Maybe We Could Find New Ways to Fall Apart*

No post yesterday due to hiking activity. This is not a bad thing. In typical Kathy fashion, though (and it wasn’t my fault…the book had the wrong mileage), we went further than I had planned. The plus is that my heel, which has bugging me on and off the last few weeks, did not hurt too much on the hike, and it’s fine this morning…meaning it’s probably due to one of the pairs of shoes I wear on a regular basis. Not the hiking boots though I think, or it would hurt today. Anyway. More shit to worry about, right? Foot pain sucks. I was in a boot cast for 6 months once and had multiple really long needles inserted in my heel. Don’t wanna do that EVER again.

So yeah, dragged the kids out to Santa Ysabel to hike the loop on the east end. The Coast to Cactus book claimed the larger loop was 4.8 miles. Which it is…as long as you don’t hike BACK to the car. Minor issue guys. So that was 7.6 miles or so instead. Which was fine…we’d been considering going further along the trail anyway…so we just didn’t do that.

There were a lot of cows out there; it was a gorgeous day, warmish but not hot.

There are apparently wildflowers in spring, so hopefully my other hiking companion will agree to the lower part of the hike in April or May. We’ll see.

We did see deer from afar…they saw us as well…

And a coyote up on a hillside (not this one)…

Beautiful oak and pine trees, some climbing up up and up (and then back down seemed much steeper than up, strangely)…

Lots of long vistas…

And cows. Apparently the trail headed north through these guys and we missed it. So we went off road for a bit, following something that we thought was a trail. Hallelujah for hiking apps that show you where YOU are and where the TRAIL is. Yeah.

Wait. There’s the coyote. Bonus points if you can see it.

So it made sense to traipse across this hill toward the trail…easy to do on these cow-trimmed meadows. Not so easy through forest.

And back past majestic trees that survived the fires.

Hikes are awesome, but they kick your butt for the rest of the night…although I did go to my stitching meeting.

Girlchild and I went to get our hairs cut (and hers dyed) for the new year on Wednesday. I always stitch while I’m waiting for hers…I finished this block…I just had a little to do on the sheep.

So this whole 4-square is now done…

In fact, all of this is done…although I don’t think this is how they fit together…

And there’s another batch of blocks I have stitched together that has some finished stuff on it too. I’m not even halfway though. So there’s that. I have one more block for April, I’ve already done May, and June is all stitched down…just needs embroidery. I think I’m stitching the wool down on July too. This is what I do at meetings (that aren’t at school…because apparently that’s not appropriate) and places where I know I have a long wait. So yeah, if I needed to take you to the emergency room, I’d be grabbing my stitching bag. I hate being bored. I need stuff in my hands.

So Wednesday night, I worked on drawing things for this new piece, which is a commission for a woman whose daughter had surgery to correct scoliosis.

I’m not ready for a real drawing yet, but it’s weird…I like drawing things that I know how to draw…so if I’ve never drawn it, I draw it a few times to get it under my hat, or something like that. So I need to put the metal in a scoliosis surgery into the piece, but the metal is on the back of the skeleton, on the back of the person. So I’ve never drawn the BACK of a skeleton. I do aim to be sort of accurate (I’m not totally nuts, so completely accurate is not happening)…so I started with that. Then I was looking at all these surgical pictures (oh yeah, that was interesting, but kinda terrifying), so I was drawing the metal bits, what I could see from X-rays and other pictures. Then I was trying to figure out how I was going to put a human figure into this…and I’m still debating this, because I like the organs and innards, but if it’s from the back, the face is difficult and you can’t really see organs very well, and if it’s from the front, you can’t see the metal. So I’m still struggling with ways to portray what I want.

So there will be more of these. I was gonna draw last night, but life got in the way. It does that. It’s OK. Tonight…totally. Really. Some attempt. Or maybe this afternoon on the deck…because today is my last official day of vacation (ugh!) and I refuse to do schoolwork.

Crazy dogs…

I’m still working on these…I’m not particularly fast. And now I’m going backwards…doing all the dark purple letters with a hot pink buttonhole stitch.

I still have two more blocks…gotta get going on that. Make myself do that every night instead of the stitch-a-day thing.

I had my stitching meeting last night and worked on this guy…Palestrina knots all the way around him. I’m supposed to fill in his whole body with running stitches too. He’s cute though.

