I had this goal to have written the massive Quilt National post by now, having missed two regularly scheduled posts. I had a great trip, easy travel, everything was awesome…then I got food poisoning once I got home. Fun times. I missed school yesterday…I think I actually missed the entire day mentally. Pretty sure all I did was sleep and try to drink things. I’m OK (shaky but functional) today, so I guess it’s all through my system. Going back to school today after missing three days with no clue how far they’ve gotten (although it does not look good). Today will be a catchup day, where I roll around the room on a chair, checking in with everyone. Egg drop Friday. Sex ed next week. It’s a lot. I’m not ready for any of it.
Besides the amazing quilts and people, I did do a few other things in Athens…not much though. I did some stitching…first on Zoom with my stitching friends…
Then more on the plane…
Finished this block at home on Sunday night…
I also went for a couple of walks…one with a friend…
And one on my own…
Ohio is very green.
Walked around an old mill that is now a garden center…
Some interesting things going on there…
Went to a winery…who knew Ohio had wineries? It was nice…
The girlchild was in Chicago at the same time…
This is how I learn geography.
I did manage to cut out some pieces for my quilt on Sunday night…
I finished the rest Monday night…before I went to bed for 24 hours straight. Or more.
I will get to the quilt post…it’s in progress. Today will be slow and lots of sitting down, I predict. I already canceled pilates. Pretty sure I’m coming home and lying down again. But who knows…maybe I’ll bounce back. Those younger years when that was easy to do…miss that. Not all of it…just that bit. This morning, I’m stiff as a board. Too much non movement yesterday. Sigh. OK. Take meds, go to work, survive it, come home and collapse.
Up early again…this week has been difficult for sleep, across the board. As I got more and more exhausted, I did a better job of falling asleep and staying asleep, until it gets light, which unfortunately is earlier and earlier. Ugh. Also state testing really messes with kid and teacher rhythms. We’re all off. It’s Friday! I’m not sure what day it feels like. Next Wednesday maybe? Unclear. Anyway, yesterday went OK except for the advisory class discussion on drop shipping as a current job choice. (No, they don’t know what tariffs are.) Like, dude, no one will hire you to sleep all day. Not happening. Anyway. There are 27 days of school left. Yesterday was also the pep talk of “you aren’t done yet.” Difficult for all of us. Today we start state test review for science…hard hard hard…all talking. Ugh. I may need some alternate stuff by the end of next week. Also, I thought I would be so efficient and get caught up on grading. Nah. Did not. Lame.
In art news, since I finished the banned-book piece, which I still need to photograph, I’m sort of in a stasis mode…by choice. I have a friend’s mom’s quilt I really need to finish, so that’s what I’m doing with my normal art time. It’s fine…it’s still quilting. I am doing a bit of embroidery (honestly, when I should be grading) on Sue Spargo’s Rooted blocks…this one is really nice.
Bowie wanted to smell this one in progress.
And I took it to my stitching meeting last night and kept working on it.
I think I have four blocks done of nine. We’ll be here for a while.
Then here’s the quilting…
I’m in the outer borders. There’s definitely something weird going on in the last border that I’ll deal with when I’m done playing thread chicken with the light blue thread.
I only had two small spools of it and finished one of them in the beginning of the third border, so unless I do a lot more squiggling stitching in the last two borders, I should be OK and not run out in the last two inches, but you never know. Then quilt around the corner blocks (fast) and the two outer borders just need outlining, and then I can trim it (it’s fucking huge…not sure how I’m doing that) and then putting binding on.
Meanwhile, here’s Kitten. She did not have a good day yesterday. It involved a ton of laundry and a bath. She’s looking pretty good considering all of that.
She was pretty mad at me at the end, but still loves me. So that’s OK then. It’s hard to know when it’s time. I keep thinking we must be close and then she rallies. Poor old lady. A lot of her current issues are because of the little boy cat, who doesn’t understand sick old ladies. Sigh.
