If Today Is All We See*

So. I went in yesterday with the two sewing machines that I had killed now, and even though I made sure the newer one didn’t work in the morning, it worked by the time we got there. But what he thought it was now was something that wasn’t even worth it to fix…it would cost too much. Parts aren’t even made any more (my “newer” machine is probably circa 1990). The older one he could make work, no problem, but he cautioned me that it wouldn’t hold up to my quilting practices.

So it’s not that I’m hard on machines per se…it’s that the average person drives their car about 15,000 miles a year, say, and if we’re talking about my car, I drive it more like 100,000 miles a year. Except we’re talking about sewing machines. And it’s not easy sewing…it’s hard on the machine itself. So dirt roads for the car.

To shorten the story, mom and I went back and I’m currently test-driving an older Sapphire, which has the larger harp, but is more of a workhorse. It’s used…but probably not much. Yesterday, I managed to quilt most of this one using only one bobbin…

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Not bad. I broke a needle in the beginning, but I think I was using the wrong foot. I switched to the one my mom loaned me, a springy bouncy free-motion foot, and I was much better off. It’s different than my old machine, of course, but it was pretty easy to use after I tried four different things and ripped a bunch out and tried again.

So later that night, I tried the outline quilting I do, which is very different…much slower, I need control, and it goes through a ton of layers. It did really well with this.

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It was late by then, so I didn’t do a lot, but I’ll do some more today and then make a decision. I think it will work, though. All my sewing machines have been hand-me-downs from my mom…but she does more of the design work, and I don’t need something like that, so she’s been trading in her old ones over the years to get the one she’s got now. This one is much simpler, but will hopefully stand up to the work I give it.

And the good news is that I can now quilt this shit out of this thing and get it done. I want the quilting done this week (although the next three days are kinda screwed for that…).

We did walk the dogs yesterday…

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There are so few dog walks left with the kids this summer. Wah. Calli had something wrong with her foot at some point, and boychild considered carrying her. It didn’t last long (she fussed and squirmed)…

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The other thing about this machine is that I can close the lid and the thread is covered up completely. So it’s CAT PROOF. Oh yeah.

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That’s a selling point. I still have to do this with the quilt to keep Midnight from lying on it or vomiting on it, but I don’t have to remember to remove the spool and rethread every time. That’s a plus.

It’s funny though. I was sitting there contemplating having no working machine at all, or limping through on the old one until I completely trashed it, or trying to use other people’s machines and knowing that I couldn’t do that forever…and I thought, shit, I should be a painter or something. No major machinery that you need for that. But it’s not actually cheaper in the long run, I think. Brushes and paints aren’t cheap if they’re good quality. Certainly I could still quilt without a machine, do it all by hand. I did that with a few of my early quilts (and even they aren’t hand-quilted…just hand-appliqued) and it took FOREVER. So I’d finish like one small quilt a year. When right now I’m looking at needing to finish three or four large quilts before the end of the year, certainly before next spring, another two more. And two or three smaller ones. Oh yeah. It’s crazy, but you can’t do it without a machine that works. So there we are.

It’s my Christmas present. I have good parents who try to support my crazy art. And honestly, when you think about the stuff you get for Christmas and birthdays, this is one of the best presents for someone like me.

*Zero 7, Morning Song

The Plan…

So the sewing machine is having issues…it’ll go in for service in two weeks (they’re booked that far out). It froze up on me twice the other afternoon. I had decided to take a break from Earth Mother 2016 and do a quick quilt job on the other smaller piece I’ve had hanging around for a million years…

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Mostly so I could take three small pieces to the photographer at once, instead of one at a time (more expensive). I got through most of the outlining before it froze. I cleaned out the bobbin area, because that’s usually an issue, and started up again, but 15 minutes later, it did it again. This time, I pulled the whole bobbin case out and found a wealth of tied-up fluff crap.

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It was wrapped around the case…and I pulled all this out…

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Cool. Then tried sewing again yesterday, got about 15 minutes in, and it froze again. Shit. Anyway. Already have a cleaning appointment. Guess I’m not sewing until then, unless I pull out the old trusty maroon Viking. Which I could do, if I were desperate. It’s scary when you call your repair guy and he asks about your old machine (because he took it apart and put it back together again enough times).