However much I want to stay in my pjs all day today, I have a couple of places I need to go, plus I’m doing a dye day…I have underwear and socks that need dying. All my old dyed socks have holes in them. I dye the underwear because the stuff I like comes in these packages with some heinous underwear colors. So I just overdye them to colors I can stand. The blanks have been sitting around the house for at least a year, probably two, so this is crazy. Just DO it! Plus I have some plain white fabric I can dye for quilts…so I’m gonna do that too. It’s a great day for it. And it’s harder to do once I go back to school.

I’m gonna miss being on vacation. Even though I’ve spent most of it flailing around like an idiot. I am way more artistically efficient when I’m teaching. Sad but true.

*Fun., We Are Young

Things Will Happen Today

My feet are cold. It’s going to be in the 80s again today, but my feet get cold and I have to wear shorts and big fluffy socks all at the same time. This weirdo winter weather in Southern California…40s at night and 80s during the day. I know, I could be back East and freezing all my parts and not just my feet. I got that. Some rain would be nice here.

I didn’t get a whole lot of useful stuff done yesterday, except for some minor purging on the kitchen counters, which is a good thing (boychild is useful for that stuff). We threw out a bunch of old pens that were dead and bagged up the rest of the pens and pencils for school. Found the address I’d been looking for and had finally emailed someone to get. Of course. Organized the boxes of sundry kitchen items that pile up because I forget I’ve already bought them. Put all my Christmas gifts away. Today I will put away Christmas stuff, I think. Maybe. In between a raptor thing (cool!) and watching that band play (another episode of Draws in Bars! By the beach! But it will be cold, because it will be dark. So I will wear socks.). I wrote a commission contract and asked my dad to look at it, because I am not a lawyer and he is.

Artwise, I didn’t do much either. I did get my slowly flattening tire fixed, but not the tire sensor. It’s annoying that they are so expensive. Obviously the tire place has not seen the last two Visa bills. They are heart-stoppening. Not a word, I know.

Walked the dogs…a good solid three miles in the full heat of the afternoon. It felt hot but good.

The dogs were tired.

I needed to get out and walk off some of the irritation building up. I’m kind of irritated by all these studies going on in the wildlife preserve, but if I hike far enough out, they’re gone.

So I do that.

Tired dogs…I said that. But they were.

We had gaming at night. My character didn’t do much. Moved from one side of the temple to another. Dodged a flaming thing. Or a horror. Not sure which.

Block 20 is almost done…just need to finish the sheep.

Exciting stuff. Came home and cut out pieces. When boychild wants to go to bed, he brings me the puppy, who is fast asleep. Snuggles him up against me, where he continues to sleep.

I cut out a bunch, but there’s a shitload of tiny little pieces in there…overlapping tree parts. This crazy thing I drew. So I’m not done. But there’s not much left to do…

Next week starts to be full of school stuff. No, I still haven’t finished grading that thing. Ugh. I piled it up on the couch and I look at it and feel guilty. Too many little details of shit to get done in the next week. I guess it’s good I took some brainless days in there.

I finished another book, A Closed and Common Orbit, the second in a series by Becky Chambers. The first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, was good, but I thought this one was even better…all about AI trying to exist in our world when they aren’t allowed to do certain things. Very cool story. You don’t have to read the first one to get the second one…they are the same world. It would help with understanding, but it’s not crucial to the story. There’s a third book coming out in April.

Calli is better at brainless than I am. I was trying to get her off the couch to come to bed.

It took some persuading. OK. Gotta get ready to go falconing. Or something. I’m gonna need sunscreen…in December. I got sunburned yesterday. Duh. I never remember in the winter. Anyway, things will happen today. Not much will get done, I predict, but things will happen. Typical Saturday.

We’ve No Time for Later*

It’s interesting…when I don’t have a specific project to work on (yet), my brain just fails to work properly. Maybe that’s being on vacation too. I did work (on grading) for a good huge chunk yesterday and will probably do that again today, if just to finish this stupid grading assignment. That will take me down to just a couple, plus checking all the desperate emails that came in after kids realized I had posted their progress report grades but there was nothing they could do about them. I don’t really understand that logic, but I’m not 12.

