Salley Mavor – Kathy Nida

I’m doing a lot of jumping around between projects at the moment…maybe I really am ADD…

On Monday, I sat down and I cut out all the pieces I could for the Earth Stories quilt. I actually did that for 7 1/2 hours on Monday. I watched a lot of Battlestar Galactica. I did get up every few hours and walk around. At some point, my right hand hurt so much from the scissors that I wanted to quit, but I was so close to being done that I didn’t want to leave it for another day. So I didn’t.

I should admit that my hand is still sore today. Oh well.

I should also admit to being somewhat obsessive. But you knew that already.

I wanted to sort all the pieces yesterday, but I was too tired in the evening to do that. I did it today…

I started with all those empty bins lined up on the light table…and this box of pieces…

It was a little daunting starting with all those tiny pieces, but I had three episodes of Battlestar left and it was relatively cool today compared to yesterday (heat doesn’t help). It took 2 hours and 7 minutes to sort all 2000 of them.

There they all are, so I can start ironing pieces together tomorrow. Woo hoo! Because that won’t take 20+ hours or so. Sigh. My plan is to start tomorrow because it’s still supposed to be cool for another day or so, until it hits hot again next week. It’s very hard to iron when it’s hot.

I also was quilting yesterday; I finished all the outline quilting, and then started the background quilting, but after the thread broke 5 times in about 10 minutes, I gave up. I changed the needle, cleaned out the bobbin area, and rethreaded everything. It might be old thread, but I was using the Sewers Aid too…so I just turned it off and walked away. I may try again tomorrow. I do want this quilt done soon…but I’m juggling more than one thing at the moment, so I can afford to walk away from one project for a day or two.

No pictures. It irritated me too much.

I didn’t have much work time yesterday…I actually did school-related work (I got paid!) for part of the afternoon. I’d rather be involved in making some of the new policies and practices about teaching science than have others do it and be annoyed by it. Yes, I’m a workaholic. Yes, I do this to myself.

The last thing I worked on today was finally tracing the Pussycat drawing, which is officially called Babygirl at the moment, after the crazy cat of that name, who is still here, rampaging. The kids and I are re-watching the Merlin series…we haven’t seen all of season 4 or any of season 5, so we crazily decided to start from the beginning (ah, Netflix…). It’s good motivation for me to get stuff done at night…family time…

I guess my family time also involves work of some type. It took me an hour and 38 minutes to trace all 200 pieces (I thought there were 197, but I missed 3). This is the one that needs to be done by August 1. It’s small; it won’t take long. So now I can cut out the Wonder Under, maybe tomorrow night. It won’t take more than a couple of hours. Based on another small quilt I finished this year, I should be able to finish this in about 20 hours. So it’s not unrealistic to need it to be done in…20 days. And photographed.

I should probably call my photographer. Plus I want to take the one that’s under the machine now at the same time, so it would need to be done as well. Yeah. I know. Crazy.

I meant to post these earlier, but got distracted by art. Julie’s been making these little Salley Mavor fairies, mostly as pins. You’ve seen them before on here, but she finished one for our mutual friend Susan, because she gave her hair fluff (Susan spins and knits…and quilts, but not with fiber). I was supposed to wait to post the last one, because Julie didn’t want Susan to see it…but here’s the whole family…

I can’t remember what order she did them in now…but the one below on the right is Susan’s…

She tried one on a leaf, like in Salley’s book…and she did one really tiny one…

This one is a gift for someone who doesn’t read my blog…it’s the one Julie worked on at Susan’s house last week…

The one above is before we started and the one below is at the end of stitching time…

A lot of Susan’s friends quilt or sew or knit, and many of us are teachers or retired (or both), so we meet once a week during the summer at her house (it’s air-conditioned) to work on stuff. Anyway, Julie took her home and finished her with some delightfully blue hair from Susan…

She says it’s her last one. I don’t know if I believe her. Anyway, the hats are obviously acorn caps, the heads are wooden beads in a variety of sizes, the hair is fiber before it’s spun into yarn. She makes the arms and legs and neck with chenille stems (you saw them sticking out of the top of her head above). She has a couple of patterns from Salley’s book for the tunics, which are made from felt and then embroidered in a variety of patterns and sewn directly on to the doll. The skirts are fake flowers pulled apart. She did wrap the arms and legs of one of them (because we told her to…I think it was the smallest one, which used floral wire maybe instead of chenille)…but most of them, she’s left as is and they look fine.