We had dinner last night at the parentals…three dogs in one picture.

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And then I tried to get stuff done…been clearing up the table in the studio (currently it’s in piles on the floor instead)…and then came out and forced myself to watch cooking shows with the girlchild (some of them really annoy me, but she didn’t want to be alone) while cutting stuff out…Midnight was so helpful.

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Puppy eventually settled down and stopped trying to attack me as I was cutting…

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And I cut for two hours…only 4 hours and 40 minutes in total. Box on the left is cut out…doesn’t look like much. But neither does the box on the right. Hard to believe there’s possibly another 16 hours of cutting hiding in there.

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Here’s all the bits and pieces. I do save them.

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Not forever…just until I have the quilt ironed down, because I might need just a small piece of one color. Usually, it’s the small pieces that disappear the easiest. And then I don’t have to pull out the big pieces. I do throw them out after I’m done ironing. I had a quilt artist friend who used to ask me for them, but she’s moved on. And none of them are really big enough for anything useful.

And here’s a blogpost I did for the California Fibers’ show Eclectic Threads (which I’ve been calling Eclectic Fibers for months)…it’s at the Oceanside Museum of Art through October 9. I have photos from two of the other exhibits in there, which are pretty cool. I’ll try to remember to post them this week.

I’m gonna have to start copyediting again soon. Two more chapters are sitting here and I don’t want to look at them next weekend either. So maybe I’ll do some today. We have a dog walk on the list and burgers of course and then fireworks with the hordes. But not a lot else. Isn’t Independence Day about lying around and doing nothing but eat and watch stuff?

As far as planning quilt stuff out, I know I have no working sewing machine until the 20th at the earliest, but there’s got to be another 16 hours of cutting (although it doesn’t look that way), and then another 20 hours plus of ironing. So potentially I would be ready to stitch down earlier than that date…so I need to think about the next steps for whatever’s next on the list. Drawing then. Maybe that’s something I try to do today. In between cleaning and cooking and all the other crap. And working! So I can have a full-size drawing for the next big piece ready to go. I can also pick fabrics for the little owl. I’ve put that off because I want to see what this one that I’ve already picked looks like once I’ve ironed it. Then it’s easier for me to adjust. There are plenty of things I can work on…seriously. And there’s no real deadline for this piece…just a plan. I always have a plan. It’s not always a good one. Or sane. But it’s a plan.

Art over Work…

Although I have 700 things to grade and the deadline is positively LOOMING over me (it always does…some times of the year, it just feels like I’m ducking down to avoid responsibilities for weeks at a time), I am blowing it all off today for art. Seriously. It’s the weekend. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. And Monday. And every freakin’ day next week. Whatever doesn’t get done…doesn’t get done. Honestly, nobody’s grade is changing THAT much at this point.

Teachers at the end of the year…sigh. I was done yesterday, and we still have nine more days.

Anyway, I got nothing done last night because of gaming and exhaustion, but I will today. First, I have to deliver Mammogram to the Oceanside Museum of Art…the opening of the California Fibers: Eclectic Fibers show is Saturday, June 25, from 6-8 PM. If you’re planning on coming, let me know and I can put you on a list so you can get in free.

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There will also be some sort of artist talk on July 12 from 6:30-8. It will either be artist meet and greet or an artist panel, but I’m planning on being there either way. The show is open for quite a while, so you have plenty of chances to go see it.

The closing exhibition for Feminism Now is next Saturday from 6-10 PM, which is part of the Barrio Art Crawl. I will need to be there at 10 to pick up my work, but I won’t be there for the whole 4 hours! (Sorry)

I have a post-it attached to my computer with all the upcoming deadlines and ideas for some of them (at least one of them needs a drawing in the next month or so). However many things I have on my phone to remind me of stuff, sometimes I just need to go old school so I can SEE it every day. All the ways you can poke the brain into remembering shit.