Don’t get me wrong, I have 17 thousand things I could be working on. I have three (count them!) THREE pinbasted quilts, one art one and two not-art ones, that I could work on. I have one art quilt that is at the fabric-trimming stage, and if I got my act together, I could probably finish it this week. I really should do that. It would be a good use of my time. I’m kinda rebelling against “good use of my time” at the moment. I have about 4 blocks-of-the-month in various stages of completion (and I did work on one of those for a while, both on Christmas Day and yesterday). I could be drawing every day, all day. I haven’t drawn at all. I did finish a book, The Power, by Naomi Alderman.

Interesting take on the possible reversal of power if women were in charge instead of men. Apparently testosterone is not the problem…it’s just power in general. She may be right. It’s an interesting story nonetheless.

The girlchild gave me all the ingredients for a Moscow mule (or 17). I love the owl cups and will use them for milk and cookies as well.

My ~~main~~ only squeeze gave me a drawing by one of my favorite mural artists, Gloria Muriel…this is Lilith…

Christmas dinner was tasty, although I only managed to photograph the cheese plate. I loved that bean dip…gonna make more…

Simba was spoiled for attention…

Calli was patiently waiting for ball-throwing activities…of which there were few.

See Simba? Asleep now. My parents petted him to sleep.

I cannot explain this picture…

Girlchild cooked it all…

See the damn puppy again?

I came home and did some sewing to fill in spaces on the left again…trying to sort of flatten out some of the edges, so I can use it as a centerpiece for a crazy quilt maybe.

Still debating that. Meanwhile, I pinned 96 spots on this Sue Spargo quilt from 2013…which has been pieced for over a year. It took me that long to put the green border stem on and deal with the spots.

There are 5 colors…I started sewing on the darkest ones. I think there’s about 19 of each color, so I’m going to be doing this for a while. It’s very meditative. And then they need to be embellished.

Boychild gave me fabric for Christmas. Well. I dragged him to the quilt store and made him pick some fabrics out, because he drew my name for the Sunday night party. I picked the red and white one…he did the rest.

I like adding fabrics to my quilts that other people have picked. It widens my range. I’m sure I pick the same types of fabrics over and over.

Then I ironed and dehaired the big quilt for the photographer yesterday morning. It had a lot of hair on it. Damn cats. Really need to clean the floor in here before I start the next one.

Then I graded and went to the gym and graded some more and made my own dinner because everyone was gone and read my new book, which is also good, and then did more on the left side…

Satchemo not helping with photography.

And sewed on more dots. Yeah. Forever sewing on dots. Spots. Whatever.

I wish I could say I have a plan for today, but I do not. I’ve been trying to plan our Spring Break trip, which is a pain in the butt. I need to grade more of those projects, just to get them out of my hair. I need to finish the ~~Christmas~~ holiday cards and send them out. I need to find some focus, but honestly, I’m OK if that doesn’t happen until next week some time. I’m obviously in need of some down time.

*Frou Frou, Let Go

The More I See the Less I Know*

Over 6 hours of quilting yesterday…apparently staying in one’s pajamas all day is good for getting work done. I even graded yet another assignment. Piece o’ cake!

Well, it wasn’t a piece o’ cake when I started yesterday. I had a thread breakage, thought I cleaned it all up, rethreaded, and then got these nests over and over again. There was a lot of yelling and usage of inappropriate words. Loudly. Unfortunately, that never really solves a thread nest issue…

The newer machines are harder to get at the innards, but my machine guy showed me one access point. Ah HA! There’s the bitch that’s fucking me over.

No real problems after that? Well. Of course. I have to say, I suck at just sitting and quilting. My brain goes kablooey. So I had to get up and do other stuff. Unlike this cat, who slept right there ALL DAY LONG.

Although he did wake up long enough to clean his head.

This is about a third of the way through all the outline quilting…

Ah Midnight. Miss you baby.

Finally up into the face. I had this goal yesterday to finish all the outline quilting.

I didn’t quite get there. Almost…the little heads are freakin’ awesome with the outlining done…

NOW you know why I do teeth.

After dinner, I did more fill-in on this…I think it was on the left side…

I also stitched down some rhinos…I had the last episode of The Crown to watch and I can’t do that while quilting. I also graded another assignment in there.

These are the July blocks…trying to get all the wool bits sewn down over break so I don’t have to worry about those any more.

Then back to quilting the miasma of birth control options…the screwdriver is not one of those, by the way…to be clear.

There’s all the heads!

