Glitter on the Mattress*

Do you ever spend all day checking your email obsessively, waiting to hear about that one thing you really wanna know about? Did you get in? Were you rejected? Well, was your work rejected? After 30 years of entering shows, I don’t really worry about rejections. They happen. A lot. And that’s OK. But sometimes I just wanna know. It’s not even the end of the world if it’s a rejection…you just wanna know one way or another.

I have all these mental deadlines for my art, everything neatly spaced out and organized in the calendar in my head, and then things come in and blow that all out. I thought about one art invite for about 12 hours and then decided no. Not for me. The other one though…sigh. I’m a little irritated, although I have yet to see deadlines…it just wasn’t on my calendar and I’m not sure I want to shove it in there. I have this quilt, then one other, and then hopefully a commission. I won’t plan past that right now because I can’t. But it does mean I need to stay on task, on top of the work. Which I can do. I don’t have a lot of mental down time between quilts because there are always about 50 of them in my head and even in process in sketchbooks or already copied. I remember the days when it might take weeks to get the next one going. That is no longer the case. And I’m OK with that. I like the work being there all the time in some form or another.

I currently have this one I’ve been working on…hopefully getting the Wonder Under all cut out today, deciding what the background fabric will be, and starting the ironing onto fabric this week. Then there’s the smaller climate quilt…it’s all cut out of Wonder Under and ready for ironing as well…it’s been sitting around since June or so, and it will keep sitting around for a while. Then I have at least three or four drawings that have been enlarged and numbered and are ready for tracing. And another two or three drawings that are enlarged and partially drawn. Plus quite a few drawings in the sketchbooks I have lying around.

Ironically, I haven’t drawn the next quilt yet…but if that takes me a while to process, like the last one, I can do some part of one of the ones lying around. This is my meditation, my relaxation, my happy happy joy joy.

I have almost 6 hours into cutting out here…

Probably have 2-3 hours to go…I’m binge watching The Crown now. Finished Hinterland. This quilt brought to you by Brit tv.

Satchemo is still adjusting…and the other two cats have kind of been pushed out of this room, hopefully temporarily.

I had gaming last night, but I finished this one on the right…

And started working on this one, but because I’m doing May before April (for no real good reason), I was missing two threads that came in April and were in my other box. But I worked on the leaves and came home and found the other threads.

I really should do things in order.

See? Now he’s taken over the light table…also Kitten and Midnight’s domain. We’re working on sharing spaces…

Here’s the 10 completed blocks…

This is Sue Spargo’s Folk Tails…it’s a pretty fun stitch, with lots of different embroidery going on. Plus animals. This is what I do when my other stuff is not portable and I have to go places and either keep awake or stitch with friends. None of it is quick to finish, but I’m OK with that.

So a long weekend. I have 4 things to grade (ugh. already) and I need to clean up the studio so I can pick fabrics and I want to sit on the deck and draw but it’s still uber hot today and tomorrow it’s supposed to rain so that might have to wait until Monday and there’s errands and cleaning and who knows wtf else. And I miss my kids. Boychild is hiking again and girlchild is idk, but if I ask her, she’ll tell me. Anyway, must eat and get cutting stuff out…try to focus a bit on art stuff today. Maybe school can wait.

*The B-52’s, Love Shack

I Came Back as a Bag of Groceries*

Rough morning. Sleep in the heat is always difficult. And there are additional night stressors, like the cat who wanted to clean her butt right by my face because she’s feeling anxious. And when it’s over 100 degrees, furry animals right next to you are delightful (ugh). But I know they’re all needy babes at the moment, so I pet them all.

And when it’s really hot out, you should move furniture, by the way. And books…piles of books. And then cook things. Over a stove. AND with an oven.

It’s fine. I do OK with sweat as long as I can cool down occasionally. Eventually it will cool down again.

I did two nights’ on here, down in the bottom left. I decided I wanted to get that section filled in, so I did a chain stitch in a light blue and then a wavy buttonhole in the orangey-red color. I like that bit.

We were watching Sense8 while eating and this guy’s shirt fascinated me. I especially like the blue/red ferny things about a third of the way down. So we had to rewind a couple of times so I could get the idea of them…

I don’t know what I’ll be doing with that…

While we finished watching, I was sewing more of this down…because when it’s over 100 degrees , that’s the best time to work on a wool quilt. You know.