The rest of today will be tracing stuff and then the Art around Adams two-mile art and music event this afternoon and evening. Because it’s a weekend and summer and it doesn’t all have to be work all the time. Because that’s what makes us cranky. But first I have to drive to Oceanside. Eh. Oh well. It’s for a good thing. The other stuff today will help with inspiration for the next few pieces (that nightstand thing is currently rolling around in my head, and not necessarily in a good way). Hopefully I can get some drawing in soon too.

Support

About 4 or 5 years ago, I was coming to the realization that my work doesn’t necessarily fit in the quilt world, that there are shows I can get into, but there are also many that I can’t, because the imagery is too challenging or controversial or hell…it has boobs and a vulva and those things aren’t allowed. Because 50% of the population needs to have their parts hidden away? Well it’s not like there’s a bunch of art out there with penises on it, unless it’s the oh-so-acceptable sculptural types from the Renaissance. I was in a few quilt groups that ran on the art side of things, but I was looking for local groups, places where I felt less isolated and out there in the art world. I wasn’t in the San Diego art world at all.

So I started looking, and I found two groups that I’ve been a part of since then, one juried and one not, and between the two of them, I’ve been in about 10 shows in Southern California and beyond (one is traveling to Sweden next year), but more importantly, I’m growing this support group of people who know my work and support me and have no problems with fabric inhabiting the art world. I can have a conversation with almost anyone in either group, and I’m starting to find other opportunities because of belonging…my 2-person show in January absolutely came about because of my membership in one of the groups with the curator. I was just juried into another group and members from both groups voted for me…hence more opportunities to show work.

Being in local shows doesn’t seem like a big deal…I get work into shows all the time and it travels all over the world. But it is a big deal, because the local shows are where I meet people in person who are looking at the work and talking to me…giving me tangible support to keep making. Not that I will stop…not that I know HOW to stop. This drive does not slow down for exhaustion or my job or other obligations. I hear it in the back of my head all the time (Make Make Make). But now I have people I see at shows, people who have my back, people who talk to me about my work, their work, work in general. People who push me to do different work, like the 17-foot woman from last year and the nightstand I’ll be doing this year. This is all good.

We had an artists’ talk for my women’s art group yesterday at our show Feminism Now. Amusingly, someone actually did some mansplaining for us, telling us how the problems we think exist don’t any more. Say what? But it was a good discussion anyway. I got to hear a few artists talk about their work, artists I hadn’t heard from before. As our group grows, I’m finding it hard to make sure I can place name with face (we need to work on that as a group), but I do know the group serves to support female artists in a city that is known for ignoring or even censoring our presence. This discussion of what is a feminist, what is feminism NOW, and especially to us…it’s important and our group isn’t going to let it drop.

Here’s most of the women who were in the show (there’s a chunk of women who weren’t…it’s a big group now).

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Wirework outside the gallery…suspect Spenser Little at work…

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So most of my day was picking up work from being juried and spending time at the gallery for the talk and trying to get better pictures for an official group blogpost of the show…but I did eventually (after grading of course) come back and start tracing again…

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This piece is slow going, but it will be worth it. I’ve got about 3 hours in and I’m only on piece 220. The first 115 pieces were large and kind of convoluted, so they took longer to trace. Now I’m into the tiny pieces mostly, with some background stuff in there.

This is what it looks like from the back when I’m tracing…

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Except the light on the light table is on. But the numbers are all backwards, which takes some getting used to. I did the left thigh last night: a raccoon and some flowers and leaves. I stopped when I got to the owl, because it was 100 pieces (at least) and it was after midnight. I was tired. I stayed up another half hour to let my brain relax…don’t know if it worked, but I zonked out pretty fast. Good sign.

Apparently I have to trace the owl twice…although I think I will redraw him so he has all his parts first…because he’s missing some parts of his tail I think, and part of a wing. I could do that today as well.

I do have two more classes of the last unit to grade today, plus making new seating charts…very exciting stuff. And groceries and laundry. It’s nice to have an extra day for it though. It would have been hard to deal with going back to school today with everything I was trying to get done over the weekend. Trying to keep up with my job and live life and make art…it’s a lot, and I’m totally looking forward to a break in a few weeks with summer vacation (I’ll still be making art…just not trying to juggle the job in the middle of it). I’m looking forward to sitting out on the deck and relaxing with my sketchbook. I’m looking forward to having the time to reconnect with my art brain in a less stressful way. Also eating and peeing when I want…those are pluses. And fewer demands on my patience (only 2 kids instead of 155 and mine are adults, so hopefully that will help).