They look awesome. I have one arm left to do, plus the moon and stars and an asteroid. Then background quilting. That’s today. I’m at 9 1/2 hours in the quilting. Then tomorrow, off to the quilt store for binding. No way do I have yardage for that at the moment. The back was a glorious mishmash and I’m OK with that…not so much on the binding.

So yeah, I gotta leave the house today. More blood tests, who knows what else? Calli isn’t leaving…

Silly old lady.

Seriously, I think I am more focused when I have pajamas on. You should try it.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snow (Hey Oh)

I Just Keep Losing My Beat*

I think I’m voting today “the day I stay home and don’t go anywhere, not even to take the dogs out.” I wanna lounge around in pajamas and do nothing but read all day. Ha! Because that’s what some vacations should look like, but I’m not in that mode…quilt needs to get done and so do about 12 thousand other things. No reading for you! I tried reading during lunch yesterday, but the girlchild called…so no reading. Have to schedule that stuff apparently.

I graded another assignment last night. Two down, four to go. One of them is big, though. It will take a significant chunk of time. I’m not ready for that yet. (I may never be ready for that. Who am I kidding?)

Yesterday I went back to look at my developing Patreon site. I honestly don’t know if anyone would back me, but I came up with 4 levels of rewards and did some writing on it. It would be more work for me…but potentially could be a good thing? Or not. Waffling like crazy on the time/work commitment. Guess it’s back to the thinking board before I decide.

What I really did yesterday, besides get blood sucked out of me (get to go back, thanks to some weird results…woo hoo!), was work on the quilt…batting and backing on the floor…can’t go much bigger than this.

Calli gets upset that she’s not allowed to be in the entryway with me…

In fact, all the animals make an attempt to be in there ON things. The quilt top folded in half on top of the batting…

And nice and flat…boychild had to maneuver around this to get out the front door. It’s why we have more than one door! Not really. It just happened that way…

And yes, I have moved the bench and the table to get me more room to lay out quilts before…luckily, I didn’t have to do that yesterday. It only took about 45 minutes to lay it all out and pinbaste it.

Not the hour and a half I thought it would take the night before. But I was tired. And worried about getting enough sleep. I don’t know why…I’m tired again this morning and definitely didn’t get enough sleep.

Kitten in the sun…

Lots of weird animal things going on in the house this week. Boychild just put Simba on the chair, and then Simba thinks he’s not allowed to get down. Or he’s scared to get down. It’s hard to say.

Someone should clean the counter off. Yeah. Me. OK. Everything is me sometimes. Although boychild has demolished the rotting treehouse quite efficiently. Should send him out back with a chainsaw.

So I started quilting in the afternoon…

The machine is mostly behaving…some thread issues as I got to the end of a spool.

And somewhere in here we walked the dogs and I made dinner. Then I filled in more spaces on this…

And finished stitching down all the wool bits (FINALLY) on the June blocks. That took a long time. Not sure why. I did all the tree spots while watching Westworld…which I’ve decided is all about sex and killing…those are the only human purposes I’m getting out of it. Not sure if I like it or not. Guess that might be the point.

Then back to quilting. I’ve done both sides of the landscape, both arms up to the shoulders, and the baby.

That was almost 4 hours yesterday. I’m aiming for 5 hours today. Or more. We’ll see. I don’t really wanna deal with anything else on the to-do list. I took three quilts down from a show yesterday. I need to clean up the girlchild’s room before she gets home Saturday night (although she won’t sleep here until Sunday)…and all the quilts are in there, but I’m waiting on one notification tomorrow, so I made the decision not to clean the quilts up until I heard, so I wouldn’t have to put them away and then pull them back out (wishful thinking?). I’m ignoring the three or four boxes in there that also need to be dealt with.

I’m feeling annoyed by people, so that’s why I wanna hermit. Plus the redo on the blood tests is freaking me out. And the holidays are stressful. I probably need to go on more walks or draw some or just finish this damn quilt so it can get photographed on time. Right? Yeah. Well get on with it then.

*Queen, Somebody to Love

Wondering if I’m Blind*

OK. I’m working on daily to-do lists at the moment. Yesterday’s started with 6 things on it; I ended up crossing off 8 (yes, that’s more than 6, why do you ask?) and transferring 3 to today’s list. Today’s list is starting with 7 things. Hopefully those won’t grow.

Stitchdown took a total of 7 1/2 hours, but I finished…with a lot of furry Not-helpers…

Jockeying for the ultimate cat sleeping spot. He stirred occasionally when I would move the quilt around, but mostly didn’t care that his bed was disturbed AND vibrating.

