideas get scrawled into it…words and sketches. So I put it in there…and it’s censorship. That’s where I needed to go. Sometimes my brain scares me with its ability to create shit out of almost nothing. Just random ideas and nothing else, and then there’s a picture, all the lines drawing as I watch, often while I’m driving, and it’s just there. Boom.

I know it’s years of practice. But it’s still cool.

The immigration one is in the notebook too…it’s fully drawn in my head too, but I don’t have a place in the schedule for it yet…maybe summer? We’ll see. Because there’s a fine line between making for one’s own self and making to get into shows. I’m always trying to find that balance. There are some this Spring that I’m just having to say no to…I can’t do everything. Shows and drawings.

Anyway. I need to draw today. I think I can do it in about 2-3 hours. Aack! Plus three hours of quilting and then grocery shopping and I thought walking dogs, although maybe that’s tomorrow at this point. Plus grading. Sheesh.

This is the book I’m supposed to be reading for school. Apparently Midnight was offended by it.

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Whoops. Seriously. It was the cat. Not me. I actually don’t mind Hattie…I just mind how my district is implementing it…by completely ignoring what he says about how it should be implemented. So they keep calling it Visible Learning, but they’re not actually doing it. They’re micromanaging. Oh well. Trying to keep my frustration low on that. Read the damn book, yell while I’m reading it. Trying to assume best intentions. It’s not worth more energy.

I didn’t stitch Friday, so I did two yesterday…the lazy daisy green leaves around Prosper, and then the blue flowers on them until I ran out of thread.

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Still trying to fill in. That’s 42 days. Still want to put a hand and a tree in. So gonna figure that out. Maybe not today.

Today…draw…quilt…shop…cook…clean (seriously. the floors.). But first? Man I’ve got a headache. Splitting. Weather? Probably. Gonna take meds and do the grocery list. Then get my focus on. Art brain demands it.

*Sara Bareilles, Love Song