What’s Next?

So the first kid comes home today. Her room was relatively clean, but I didn’t wash her bedding after she left because I did that when she left in August and then her cat puked all over the clean stuff. So I waited this time, and sure enough, there was puke. Damn cat. So I just need to make her bed. So the cat can puke on it.

Boychild’s room is the one where I dumped all the stuff from my office. I spent about 3 hours dealing with it yesterday, and I’m down to a manageable pile. He comes home Wednesday, so I have a little more time.

So it seems I spent most of yesterday doing my favorite thing (cough)…cleaning. Seriously, there were many hours of it. Then I finally sat down and started sewing a binding on the most recent quilt, still unnamed. In fact, both of the last two, finished within hours of each other, are unnamed. Working on it.

This was the view last night…quilt on my lap, sewing binding. Simba right next to me (better than earlier when he was ON me and trying to bite the quilt. Um. No. Then Midnight sprawled further down on the couch.

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Here she is finished, a little over 34 hours to make her.

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Need official photos, but think I will wait until the next smaller one is done. Plus the embroidery on the orange one.

Here’s the next one hanging up. I could start quilting it today.

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Quilting is pretty brainless for me. Easy peasy. Don’t have to think or plan and really do anything but move the fabric around under the needle. Try not to hit the hand. This quilt top is so old, I don’t know how old it is. Might be 2006. Might predate the world. NO! I found it…May 12, 2006. It was on my old blog. Yes, I’ve been blogging since the dark ages. Why do you ask?

It’s my art journal in many ways. TEN years to finish a quilt. Yeah. Well. Shit happens.

Speaking of finishing, the section in the middle is all I have on this drawing before I can (deep breath) NUMBER it and determine exactly how crazy I am.

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And since it’s next on the list, I should do that this week too. I know in general what I want in there. I just don’t know what that looks like or how it will fit. That’s the issue. It’s OK. I’ll get there. And this one won’t take 10 years. The other quilt sat around because it really was just a mental experiment, something to do when my brain wouldn’t settle down on anything. It’s like a drawing, but freehand with fabric. This drawing has been sitting around in this state for a while now, since May 2. It has 9 hours of drawing in it…well, more than that, because the first bit was in a sketchbook. So probably 11 hours. For those who have seen this quilt…

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Wise Choice…for the Earth Stories exhibit…it was a 13-hour drawing. Anyway. Moving on. I have about 17 errands (again, must be a weekend during the school year) and grading to do, plus I’d better make the girlchild’s bed. After all that, I can decide what to work on next.

Damn Adulting

I forgot to take photos of the other quilt I worked on last night…oh well. I went to quilt class and sewed a binding on that crazy orange quilt. I still need to sew the sleeves on, so another hour or so. It’s an older quilt top. I just wanted it finished. Then I came home and wanted to finish the one I’ve been working on. I almost finished it the other night, until that pesky adult voice that thinks I need to sleep spoke up. Damn adulting.

So I worked on quilting it…

And finished. I really only had about 45 minutes left. It took about 4 1/2 hours to quilt the whole thing. Not bad. (I did not grade any papers last night…bad Kathy)

It wasn’t bedtime yet, so I found a binding (easier to do from your stash when you are working with a smaller quilt) and used the fabric from the backing to cut two sleeves.

I originally bought that fabric when I was still married. Back in the dark ages. I was going to make a dress out of it and some other fabrics. Not sure where the others went. Never happened, of course. YES, I used to sew my own clothes. Can’t be bothered anymore. Plus I mostly just wear black. I still have lots of that fabric left, that’s for sure.