All stitched down. I think. Because I missed the spaceship AND the moon at one point.

Then I had to go buy batting, wash it, and dry it…before I could pinbaste. So I did some other stuff while I was waiting…like two nights’ worth on this…bottom right, filling in space.

Then because I was waiting for the boychild to finish making dinner (that was awesome cool, by the way)…I pulled this out. This is Sue Spargo’s 2014 Block of the Month, and yes, it takes me forever to do these, but it’s good to have something to stitch on at meetings and soccer games and all that. Seriously, I think this whole quilt came together on the soccer fields…

I just need to stitch on 96 balls and then embellish them and I’m done. With the top.

When I put it that way, it sounds like a bit much. Yes, it’s taken me a year to get to this point. You’re right. I’m OK with that. I have the one from the year before that is pinbasted and sitting in the pile with two others to be quilted. I should do that sometime. I think it’s less about finishing these and more about having something in my hands to work on…which is fine.

And then I pieced the back…yes, with the most non-matchy fabrics I could find. I needed 4 yards. I wasn’t buying 4 yards. I had two yards of the leaves, another yard and a half of the green and red stripe, plus some purple to fill in. It’s OK.

It’s the back. I don’t care. If you do, then insert some rant about how women don’t really fit in, we have to be a little bit of everything, even when it doesn’t make sense.

This morning? Blood tests I didn’t even know I needed (doctor’s office still hasn’t answered me about that), take down of a show I was actually in, and then back here to pinbaste. Why didn’t I do it last night? It was on my Monday to-do list. Because once I got the backing pieced and ironed, it was 11:15. So I didn’t want to stay up another hour and a half when I knew I had to get up relatively early today to get stabbed. I think I’m OK on time…I’m figuring 20 hours for the quilting and another 6 or 7 for the binding. I need to remember to buy binding fabric on Friday. Because Saturday will be crazy. Well. Friday might be too…certainly JoAnns was hellish yesterday. Whatever. I got 50% off my batting. My depression-era grandma would be proud.

OK, making the tea I can’t drink until after the prod and poke. Then off to do stuff so I can come back and do more stuff.

Oh yeah, and I graded one of the six assignments. Five to go.

*Sister Hazel, All for You

Time Won’t Heal This Damage Anymore*

My brain woke me up early this morning…once at 3:31 AM and again at a reasonable hour. It’s in overdrive. What woke me up? Whether or not I need to buy batting. And then remembering a comment someone made on my blog about a podcast done by ex-gang members (Without Your Permission…most interesting thing I’ve heard so far, “kids with hope don’t join gangs.”). I started listening to that. It makes me sad. Text from my daughter this morning asking about the kid in the hospital…who hopefully will survive. Into what, though? And then bogged down by this thought of white women voting for Trump and Moore and a whole host of other things that hurt them, and they don’t seem to care or know or I just don’t know what it is? Fear of change? Being given the power they deserve? Or they just don’t believe accusations of pedophilia or the plain old crazy that comes out of Trump’s mouth. They keep invoking Hillary, but Hillary is not our president. She’s not in Congress or the Senate. She’s not passing tax laws. She’s not outlawing actual vocabulary, she’s not denying climate change or science or getting rid of National Parks. She’s not doing everything in her power to destroy our world, our freedoms, all for the sake of corporate money. Trump and his henchmen are.

So why invoke her? I guess it’s easier than arguing FOR what this current administration stands for.

So then I think, deeply, about my white woman friends…because yeah, I’m a white woman and I have some white woman friends. I’m not brunching or tea-timing with them though. I do stitch with them, but none of them voted for this crazy. They all marched with me last year in the Women’s March AND the science march, and we’re marching again this year…at least that’s the plan. I make art, I yell a lot, then I think, which white women I know would be OK with all this? Well. I know a couple. I know at least one didn’t vote for Trump, but she does agree with some of the stuff that’s happening. I don’t know why. I don’t know that I can change that. I think they’re pretty clear on my stance. I honestly don’t know how to approach the conversation in a way that might promote change in their minds. I really don’t. Their defenses are up. Mine probably are too.

So that’s something to consider. Find more hope for my students so they don’t join gangs and have conversations with my more conservative white woman friends so they change their votes, their ideas, I don’t know what. Teach them critical thinking (ironically, one of them thinks I don’t think critically…). Fucking sigh. That’s a list and a half weighing me down.