OK. I’m waiting for solar to show up and turn off the electricity, probably soon. Then school, turn in huge packet (which I then have to grade), teach how to take a test (Step 1: stop freaking out. Seriously.). Then hopefully ceramics. Rescheduling telephone call with doc. The Man has a show tonight. I’m exhausted, but it’s a friend’s birthday party and I know the band is all freaked out because their lead singer may or may not have quit or taken a hiatus, so they’re all singing tonight. Well, not all of them. So I’ll go to that and see how much energy I have for it. Small confined space with lots of loud music and people and alcohol and whatever. Right now it sounds kinda hellacious, but sometimes it’s OK. Friday nights are rough though. Looking forward to going to sleep tonight and NOT having to get up at 6 AM tomorrow. For once this week. I did finish my book by the way. I know you were worried. I wasn’t.
I’m sitting here with two computers in front of me, deep breathing, trying to get two things done at once, which is, of course, physically impossible. But one computer is incredibly slow, so I type in between, in the wait times while it responds. I’m also waiting for the electric company to show up to remove something so I can get a solar battery installed. Unfortunately, there are bees in my composter (right next to the freakin’ meter, talk about bad timing, y’all). I think they’re chill enough right now that it won’t be an issue, and I’m hoping they leave by tomorrow, because otherwise, I’ll need to delay the battery install. Sigh. I have an eye doctor appointment this morning, so things are already wonky and I’m already stressed…plus it took FOREVER to fall asleep (probably related to all of the above and other shit), so I’m tired. I’m always tired. This may not be any different. Also there’s the issue of not posting the assignments for school too early, so kids will actually have them to do in class and not have them done and be acting out. Yes, there are scheduled posts, but they work about 50% of the time, so sometimes, you just post everything early and pray a little to the Goddess of Education, who is a little over-stretched herself at the moment.
The weekend. Sigh. I meant to do some things and then got in the wrong headspace and didn’t. Love that for myself. I did apply to an artists’ residency, hopefully something I can do this summer. Maybe not though, depending on timing and availability. I got the banned book piece to the next step. I finished stitchdown and pinbasted Friday night…
Ironically, I un-pinbasted them on Saturday and put a backing on them…I think it’ll be better that way. Then I quilted them Saturday night…
All together, they took a little over two hours…
Not long. Not hard.
Little quilts are easy.
But still not cheap. Time is money? My time is worth something.
Then last night, I started construction…this is the hard part. Not exactly sure what I’m doing. Scary to cut it and not sure it’ll be the right size, but doing it anyway.
So hopefully construction goes well over the next couple of nights. Certainly I’ve done it in my head about 3,000 times by now.
Oh, here’s the bees…
I went out yesterday evening to put the compost in, opened the lid, threw it, and ran. I went back when it was dark, when they were all chilled out.
I knocked off the honeycomb. This morning, there were three batches of bees…one still on the corner, one down on the ground under that (the biggest chunk), and a smaller chunk on the lid, which still smells like home, but is 20 feet away now.
They’re fascinating, but I need them to live somewhere else right now. Well, always. They love the composters unfortunately. I have an anti-bee spray I’ll use this time. I wash with hot water and soap, but it’s not enough I think. This composter has had bees at least three times.
The SDGE guy is out there…he wants me to check on him in 10 minutes in case he gets stung and has an allergic reaction. Chill guy.
I did not make it to ceramics Friday. Had a meeting after school and then had to set up for the sub this morning, and I was exhausted by the time I was done. No energy. Came home and graded instead.
Here’s my dinner drawings from the last four weeks.
I can’t explain them. I just draw. No purpose.
I find it relaxing. Yes, I can talk to the people I’m with while drawing.
It’s the only time I really get to draw these days. Which is frustrating.
Sometimes they bring the food really fast and I don’t get to finish. Or I’m drawing super slowly and I don’t finish.
I thought the Man’s plants looked like they were talking to each other.
Laughing plants.
This is way too real.
Except I do finish things. I finished one last week. This current book is really good so far. Hoping it stays good.
I’ve been working on this in bits and pieces at meetings and things.