I see her tomorrow night…we’ll see what she’s working on next…

I’m feeling good so far about the summer. I do have some frustrating days when not very much gets done, but today included cleaning the bathroom (counter and mirrors, at least…still need to do the floor), packing up 3 bags for the thrift shop of crap that’s been on the floor in my room for almost a year, some of it (I really can’t deal with anything but school sometimes), and cleaning the kitchen floor. Of course, all that was procrastination so I wouldn’t have to sort those damn tiny pieces OR put away the 150 or so fabrics from the last quilt…I got most of that done after dinner, while waiting for the boychild to be done so we could watch Merlin. I hate putting fabric away, but I can’t start the next step until it’s all neatened up…there just isn’t enough room. I have a LOT of brown and gray fabrics at the moment. Not sure why. I probably bought them, eh? Yeah. Using them up is the next step…trying to keep the expenditures low this summer, so I will need to do a lot of Using Up. Not a bad thing…

I’d call this the second interim post, because I still haven’t finished the other one, but that would just be silly. Hopefully at some point while writing this, I will come up with a pithy title, encompassing all I’m feeling and thinking late this Friday eve.

First of all, crap I’m tired. It’s been a long week. Coming back after two weeks of Spring Break is rough. My voice is scratchy. My mood is cranky. My time is compromised. I’ve done a very good job (until tonight) of stopping the grading at 10 PM and starting the Wonder-Under-Cutting. I have a bunch (not even half, who am I joking) done, and will keep working until the end of the month, which isn’t that far away.

School does more than suck up time; it sucks up energy. Dealing with behaviors and attitudes wears me down. I had a bunch of homework cheating going on, and then this poor kid got bounced from one grade to another and then back again, and then there was some news about next year that almost made me cry in frustration, and finally there was news about this year that really did make me cry. It’s been a great year in terms of the kids and what I’ve been able to push them into doing and learning. I’m so impressed by their desire to learn and their ability to do what I ask (in general…trust me, there are always those who don’t), but the rest of it has been so ugly and lame and tortured…I just want that part to go away. That’s the part that makes teachers quit the job…walk away.

So I soldier on.

I try to make my life worth my attention in other ways. I make art.

Sometimes, though, I just hang out with friends and try to finish the Never-Ending Cross Stitch that is my SIL’s gift for the next available gifting cycle:

I’m actually close to done. There’s a church and a tree and a bunch of satin stitch, but that’s it. I finished the tree in the middle and started the church last night.

It’ll still probably take me another year :-). OK. Not really.

Julie went on a trip to Fresno to see Salley Mavor’s exhibit of Pocketful of Posies (well, part of it anyway) at Cal State Fresno. I’ve been reading Mavor’s blog for a long time, but have a book of hers and had seen her work elsewhere before that. She went with some friends, and after seeing the exhibit, they hung out in the hotel room and made fairies…

I had a kit for these that I gave to the girlchild a million years ago, and I still find parts scattered around the house…

Mostly the flower petals…

These are all Julie’s…rumor has it that Leslie and even Kris made some too, but I haven’t seen them in person. As always, Julie’s work is amazing and delicate…these are much prettier than the table on which they lie.

I realized tonight that I started my art journal, where I keep a weekly note of what I’ve entered and what I’ve been doing artistically (sometimes consists of NOTHING!) for 10 years back in March. The first year, I was fairly sporadic…OK, maybe more than the first year. There are about 4 posts for 2003, 2 for 2004, then sometime in 2005, I got smart and calendared the writing. My computer calendar reminds me (in three different places, maybe four) that I need to write every Friday night, and I’m pretty good about it. It’s useful for going back and researching what happened with this or that art piece, and we even used it to figure out how old Calli was the other day, because no one could remember.

My car insurance issue just went away. Sanity prevailed…either that, or my supreme bitchiness did. You pick.

The cat issue is still here, but calmer at the moment (knock on wood). Babygirl does not appreciate the other animals in the house and has been harassing other cats. She doesn’t seem to get that there is plenty of space and love for all, and she’s very territorial. We are actually trying to find her a new home. She is a sweet cat with people…and even tolerates dogs…but other cats are not going to be an option. She’s an older cat, so none of the local shelters will take her without a big chunk of money (list of things that Kathy doesn’t have), so we’re assessing other options (standing in the middle of an old-folks’ home and yelling FREE CAT! was the boychild’s suggestion). ANYWAY. I feel bad about the situation, but it is what it is. My kitten has been hiding in my room for the last 2 months and won’t go to the food/litter tray area without an escort. That can’t continue.

I did not drive to San Juan Capistrano for soccer this afternoon, which is probably a good thing, because the freeway caught on fire and aliens landed and the oceans overran the land…or it was just normal Friday-afternoon traffic to the OC. Apparently it was bad. I’m going tomorrow morning, but the girlchild’s back is still bugging her…doctor’s appointment Wednesday…so she might not even play.

I’m solidly buried in grading, but got a good chunk done today and tonight…I hope to continue that trend until I feel like I have everything under control (June 20, 2013, day after school gets out). Yeah. I know.

Busy weekend. Busy month.

Tag: Salley Mavor

Jumping Around

Busy Squared