It’s true. I don’t vacation well. My brain gets weighed down by this stuff. The NRA hosted at the White House on the anniversary of Sandy Hook. WTF.

And this…you’re going to OUTLAW WORD USE. Well. If that isn’t fascism and a dictatorship, I don’t know what is. Because honestly, there’s a scientific definition for fetus (it’s one of the things I teach during sex ed), so let’s just get rid of it. Because the baby inside is the same as the baby outside. If you believe that, fine. Let’s take that baby out and see how it does without mom’s support. Right now. At 12 weeks. Let’s go. Oh wait…you don’t want that? Because YOU KNOW BETTER.

The thing I love about America and the people who live here is their diversity. For our vulnerable members, these are not entitlements; they are rights: the right to live and go to school and have food and shelter and be safe, no matter what color, gender, belief system, background, or country of origin, whether they are the mother of a fetus (an actual scientific term) or transgender, or any other label we use to divide people instead of bring them together in their humanity. Our decisions should be science– and evidence-based, not based on archaic ideas of what society should look like, not based on guesses or the Bible or any other book of faith that doesn’t question, test, analyze, observe, and change with the times…because science does all of those things. And although science can solve many problems (if you’re really against it, put your damn phone down and stop the Tweeting), at the core of this is the heart…in our hearts, we should know that telling the CDC to stop using valid vocabulary in its communications with the people they serve is a step in absolutely the wrong direction, a step toward all those dystopian novels we read where the government is out of control, forcing people to exist in a limited space that disallows our natural human creativity and care for others. We don’t make amazing discoveries in that world. Nothing is cured, no one is saved. I don’t want to live in that world.

I saw an opening in my schedule to request blocks from the Social Justice Sewing Academy. Kids made these blocks and they need stitching. So once I finish my stitch-a-night thing, I’m going to do these for a month. Or however long it takes. I’m a little concerned about that E on the right, but whatever.

I really like this one.

And it’s not like I have a shortage of thread. So each night, I’ll pick a strand or two and stitch these down.

Little steps. I can’t overthrow anything at the moment.

We hiked with the dogs yesterday…dragged them through plant matter.

The pool of water up top is gone…

They needed it. I needed it. More of this.

Then back to here and moving some shit around and finally sitting down for an hour and a bit and stitching stuff down.

I’m going fast. I need to be done. Like maybe today. Seriously. I’m not kidding.

I was days and days behind on this. I last worked on it on Monday. We went out and listened to a band for a while, but then came back and watched some Walking Dead, so I did 5 nights’ worth, all in the bottom…to fill in those empty spaces.

Fifteen more nights on this.

I did a little of the stitch-down on this too…the houses are done, the warthog is half done, the tree needs to be done…same with the sun. Not sure if there’s other bits I’m missing. Need to look through the bag and see what’s left. Then it will be ready for embellishment.

I think the hippo has stuff on it. I should figure that out. I also want to pin down all the circles (buds) on the Bird Crazy quilt, so I can start stitching those down. I need some long binge-watching episodes, but not until I finish this quilt.

This morning, though, I’m trying to clean up the house enough to finish what little holiday decoration I’m gonna do. Then grocery store and stitch for a while. While thinking about gangs and white women. And batting, because that’s what woke me up first.

*Linkin Park, Faint

Follow a Rejection with an Entry

So I got news on two exhibits yesterday. One was earlier than I had expected and it was good news…the other was bad news and kind of upsetting, because I really wanted this piece to go out into the world…

This is Rooted in America, and yes, I made it for the Loaded Conversations show that SAQA is putting on with the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. I think it was a hard rejection not because I had made it specifically for that show…I do that all the time…but more because I had so much personal emotion stitched into it. A recent staff meeting had us going over what to do if a shooter is on campus (Run, Hide, Fight). As someone said, if 20 1st graders dying at Sandy Hook isn’t going to persuade politicians to change gun laws, nothing is. Until we replace those politicians. It’s a frustrating thing.

But I do understand a juror looking at a pile of work and trying to make what they think is a cohesive show out of it. I don’t know if this piece will ever be shown, though, because it is controversial…but it’s made. I guess that’s my part in it. I’ll keep entering it until it ages out.