OK. Sigh. Today is chaotic, but I’m hoping it will even out once I get through them dilating my eyes, my going to Costco with dilated eyes, then getting to school and hopefully having my eyes undilate (last time, it took over 4 hours, so I’m a little nervous). Plus I didn’t tell the kids I would be out…some of them are just jerks when you do, so I just decided to make it a surprise. The SDGE guy did not get stung by bees (they are so chill still)…good thing. I want to read my book, I need to grade things, I want to go to clay (it’s quiet on most Mondays), and I’m hoping the eye thing goes well. The doctor wasn’t particularly personable the last time. Didn’t tell me all the things, but wrote them up and I read them later. I guess that’s a thing…if you read. Hoping to come home to no bees hanging around and plenty of time to try to make that quilt thing go together. And the headspace to do so. Mondays. They just are.
We’re baaack. And already in the weeds. Not surprising. The yard is full of weeds. The house needs things. The animals need things. I apparently need to do some work, both art and school. All good. Not doing school yet though. Sticking to art and the yard.
Can’t remember when I last posted…ah yes, we’d made it to Santa Ynez, but hadn’t done anything yet. Our rule was hike then relax. I mean, hiking is a form of relaxation in itself, but we wanted to make sure movement was a part of this trip, because the day job makes it hard to do anything but the day job. Hiking has fallen by the wayside. It’s easy to leave out the exercise, and we didn’t want to leave it out. SO. We hiked first, up in the mountains, where we found out that the Lake Fire last year had impacted part of the hiking trails.
It was beautiful out there and there were a bunch of people at the trailheads, but we managed to be quietly alone for a goodly portion of the trail. Which we prefer.
Burn was pretty obvious.
Apparently the boychild worked this fire last July.
We did a little over 4 miles. The weather was perfect…a little chilly, not too warm. The flowers were starting to bloom. Some of the oaks were coming back, some of the other stuff too. We didn’t see the pines coming back, but maybe it takes them longer.
After that, we headed out for a wine tasting. We wanted a pro-white-wine tasting and wandered around Los Olivos with a lot of really drunk people and dogs until we found a place that was more white friendly. Like white wine friendly. To be clear. We’d done a lot of reds at the last place and they’re not my favorite. The last place did give us an extra tasting though and then a great deal on two bottles of white. This place was interesting…different wines.
But he revised the tasting for us and we appreciated that. Afterwards, we were in the mood to feed some ostriches and emus (like you do)…
If you’ve been to Solvang, you’ve probably driven by Ostrichland and thought WTF. But you know, these guys are truly prehistoric-looking and fascinating up close.
Also a little terrifying to try to feed them.
It was totally worth it. We had dinner out at a place that wasn’t really known for its food, obviously. No amazing food this trip…oh wait, the sandwiches we had from the fancy grocery store…they were damn good. But otherwise? Eh. We did get apple strudel (well I did) from Solvang. It was good.
Then Sunday, we had to come home. It wasn’t a bad drive (knock on wood) for once…Los Angeles can be hellacious. Although this was interesting…
Let’s get that out there please.
I finished one Rooted tree (March block, Sue Spargo) on the way home…it’s the only one I worked on the entire trip.
I started the next one once I got home…
Once we unpacked everything and checked on all the animals and I ran to the store for essentials because the Man had to read a chapter and take a quiz and write an essay. The furry beasts seemed happy to have us home…
Poor pup. And I started quilting the piece I was working on before I left…
And emailing all the people I was supposed to deal with while I was gone. Fun times. I’ll be quilting today, getting vaccines, already took the dog to the vet and survived an earthquake in a building full of animals (5.2 just east of here…felt bigger). I even have pilates later. Although my stomach is not happy with me at the moment. Hopefully it’ll figure that shit out before I’m lying down and exercising. Just felt another aftershock. That one got a boof out of the dog. Hopefully I’m back on a normal blogging schedule now. It was nice to just check out for a week, but for some things, I really am a routines person, for good or bad.
Well I said that a week ago and I feel like that’s all I’ve been trying to do for 7 days. Mostly succeeding. No super long hikes like trips in the past, but lots of little ones. Plus reading, stitching, drawing, and staring deeply into fires. Also not having a clue what day it is, which is the absolute best thing ever. We didn’t do a long road trip last year because I had to pay to fix the flooding damage, and I really missed it. I’m glad we did it this year.
We’re not back yet, by the way. I just have some time while the Man watches some videos for school, and I’m not really in the headspace to draw…ironic since a quilt fully drew itself in my head about 10 minutes into our drive today.