Oh, I forgot about this. I’m working with one of my art groups on a Sexism in the Art World show that will open in 2017, and we were talking about making a coloring book. One person had suggested a topic that was eh, yawn, no thanks (there was a reason for it, but still. eh.), and this coloring book came up…

Midnight is shocked that it was only $10 online. I was not shocked and purchased it for my weird book collection, so when I die, my children and grandchildren will have plenty to talk about and to make them laugh their asses off instead of crying. Yup. I really care about my family. (Just as a side note, there are some very pretty drawings in there)

Simba has now sat on the foot pedal (I trained my cats out of that years ago) and tried to sit in my lap while I was quilting.

Really! I am a cat! You can let me on the chair! He’s still adjusting, as are we all. Wait until the rest of the family gets home.

Bindings on…

Small quilts go so FAST. I’m going to remember this when I’m working on the next beast, which will probably take 6 weeks of nonstop work.

You can barely see Midnight in the back…that’s where she sits most of the time.

No, that tupperware bin cannot be used for anything but cat butts. That is the fourth cat butt that has graced that box…maybe fifth. It’s funny how they claim space. Even now, I’ve got Simba on the floor in here, so Calli won’t come in. Simba comes in when Calli does, but then won’t lie down, like he is now. When Katie is here, it’s a whole ‘nother juggling for space. I regularly have three animals in here, one of the smallest rooms in the house.

Anyway, I’m not home tonight, so the quilt bindings will have to wait until Saturday or Sunday. And then I have to officially admit to being done with this quilt and move on to the big one. I don’t know if I’m ready for that, but my artmaking schedule for the summer tells me I have to be. On the one hand, I’m excited to be starting the big quilt, but I also know how LONG it will take, and that some parts will just feel endless. And I do have another quilt top that’s pinbasted, another old one. I might quilt that first, because I know it needs hand embroidery, and then I’d have that to work on if I didn’t feel like working on the big one (yes, one more reason to procrastinate about the big quilt). Sigh.

OK, but before I can move on to any of that, I have to go to work and pretend I adult well.

Stretching Past What We’ve Always Done

Hallelujah for the nice kid in Petco who helped me pick out and install a harness on the little beast yesterday. I wanted to try walking both of them in a nice wide-open area, but the leash was too short and the collar didn’t seem safe enough. Simba pinwheels around a bit on it. So a harness it was (never owned a dog small enough for a harness…so he had to show me how it worked). We only made it 1.56 miles…the big dog tricked me into a shorter path she knows (she walks with my ex and the kids too), plus Simba is a tiny baby really and if I’d gone further, I probably would have had to carry him for a while. So we’ll have to figure that out, because normally I do 3-mile hikes during the week. My SIL has a little dog and says 35 minutes…and that’s what we did I guess. Lots of leash tangling and bizarre walking behavior. The dog has sorta been trained, but not well or consistently.

But this cat…

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She’s still incredibly unsure and runs when she sees him, and so he thinks that’s a game and chases her. She’s whacked at him once, but missed his nose. Not sure if that will mellow out, but I hope so. The other cat has taken another furry addition to the house in stride and doesn’t care.

That’s where I was grading by the way. Pens are there to fill out the gradebook I keep on paper, but everything else is online. I did go through the worksheet and the website I assigned them and filled it out myself, just to see what answers I SHOULD get. Holy moley, sometimes I wonder how some of these kids will make it through life. They just make up random shit…this assignment was so easy, I filled out my worksheet in less than 7 minutes. Granted, I didn’t have to go find pictures or write full sentences, but they should have been able to handle it easily in the time I gave them. And many did.

Simba is still trying to figure it all out.

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I’m looking forward to the kids coming home next week to help out with this puppy thing…because it’s a bit tiring. The timing could have been better. He does go to bed and sleep all night, except at 3 AM when he hears an animal in the bushes and thinks he needs to protect all of us. Puppy growling.

I have blood testing this morning, so I’m fasting (no caffeine, no food) and that’s never a good start to the day…especially since we have testing, so I have no prep, no bathroom until 12:15…unless I call admin. Which I may have to do today, after 40 ounces of water, or whatever it is. And they’ll still complain about my veins. Whatever.

I wanted to finish quilting last night, but knew I’d have to be up extra early for the lab tests, so I stopped before midnight and went to bed (see, I CAN do that).