The show I got into is at the Branch Gallery in Los Angeles, opening March 17 in the afternoon. Two openings in one day…could be a little crazy. More about that show later, since this is just a preliminary notification…not so official. But put it on your calendar if you’re in the LA area.

So the piece I’m making now is for a juried show as well, so it might not get in. As always. I’m used to it. I do handle rejections OK most of the time. And I’m OK now with this one…I was just really disappointed. I wanted to be able to say my piece. That your need for a gun is not more important than my students’ needs to feel safe. I still believe that.

Meanwhile, I’ve still got 40 hours of stuff to do on the current quilt before…well…the 26th. Yeah. Kinda crazy timing, but it’ll do. Boychild is on a roll of trying to get shit done around here…which means I haven’t gotten much done on the quilt since Thursday night. But I’m also still exhausted from school, even after 9 hours of sleep last night and a couple of cups of tea and a 2 1/2 mile hike with the dogs. OK, wait, the last one is part of why I’m tired right now.

I could nap.

Most of the grading I need to do is online, but I did bring this pile of Unit 3 home…

I have 6 assignments to grade and this is the biggest one by far. I don’t have a plan this year. Sometimes I say I will do ONE A DAY! UNTIL THEY ARE DONE! And I start with good intentions, get bogged down by the holidays, and flail mightily at the end. I don’t think I ever finish them all over break. So there we are. And with 40 hours of quilting needed on this quilt in the next 9 days, along with all the holiday stuff, I’m not promising shit at the moment. So there.

I had gaming last night. We are in a difficult situation that has lasted over two sessions so far and will probably continue for a couple more before we can stop and heal our people. I happily finished stitching the monkey while we rolled dice and tried to figure out what to do in hindsight.

That guinea fowl’s feet can’t go on until I attach this to whatever’s below it. But before that, I’m stitching the sheep block in the top right…

I think the guinea fowl on the right might lose his feet when I stitch it together…but I can redo them. There’s a third block that goes with this month…I haven’t even started the embellishment on it. Stitching this stuff is so relaxing for me. Stitching and drawing. Not grading. I have 23 days off. It sounds like a lot. It never feels like it though. At least 30 hours of grading in there, plus two hours when I have to do professional development, whether I like it (or need it) or not…I wish I could choose to develop myself in what I need. You know what I need for school? Rock identification. I need a geologist to sit down with me and all the rocks we have loose in the classroom and tell me what they all are, and then tell me how to identify stuff when I’m hiking. That’s what I want for PD. Not “How to Use a Computer” or some variation of that. App speed dating is what I have to sit through when I come back. Sigh. Really? Hope for the best on that one. I guess in real life, I would suck at speed dating. Nothing new when it’s for school.

OK, well, I’m hugely behind on the hand-stitching on that piece that will be done December 31…I should get caught up on that. I need to quilt. I need to enter another show today. I forgot about that. Gonna do that now. Follow a rejection with an entry. It’s fine. Moving on.

It Is So Strange the Way Things Turn*

There’s always a point in the task I’m performing while making my quilts when the scale tips, when I can see light at the end of the tunnel, when I know I’m close to the end. That was last night, when I got into the 1100s and realized I only had about 250 pieces (or fewer) to go. Then I can visualize the next step, maybe even the end, and start thinking about the next one. Not yet. Not with this one. Have to get clear of school to get my head around the next one, but it’s percolating. Fermenting. Bubbling away in my brain.

Puppy was very tired yesterday. This is how I felt when I got up in the morning and started grading for 6 hours or whatever it was. I still have to input the final stuff into the system tonight or this afternoon or whenever I can fit it in.

I ironed a little in the afternoon…had to stop mid-face for dinner.

I was three nights behind on this, so I put a chainstitched wave on the left side and started filling it in.

And then, because we were watching Westworld, I started cutting out circles for the Bird Crazy border (it’s not really called that)…I finished stitching the stem down finally. Satchemo is very helpful with cutting out circles…

More circles, covered in cat and dog hair, of course.

There’s only 90 of them. It’s only taken me a year to get to this point. They all have to be stitched down and embellished. Sounds like a Christmas Day project. Maybe.

Then back to ironing…finished her head…

Added the last of the arms…

I really like this head. It’s awesome.

Ah Midnight. Weird story. I was sitting here grading yesterday afternoon and felt something brush against my leg, automatically thought it was Midnight, because that’s what she always did. But she’s dead. And there weren’t any other animals in here.