So we left last Saturday and took a couple hefty drive days…California is beautiful, even from the car…especially in Spring.
We stopped in hotels in tiny spots off the main road, nothing exciting…although at one point, we were across the bay from the girlchild. I stitched the pieces I needed embroidered for a small set of quilts I will need to finish very quickly when I get back.
Here’s the San Rafael Bridge…
It started raining at some point on Day 2, which turned into a downpour. We ate leftovers in the deserted hotel breakfast area and hung out in the room. There was a plan to go out, but the rain put a damper on that. So I drew and stitched.
First I had to trace the second bit of stitching…love hotel rooms with irons and ironing boards.
The next day, we had a few hours to waste, so we searched for the Bertella Kildow Skinner Grove in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which involved parking on the side of a road and hiking using two different topographical maps to figure out where the grove and sign should be. I know we were in it at multiple points, but couldn’t find the sign. It’s possible things were burnt in the 2003 Canoe Fire? Who’s Bertella, you might ask? I think she was my great great aunt? Or maybe three greats. I had these two old lady aunts who were awesomely strange in my childhood, and this was their mom, who I think died before I was born? Or soon after. But Jeanne and Bernice were definitely around.
We finally got into the campground just as it stopped raining, which was good, because it sucks putting tents up in the rain. As it was, the site was pretty muddy and damp and cold, but we enjoyed it.
I stitched in the campground too. We hiked in the AM, then more in the PM. Nighttime was for fires and drawing.
The Man had some moments…
Before showering. Definitely. In his creepy stalker stage.
The sky. It’s up there.
The Eel River…
Glorious weather for most of it.
When I was a kid, we traveled all over the US, but we never really were allowed to stop at the weird places. So the Man and I kinda try to do just that.
Legends of Bigfoot. And us.
After Humboldt, we headed for Sonoma.
More gorgeous green. I finished the embroidery that night in the bungalow.
So those are ready to be appliquéd into a quilt.
We hiked in the morning.
I scared a deer while peeing in nature.
Or it scared me. Hard to say.
This deer could not give a lesser shit about humans…
Which I appreciate. Also I never get good quail photos.
Plus our quail are much skinnier.
Flowers everywhere. Then we spent some time (and money, let’s be honest) at the Gundlach Bundschu winery (oldest in California)…
Beautiful day, needed a nap after. No shock. Did more drawing in a cocktail bar later…
I actually started drawing this over a week ago and just kept adding to it. I also started stitching a tree in Sue Spargo’s Rooted block of the month. I think this is the March block.
I worked on it today but forgot to photograph it. Today we left Sonoma and stopped in San Francisco to see the girlchild and her visiting friend, who worked with USAID, fuck you to the dumbasses cutting jobs without considering real live consequences. We had lunch…
It was nice to see them in person…from there, we negotiated all the Friday traffic past places we visited two years ago, maybe three? Down to Santa Ynez/Los Olivos, where we are now, researching hikes, wine, and ostriches. Plus donuts, due to the campground having a Donut Kebab van that just set us off on a donut tangent that has not been satisfied.
The cravings are real. The Man has an essay to write on Sunday, so it’ll be a bit of a kamikaze trip home so he can read the chapter in the book he didn’t know he needed. It’s fine. And I have things to finish too that I am currently ignoring quite well. I finished one big book and read two smaller ones so far, spent 12 1/2 hours doing the embroidered words, plus 4 drawings? All good.
We are currently sitting out by a fire pit, listened to Great Horned Owls and getting tired.
It’s almost the full moon and we’re ready to enjoy tomorrow.
Good morning, ye Day of Chaos before Springe Breake. Yee? Not sure of my Old English. Ye. Definitely. Am I ready? For today, no. Today is supreme chaos, both at work and after. For break? Absolutely. Done. Exhausted. Need a space without school. Getting in a car tomorrow and hopefully finding it. The boychild can handle all the animals. It’ll be fine. Even if all I do is read in the car for 8 days. It’ll be fine.
I did spend some time last night prepping some hand embroidery for the next quilt for the trip. Hoping it works out OK. I found the thread I wanted, and thanks to my incredibly efficient spreadsheet, realized I had 8 spools of it around the house. So I don’t need to order any (which is good, because I left it too long for that). Wednesday night, I managed to pinbaste the quilt I’m currently working on…
Really need to replace the bulbs in that room. I’ll need to quilt this in like two days flat. It’ll be fine. No worries. It’s not huge.