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I’m almost done, though…dammit! Oh well. I’ll finish tonight, except I really should grade something tonight. I’m trying to get caught up, which means an assignment a day. And I can’t get through much while we’re testing. We’ll see. I’d really much rather finish quilting and get a binding on this thing than grade papers. Shockingly.

I’m also starting to process (in my head) a collaborative project I’ll be working on over the summer for the women’s group I’m in. Honestly, these types of projects kind of terrify me, because I’m not used to working with other people…in art. I work with other people all the time at school, and sometimes I know I don’t know enough to do stuff well, but I just research the heck out of it. This thing, it’s a little weird and I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out, and I guess I’m really an introvert/loner, because the socializing that needs to happen to create the project is really freaking me out. Whoops. I’ll be fine. My art brain is just having a moment. It will get over it, as my co-art person says, when I have enough wine and brainstorming to get past it. More on that later, but it starts with a $5 nightstand. Stretching past what we’ve always done is usually a good thing.

But now, now I need to drive to the lab and let the bloodsuckers have at my poor tiny veins. Then I can eat. And more importantly, get caffeine.

Clearing the Mind

I have about 15 minutes before I have to get ready to leave…busy crazy day. When you’re a teacher, you can’t do a lot of the things normal people do on a work day. I don’t have a lunch hour where I can run errands. I don’t have a flexible start time. I can’t get an hour off in the morning to go get my blood tested or take my car in. I either take a half day or a whole day (which we never do, because it’s a rancid pain to deal with subs), so mostly you try to do stuff before or after school in some sort of crazy way before school starts or things close (yes, you, post office with your stupid hours).

Today is one of those days…I have a car issue, but the car guy is around the corner from a co-teacher, so I can catch a ride, but it makes the morning a little bit more chaotic. And the afternoon as well, honestly…

I love Mondays though, because 3 out of 4 weeks of the month, I get home relatively early and I walk the dog. We have a couple of local walks we do that are more nature than suburbia…this is going up a pretty steep slope, and Calli is being very good about the baby bunny at the top…

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OK. Really she’s trying to pull me up the slope, which is kinda useful, because it’s really steep. Anyway, it’s about 3 miles and at the end of it, I’m feeling much better, head is clear from work, and the dog is tired.

Unfortunately, it gets muddied again directly after, because I have a ton of grading to do, so I settled down to that for a while, then finally ate, and THEN I could start quilting again…I’d finished the torso the night before, so all that was left was the head for outlining.

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I had my trusty cat companion, who was going a bit bonkers at one point…

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Maybe she objected to what was on Netflix.

Amusingly, I thought I could finish the quilting last night, until I looked at the clock. Whoops.

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Well. Two and a half hours in. She’s outlined and I’ve started the background quilting, but no way was I gonna finish last night. I’m not that crazy. I do have to go to work today and deal with the car and maybe another dog and that’s a whole ‘nother long crazyass story.

And I still haven’t dealt with resizing photos at all. Too much work; not enough time. Especially right now…

Plenty on the Plate…

There was a lot of art this weekend. I haven’t even been able to process it really, there was so much of it. Four openings, and there was a fifth I meant to go to, but I was exhausted by then. Honestly, I think I need a whole day to sleep. Today would be nice, but apparently it’s a work day.

Here’s me with my two pieces at Feminism Now. I had to hold still for an interminable amount of time (apparently I can’t hold a smile that long)…

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But it gives you a good idea of the size differential between the two pieces. The smaller one will travel to Sweden next year and be in another show. It was a great opening, lots of amazing work. I’ll get through it when I have a chance and post a link to the official blogpost as soon as I can.

I did finally give the young woman some pupils, some holes in her eyes…

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And I also ironed and pinbasted her into a happy quilt sandwich…

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Ready for quilting. Then I thought about what I had coming up this week, and I do have quilt class, and I want to be efficient about what I get done at all times. Though my smart-ass answer whenever anyone asks me “How do you get so much work done” is that I don’t sleep (and this is somewhat true), the reality is that I am very practical and efficient as well. If I’m waiting for someone to show up and I have 20 minutes, I use it to iron something or cut something out. If I know I have somewhere I’ll be for two hours, and there’s a binding that could be sewn in that time, I wrangle it so that can happen. I don’t just sit at meetings…I’m almost always working. I even find it hard to sit in restaurants and wait for them to bring the food…it’s lost time.