And then I sat back and watched more Hinterland, always interesting just because I lived in Aberystwyth for a year. I often yell out (in my head), hey! I know that bit of road! Although the art department was in the wrong place. Maybe they’ve moved it? Or maybe there really is a printmaking studio up there…who knows?

I cut stuff out while I was watching (and thinking) all that.

Another needy furry beast who wants to be right next to me in the heat…

I did a couple of hours…that was my goal, so I met it! Whoo! I can’t promise I will on all the other nights though. Gotta fit a gym visit in somewhere. I think I cut out 2 1/2 yards, minus those pieces under the scissors.

Pile of Wonder Under is NOT moving. Cat is. Hence blur.

You can tell I’m still not very awake. Probably gonna be this way for some more days…between the heat and the additional cat stressors. It will all get better soon. Just don’t expect deep thoughts or complicated math out of me any time soon.

*They Might Be Giants, Dead

Just a Simple Flower so Small and Plain*

I don’t really know how to start. I think that’s just Friday morning first week of school tiredness, the tired that makes you yearn for a Saturday-morning lie-in. Just sleeping in until you’re not tired any more (it’s rare that it happens, but it does). Self care for teachers is hard, even harder when you have family at home who don’t realize you spent all day talking and walking and making decisions and remembering stuff well above and beyond a normal day. I do have that…but they’re all furry. With both kids gone and me at school every day, they are all suddenly very needy. VERY needy. I understand that. I am also needy. Unfortunately, no one is filling that need at the moment. Well, there’s something nice about a furry beast right next to you. And petting them is nice. Until the black one bites.

I don’t know if you can see them all…one dog on the right, one by my left foot, and then a black cat on the other side. Just before I took this, the black cat was snugged right up against me, because it’s August? And she’s cold? Nah. She misses the other humans.

She’s the biter.

Simba eventually moved a little further away from me. Only a little though.

Calli had her head on my foot for a while.

Right now, Kitten is on the chair behind me. So there’s some furry interaction that needs to happen. Although I walked the dogs earlier this week, I haven’t had the energy since then. It’s on my mind for tonight, but I will need to find some additional energy reserves to pull that off. Maybe I will just sit in the hallway and throw balls for the dogs to chase.

So yesterday was Day 2 of school, and I came home and collapsed on the couch. Again. I hate feeling that tired. I think I achieved flatness, like a melting scoop of ice cream. Too tired to hold myself in a seated position. I remember thinking about getting a deli sandwich before quilt class…I have a coupon, but it has to be used before 6 PM. I could buy it then and eat it later. I would just have to leave about 20 minutes early. Um no. Did not manage that. I do have leftovers in the fridge, but I forgot that thing where I get tired of eating the same thing for almost every meal. Ugh. Learning curve. I should cook all summer and freeze it all up for the first month of school.

I did finally get up though and sew some strips together. Obviously the next quilt is not ready to be moved around. It doesn’t even really exist. I don’t draw in front of people much, certainly not at this stage, so I figured I would just work on the Folk Tails quilt blocks. I even sewed the two sheep blocks together finally. Then I remembered the birds. They need a border. So I grabbed the stem fabric and sewed the strips together and found all the bits and pieces and even some sewing thread that matched, and I went to my quilt meeting. I managed to pin the stem strips on in some semblance of the correct place (wonky is good), and started to sew.

Hanging out with humans is often recommended for people like me. The furry beasts are fine, but humans respond a little bit more coherently. Although one of them is also currently teaching (the other two are retired teachers), and she was even more incoherent than I was.

I made it around two corners, I think, but only on one side of the strip. So I’ll have to go around a second time. It’s not hard, but it will take some time. You’d think I’d come home from quilt class and get right to work on that drawing from yesterday? But no.

I never did get that sandwich, so I started dinner, and then I tried to spend some time with the last bit of cleaning in the bedroom. I found all these pieces for an applique quilt that I haven’t worked on in years…I’m not even sure where the current block is or how many blocks are left. I know I have a lot done. You know how that works? You get close and then never finish? That’s like half the quilt blocks on eBay. Someone died and never finished and their heirs want nothing to do with it. I have a bunch like that unfortunately. They’re all somebody else’s design. I don’t usually not finish art quilts though. I have a couple that are not finished. One that is finished that I don’t like. At all. But mostly I finish them.