Then I did some tracing on the next one last night…
It’s actually four small quilts that will work together. I traced 3 and part of the 4th. If I have time after packing tonight, I’ll finish the 4th. It won’t take long. And hopefully I’ll get all the embroidery done while traveling (there’s 4 pieces of embroidery)…and can start that one the following week. It’s got a pretty tight deadline. And grades will be due right after we come back from grade. Like to torture us. It’s like if you don’t grade over break (which I will eventually have to do), you won’t have grades to put in the progress reports. Ah well. I finished grading everything I could yesterday. Today I will be grading tests as they take them and homework as they hand it in, if I can pull it off. I also have to prep my room for having floors cleaned, which they just told us two days ago. Sigh. Good to have floors cleaned. Need more time to move shit. I do have after school, but I also need to go to ceramics and make sure everything will be OK for a week while I’m gone.
Packing is stressful too. Yesterday was a long conversation about coolers. I still don’t know what we decided. Minor issue.
Oh my. Well I don’t spiral into self hate at least. And being a teacher is pretty hard. I have not cured cancer or saved the world, though, and there was definitely a feeling that those things should have happened by now. All I do is piss people off with my quilts.
I’m taking a few months of Rooted blocks with me (Sue Spargo BOM)…but this one was almost done, so I finished it.
Although the fluffy bits were supposed to be two different colors, and I spaced on that because I was doing this in a variety of Zoom calls. It’s fine. So I have two of these done. They’re not hard; they’re fun and relaxing. I enjoy them. I’m also taking books to read and my sketchbook for drawing. No schoolwork. I’ll deal with that when I get back. In between everything else.
Today, I think we’re all giving tests. Mine is short and then they need to finish the rest of their shit…without losing their shit. My last class period may not survive. One class period was better yesterday because there was one kid missing. Ooooh. Interesting. He’ll be gone again today. Lots will be gone. We give them two weeks off and they take more. I had to do an independent study contract for the week after break because of that. Three weeks. Ah well. After testing, we’ll lose some more to the Middle East…or maybe not, with all the crazy deportations. Scary stuff. Scary stupid too. Lots of that around. But my future holds some bigass redwood trees and some wineries and some hiking and probably a banana slug or two and definitely deer. All good.
It’s Monday again. It’s like it happens every week. This one feels like a bit much. I really enjoyed my three days away from home, wallowing in quilty stuff. It was a relief. Talking to people about quilts and art (and politics, because that came up over and over again)…it was nice; it was a relief. Seeing all the quilts…yes, I have a million pictures and I may put some in here when I have time (when do I ever have time???)…even though I don’t make that kind of quilt, some of them truly sing to me. Having one’s head solidly in something that is not school-related is a blessing.
And now I’m back. Woo! Actually, I had kids emailing all weekend and a slew of coworker texts on Friday that just about made me implode in the car on the way to Phoenix. More last night. Anyway, I’m sure that will just be the norm from now until June 17. Wait, probably after that too.
So before I left for the show, I hung out and stitched with friends…
I thought I would work on this on the trip. Nope. Not at all. I did make a spectacular knot in this thread on Thursday night, and three stitchers valiantly tried to unknot it and got it to this…
Two well-managed bits on each side and then an uncontrolled disaster in the middle. Kind of a metaphor for life.
We drove to Phoenix, leaving Friday morning. We had a nice little cottagey condo, with these guys in the kitchen…
And their friends on the fence out back…
I’m a fan.
We spent a tiny bit of time out here. I spent most of my time at the convention center.
It was a comfortable place though.
I went to two lectures: Susan Hudson of the Navajo Quilt Project, which I’ve sent a ton of fabric to…
Don’t sit close if you want to see their faces…I will send her more fabric when I get around to going through it. I didn’t make it through all the colors.
And Anna Maria Parry (was Horner)…
No, I don’t make quilts like her at all…I do love to listen how artistic brains work though, so it was fascinating for that. Same with Susan’s.
Somewhere in between all that, I was back at the cottage.