Anyway. So I found binding fabric for that crazy orange quilt that I can’t explain…

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And I cut it and attached it so that Thursday I can sew it down.

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Then I started quilting the newest one. This is where the line comes in…the line that pops the drawing out…

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I love seeing the image become more clear as I sew the dark outline.

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I spent about an hour and did about half of the outlining. This part is so meditative, I find it hard to remember to look at the clock…let alone stand up once in a while and stretch…or go to bed. So she’s in progress. Maybe I’ll have her bound by Thursday too, although that might not be possible…I do have a ton of schoolwork to deal with as well. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, another hour into the disaster that was in my studio and is now in the boychild’s room. Two full trashbags have left and I’m now sorting through that red box. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with all the stuff…

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An ancient plastic needle safe (probably 1960s), full of needles. Can’t throw needles out. That’s crazy. Folding scissors. Ancient as well. Way too cool. A ton of crazy quilt fabric that I piled up by color, so I can easily pop it into the bins. Not even sure how long that’s been in the box, but the plastic bag it was in mostly fell apart when I picked it up. Obviously, there was an organizational gap in there somewhere. I have about 10 days to get it all figured out.

Meanwhile, tons of grading and teaching and all that good stuff. Plus I need to get the rest of that big drawing done. Plenty on the plate…there always is.

It Won’t Take Long…

So here’s what I know now, after last night: at 4:35 AM, the mockingbird shuts up. Totally quiet. Asleep even. Me? Not so much. That was a clusterfuck of not sleeping. OK. It’s all right. It’s Monday…always a rough day. I’m just gonna roll with it.

Grades are due Tuesday. I spent some time this weekend dealing with stuff that needed to be graded and then filling in all the the secondary grades, behavior and effort, then all the comments. Sometimes I don’t do comments for progress reports, but I want parents to know why their kid has the grade they have. And so many of them are one or two assignments from passing, but they don’t make the effort. Frustrating on my end. Maybe on theirs too. But seriously, if I’ve been telling the parents, in one case, for 4 weeks that she has two missing assignments and what they are, and those assignments still haven’t shown up, then hell, she deserves the damn F. I just don’t understand it.

So that frustration over, I considered grading some more and then slapped myself around a bit (seriously, enough is enough), and thought about what I needed to get done this week in the art arena. I have two quilts to deliver to a show on Saturday. One needs a bottom sleeve…it’s big and I made it before I automatically started putting bottom sleeves on. Then two need labels. Huh. Well, there’s a quilt under the machine that’s almost done…I should just finish it so I don’t have to switch machine foot and thread more than once. It won’t take long.

Last words of crazy people…it won’t take long.

Two hours later, I finally finished.

It took about 5 1/2 hours to quilt this. I’m not even sure why it took so long. Thread breakage maybe. It needs ink, embroidery, and a binding. I might deal with that this week. I might not. I really only needed it done so I could use the machine for the other thing. But hell, if that gets it done, then so be it.

Here’s the next two things hanging around…the one on the left needs quilting. I’m cutting out the pieces for the one on the right.

I just haven’t done anything with it since Thursday. I’ll get there.

First this beast needs a sleeve. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more of the brown or enough of the binding fabric, which is what I used for the top sleeve, but I think the gray will do well enough.

I only really care because we’re hanging this one in the center of the gallery, so there won’t be a wall behind it. So it’s best if the back is not too chaotic. Hence the need for the second sleeve as well…it will hang much better with weight on the bottom.

So I made a second sleeve and pinned it on, and now I get to sew it on. Some quiet hours poking holes in my finger…unless I remember to put those plasticky protective pads on. That would be smart, wouldn’t it? Let’s hope I remember. Then labels for this one and the little one that goes with it…which also needs dowels. By Saturday. Plenty of time. Let’s hope I get more art done than that this week.

I also went to Artwalk this weekend…saw some good art and a lot of schlock, as always. I’ll post about some of it when I get my act together. Or sooner. Whichever makes sense.