Yeah. Well. Creeped out now. This is the room where cats always stare intently at the ceiling, like there’s something there, and then I whip around to see what it is, and they pretend it was nothing…until I’m not looking at them, and they start that intense stare again. Sigh.

Asteroid? Meteor?

The sun…

This quilt has a lot of floaty bits and pieces…here’s the sewing section…

Following by a spaceship and a condom. You know, like in real life.

Lots of birth control options here, although I would recommend against the screwdriver for that, and I think marriage is NOT supposed to be a birth control option. Although the current regime certainly thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to have any of it without marriage. Unlike men.

Sometimes I really hate people. I try not to. I try to mentally explain and respect their stances, until they negatively affect me and everyone I care about, and then they just irritate the fuck out of me. This quilt is about that. Things that matter: Women. Their rights. Options. Not having someone tell us what we’re allowed to do and when and how. Having a voice.

I have a draft of an email to another teacher on my system at the moment. I’m obviously more mature than I used to be, because I haven’t sent it yet. There’s a trigger I’m waiting for, and then it goes. I’m looking forward to break so I can hermit away from the populace. And make art. And hopefully not grade a million things. Ha! I already know I have an entire unit due Friday. Oh well. It’s still gonna be vacation.

*Peter Gabriel (and Kate Bush), Don’t Give Up

Nothing’s Stopping You Except What’s Inside*

It’s a late post today. I’ve been up and doing shit all day, running all those errands that don’t get done during the week. Groceries are done for the week, I got dog food, shipped the Xmas gifts to Seattle that needed to go there, found some weird spice thing the boychild wanted (he comes home this week), managed a couple of Christmas gifts I should have bought a week ago, and wrestled with the environmental difficulty of loving Christmas trees. I love the smell, I love the lights, I love decorating them, I love sitting in the living room, stitching or drawing, with Christmas lights all around. So. Yeah. But cutting trees down every year is kinda stupid, and so is having them trucked down from Washington state or wherever.

So I drove to a couple of local nurseries and wandered all over the place and asked some questions and googled some shit, and finally hoisted this bad boy into my car and drove him all around San Diego to do the rest of my errands (only 6 stops)…

It’s an Eldarica pine, sometimes known as the Afghan pine. It tolerates heat and wind and dry weather (wow, just like this week). The plan is that it will be a Christmas tree on the desk this year, then go outside until next Christmas, where it should have grown a foot, so it will have to be on the floor…or a coffee table maybe. Then back outside for YOU. Then the following Christmas, it will probably only fit in the entryway…and that might be when it gets planted out in the yard.

It already has a kitty friend (gaaack).

I’m quite happy with it. Let’s hope I can keep it alive. Positive thoughts, people. Positive thoughts.

The lights are up outside, which also makes me happy.

So it was in the 80’s and still windy here. Fires are still burning, but none near me. Word is my grandmother is out of harm’s way, no evacuation necessary. Hopefully the fires will start to get under control soon and people can go back home, those that have homes. Fire is terrifying and devastating. I’m never sure what to do to help…since having extra money is not my strong point. But maybe I’ll figure something out.

Meanwhile, this is the girlchild’s school back east. A definite difference from the weather here…

But beautiful.

Satchemo decided he wanted to sleep in Simba’s crate last night. Yes, we crate him, because he’s a peeing beast otherwise. Plus running around and barking at the coyote population, which seems to be getting closer and closer. Over break, I’m hoping the boychild will help me prune out some of the backyard, to reduce the number of coyote hiding spots really.

We did pull the cat out. Simba looks worried.

I have gotten absolutely nothing done on the quilt ironing…although I did email the photographer, so now I have a deadline. It’s incredibly close though. Scary.

I did have my stitching meeting last night, which is partly why I didn’t iron. No energy when I got home. I’m still trying to get all this stitched down. I finished all the eyeballs and two roofs, but still have the rest of the houses and the tree, plus that sun bit. And probably some other things that haven’t been pinned on yet. Who knows.

Pretty brainless stuff, if you ask me. I’ve got about 30 minutes right now with nothing going on…I think I’m gonna iron a bit. Then I’m hoping for a chunk tomorrow, but I have to finish grades first. This is not a relaxing time for most people, myself included. Go go go. Eye twitching all the way. I’m really looking forward to Winter Break.

Art opening tonight though and a decent dinner that I don’t have to cook. That should be good.

*U2, Get Out of Your Own Way