Relaxed and exhausted.
I sat at the SAQA booth on Saturday for a couple of hours with my quilt, Woman 3.0, which is traveling with the StitchPunk exhibit.
It was nice to see her. And I finally met Maddie Kertay of BadAss Quilter Society and got one of her ribbons.
That was nice. Appreciate the ribbon too.
Saw some art that wasn’t fiber…
And took a nighttime class (with a lot of caffeine) from Nichole Vogelsinger (aka Wild Boho). It was fun; I enjoyed my tablemates and time to stitch…
Again, this was more about listening to how the artist thinks than trying to make her stuff. I did buy way too many sequins though…
And beads that didn’t arrive in time. It’s OK; I went through my stash and ended up using stuff from crazy quilt swaps I did a million years ago.
The Man walked back from the convention center with me at 9:30 PM, and we saw this amazing thing…Janet Echelman’s ‘Her Secret Is Patience’. Beautiful piece.
Then Sunday, we drove home, I pissed off someone in a Zoom meeting (well, I didn’t agree with her), and tried to get a bunch of stuff done. I didn’t draw at all this weekend. It’s OK, I’m fine with that. I inked the drawing I did on Wednesday night…
With no help from Bowie…
Or Nova, who kept taking my seat…
Yes, I bought fabric. I notionally said I wouldn’t, but I knew that was a lie because I was looking for e bond’s new line and the African fabrics fascinate me…but not a huge haul…
Fun stuff.
Anyway, now I’m back and need to grade a million things and deal with kids and adults and parents. Ugh. Starting with this morning and a meeting that starts in 45 minutes. Did I tell you that 4 subs canceled on me for Friday? So I got the one I’d requested in the beginning that the district made me cancel? Long (stupid) story. It’s fine. We’ll see how the kids did in a few hours…making them do presentations today on what they should have done Friday. We’ll see how that goes. Tons of meetings today and then clay. And grading. And hopefully drawing after that. I’m back and there’s nothing planned until Spring Break, which isn’t really planned. And may not happen. Sigh.
How is it not Thursday yet? I don’t get it. It feels like Friday and a half. I even looked up the date of the next full moon, trying to find an explanation for the crazy we saw yesterday, and nope, it’s not for another two weeks. Ugh. Today feels long and difficult already. Meeting this morning; I was at the school board meeting yesterday (with 6 people, not counting the actual school board) until after 6 PM. I had to speak briefly about the sex ed committee, and then I listened to the rest, grading the whole time. Then came home and managed to cook dinner and eat it.
The quilt progress is slow. This thing is big and complicated. I finished the stitchdown on Monday night; it took just under 6 hours to do. I love seeing the back of the quilt top at this stage…
And then it gets hidden away inside the quilt sandwich forever. I do actually check for things I’ve missed at this stage too. Although I don’t catch them all sometimes until I’m quilting.
Then last night, exhausted, I found and pieced fabric for the background, cut the batting, washed it, and tossed it into the dryer before I went to bed. Tonight, I’ll sandwich it all.
I’ll have to clean the entryway floor first. So clean floor, iron top, sandwich it, pin it all together. It’s moving, but slowly. Somewhat like me. At least mentally. I managed to cobble together something I worked on in 2023 for the filler day we need at school tomorrow, but we lose our prep periods today for the walk-to-the-high-school thing. Take the kids over there (it’s not super far), have them do the rah rah thing, see all the sports and clubs, talk to people, then try to corral them all back to walk back before 3rd period. My biggest concerns? Well, a couple of kids, but whatever. Also I usually eat and pee during 2nd period. This is important! We’ll figure it out. I had a packet of nuts at school for such emergencies, but I needed it last night at the board meeting. I maybe need to stop at a grocery store on the way to school…if I have time before the meeting.
In other school news, this was deposited on my notebook yesterday. So I recycled it. Ah no, it was the behavior contract of a student who was having a day…and continued having a day. As you can imagine.
It was rough for the rest of us as well.
So bee/owl box update. I noticed the bees were ‘gone’ the other day/night, so I pulled the box off, and then had the boychild help me move it about 15 feet away, with the plan to install the new one the next evening. I figured they’d left to find a better place to hang out. Went to install the new one and saw this.
Um. Guys. It’s over there. So yeah. Not sure what this was about. Where were they the night before? Anyway. So. When bees swarm on an unprotected spot, they usually leave within 48 hours, so we waited. We also cleaned out the old owl box and found what looked like possibly 1 or 2 baby skeletons (matches up to the two separate babies I heard last year), and what looked like part of an adult. Bigger feet, adult feathers still attached to part of a wing.
Baby on the left? Maybe? Barn owls aren’t actually that big. I know it just looks like a pile of feathers and stuff, and now that carcass on the left has been dragged off by something last night. I knew that would probably happen. There were still some bees in the owl box, but not much honeycomb…not enough for them to have killed the barn owl (they can do that apparently) back in spring, when I last heard the second baby, and then built a hive. It’s all very strange. ANYWAY. Last night, the bees were gone off the pole, so we’re gonna try again. I have a bee repellant spray that is supposed to be arriving today that I’m going to spray on the pole and around the owl box. It’s natural, not poisonous. I was trying to get a natural bee repellant I could put inside the box, but it’s not an easy thing to find in California. It’s late for mama to be building a nest, but I can hope.
This is the 2nd tree in the Sue Spargo Rooted quilt. I started the embroidery during book club on Monday.
Actually, no, I started the embroidery in my Allied Craftsmen meeting on Saturday. Embroidery is not fast, y’all. But it’s relaxing.
Speaking of relaxing…
Bowie at 8 months (9?) is almost as big as his aunties. He is still being a teenager, harassing everyone in the house. My old lady cat does not like him and lets him know that…and she has a new scratch on her nose that is probably from him. He’s very curious and wants to know about her, but she’s not having it. I’m carrying her out of her cubby in my room to the food and the litter tray, but she does come out without me sometimes.
OK, besides the walking tour of the local high school, the rest of the day, we’re reading about light rays and writing about them. Fun times. Then pilates and hopefully installing the owl box. Then sandwich and pinbaste the damn quilt. After washing the floor. It’s a lot.
Apparently it’s Saturday. You know how you blow off all that work anxiety that appears the week before we go back to school? Take a bunch of art/craft classes so you don’t have time to think about the fact that you’re going back. It’s very relaxing. I should do this every year. Somehow. Because finding classes to do right before break ends is always an issue. This has been nice though. It’s the last year of Craft Napa, and I took two crafty classes with Libby Williamson and one improv quilting class with Irene Roderick.
I haven’t gotten any ironing done on the other quilt due to all this stuff, but it’s OK. I’m enjoying all of it. The first class was a collage-type lesson that went through painting with ink on CraftTex and then stitching around those, cutting them out, and making an image on a paper-collaged canvas. I started out by making flowers and leaves like everyone else, but then went into Nida territory. The teacher was Libby Williamson, crafter extraordinaire of many materials and techniques. I think she sees random materials and then tries to figure out how to make something out of them, which is a great talent.
You can see flames and maybe a face over there on the top left.
I then collaged the background. Now you will see where I diverted from the class subjects…because I ended up painting over a lot of the background. I wanted the papers to show at first, but there wasn’t enough contrast between the face and the background. Since I had started with the person on fire (sorry LA…hoping the fires are getting more and more under control as the weekend continues on), I figured I could make the background go along with that. I stained the bottom with red ink, fairly diluted. I started with the clouds very light, so the paper came through, but it didn’t look good, so I went for a much more opaque and graphic look for the clouds.
I do want to write all over the red still…haven’t done that yet. I had leftover flowers that didn’t work with this image, so I made a second smaller one…
Which was a bit more like what the rest of the class did. And it’s nice. I like it.
Yesterday, I took improv quilting with Irene Roderick. I’ve taken improv classes before, but got stuck on making things (triangles, strings, stripes) and not the creative part of it. This class focused more on the creative part…and that finally made sense to me. I’ve never gotten past a pile of parts before, and they didn’t excite me. I think focusing just on black and white (and NOT color) and just doing one thing at a time and fitting it into what already existed…that worked for me. I have a solid start to a quilt top here…
A top I actually want to finish. So that was cool. It’s totally NOT how I usually work, which I appreciate. Stretch the brain! Try new things! I’m in another class today (waiting for paint to dry, literally), so those photos will have to wait.
I also finished the first block of Rooted, which was Sue Spargo’s block-of-the-month lite version for two years ago? 2023 I think? I’ve had them stitched down for a while; getting to the embroidery has taken a while. This is after Thursday’s stitching meeting…
And last night, I finished while at my parents’ house for dinner with my bro and my nephew.
One done! Eight to go! Yeah, nothing is fast. These are pretty easy though.
So the pro of all these classes this week is that I can barely consider school. So the anxiety is gone, plus I have the added benefit of the meditative qualities of making for three days straight. Peace and love, peace and love. I’m sure I’ll panic soon. I didn’t finish grading…almost did! They’re due in like 10 days. It’ll be fine. I need to pack up four more quilts after class today to deliver to a friend who will deliver up north (not near the fires). And then once all this is done, I can start ironing and quilting my friend’s quilt again. It’s been chaotic in this room this week. We’ll see how that goes. I’m not ready to go back, but I never am. Maybe it’s enough to just accept that, go into it with calm and determination to make art. Still. Anyway, that’s my plan.
Yo Ho Yo Ho, a pirate’s life for me. I wake up in the morning sometimes and wonder what my brain has been doing while I slept. Apparently piratey things, because that’s the song I’m hearing in my head. There was a quick rehash of some stupidity from last year (I know what triggered that). Love that. Thanks brain. Also, it’s hard to sleep well on Sunday nights during school…my brain is figuring the whole week out (and often worrying about it). I really pushed this weekend to NOT open the school computer. I did make a list for today (and the next three days). I cleaned out my notebook…I love that my notebooks last for years now instead of dying after one (heavy duty notebooks…what good are notebooks? OK, there’s the Talking Heads…that’s a better song than the pirate one). I didn’t have to buy folders this summer…there was extra money last year and I spent it on that. Hopefully I got enough…I should figure that out quickly, because I think they need them Friday.
So I finished the big quilt last night…I spent the last three nights (or more?) sewing binding and sleeves. Friday night…
Saturday night…I actually sewed for almost three hours (Saturday was very braindead)…got all the binding done and part of one sleeve.
And Sunday night…
Bowie assist…
We’re trying to get him to sleep at night instead of only during the day, so after this, I woke him up and played with him for a while. Didn’t work. He was up and down all night. Like me!
I stitched some on this on Friday at the back-to-school event. They had us go to the local mall and fed us breakfast (it was SO loud…so loud), then put us in the movie theaters by school and we watched videos and played games. It was shorter than usual, so that was a plus. It was also dark a lot.
Made it harder to stitch. Pros and cons. Then we went back to our schools and did the district-mandated meetings where we write on big poster paper and then never see this stuff again.
There’s my science team! Yes, we are dorks. Well, most of us anyway. You probably don’t wanna know why the science department is pointing at a math rubric. We had to send this to the principal who will send it to the district. Sigh. Anyway, at some point, the district will make something of all this and push it back to us in some format. Proving something. Yes, I’m cynical about all that.
Today, we have four hours of all-staff meetings, then about 30 minutes with our partner team-in-crime (which is finally wholly back with us), then who-knows-how-long with the core team. Then making a list of what to copy tomorrow AM, because I have to be up at 4 AM to make sure I am tired enough for the EEG at noon. Don’t ask. I’m not looking forward to it.
In between all this, I’m halfheartedly trying to finish painting the hallway.
It’s hot, I’m tired, my wrist starts to hurt after a while. All of the cutting in is done with one coat, about a third has two coats. Obviously need to roll two coats as well. I’m not highly motivated, but maybe I will be this week. It would be nice if it were done.
I also finally got everything appliqued down to this. I finally watched the video about the hexie papers and how to make that damn flower in the bottom left…
And then I made it Saturday and sewed it down, and sewed down the last velvet circle (those things are a pain in the ass) last night. So now I can do embellishment.
Little man plays with his tail a lot.
OK. School. Need to leave in about 5 minutes with more tea and my meds in me. Pack a lunch! Fuck. I forgot how to do all this. I’ll be exhausted later. It might not even be that long from now. Then hopefully starting something new.
Kathy Nida 