I’ve been watching a lot of British television this week while vegging out…River, which was good, Doctor Foster, which was OK, and just started The Bletchley Circle, which I like so far. I’ve been binge watching while doing art stuff all summer. I can’t always watch stuff, like when I’m quilting. But in the drawing and tracing stages, it works. Thank goddess for Netflix, right?

I did the zigzag chain stitch in the bottom right.

I can’t really focus on filling in at the moment apparently. So I keep doing something else on the edge.

Kathy on school (girlchild and I were snapchatting on location)…it’s my new 7th period prep, where I have literally no brain power to do anything.

Anyway. So there’s a damn good chance I’m gonna come home tonight and still have no energy to draw or even sew the rest of that green stem on. Oh well. It’s not the end of the world. It will get done. I just need to get some rest and adjust to the new shit. I’m disappointed that my school district is not letting us take kids out for the eclipse on Monday. Some liability issue. But I have a distinct and strong memory of one eclipse in elementary school, going outside with our pinhole papers and watching the eclipse happen. I’m not happy that I’m going to miss it either. This just sucks…here’s science right here, right now, exciting stuff happening, and we have to sit inside and watch it on the NASA feed. It’s unreal. It’s so contrary to what they always tell us to do in science, to give them experiences so they can discover shit. Not on the screen! Ah. Well. How can I sneak out during 4th period to see it? Figuring that out.

*Gillian Welch, Acony Bell

(Move out) Don’t Mess Around*

So I’m running on about 3 hours of sleep. Woo! I think the boychild is on a plane that took off 5 minutes ago. Unless he fell asleep in the terminal. In which case, um, well, he’ll call eventually, right? Certainly after this morning’s “I’m awake” proclamation that was an obvious lie, I will probably never trust him to be up when he says he is again. Ah well. He obviously does not have the crazy morning adrenaline that his mother, a teacher, has. The alarm goes off? We hit the ceiling running. Or at least stumbling.

Luckily I will be dealing with ZERO kids today. OK, that’s sad in terms of my own children, but it’s a damn good thing there will be no students today, because I’m gonna crash at some point. But before that, I need to get my room set up. I’m mostly ready to go do that, except I need about 5 more cups of tea. British tea. Twice the caffeine.

Anyway. The events in Virginia over the weekend are still on my mind, especially after I saw a few posts that the Alt-Right is planning on taking its idiocy across the country to a wide variety of colleges. I don’t advocate violence. Ever. Well. That’s not true, but we can have that conversation later. I do advocate for about a thousand peaceful protesters who are pro-human to show up and surround Alt-Righters anywhere they think to gather. To stand with signs and stare them down. Photograph them. Tweet their angry faces and Hitler T-shirts. Call Them on Their Shit. I’d advocate for getting them fired, but honestly, that’s just going to add to their feelings of injustice. And trying to brainwash them into consciousness is reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. “Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.” Plus this…

clockwork-orange-eyes_orig

Although it’s tempting. I just don’t think it would be effective. And I can’t argue that harassment would be either. We don’t like it when the trolls come after female gamers for not having penises…it’s not OK to advocate harassment for the trolls either. I’d like to hear what they have to say, although with Peter Cvjetanovic, it’s not like he makes more sense when he tries to explain himself. Frustrating.

So yeah. I didn’t get much done yesterday. The boy and I tried to get the bedroom straightened up…vacuumed. He packed. Managed to fit it all in his bags (I don’t know how). We ate dinner at the parentals. Facetimed the girlchild. Normal Sunday, I guess. I tried to get some school stuff organized for today and next week. And at the last minute, we tried to migrate everything over to gmail for me. We’ll see if that works. Probably should have done it earlier in the summer so he could troubleshoot it for me. Oh well. I’m not internet stupid most of the time.

I did the feather on the right…the orange was for Saturday (although I did it Sunday) and then I filled in with purple for Sunday…

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Then as I was sitting at the parentals, I worked on the right side of this one…finished the tortoise and the blue flower.

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Then I came home and eventually started drawing her.

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I’ve had ideas about meditation poses for a while this summer. I meant for her to be more upset, but in the end, she wasn’t. I guess that’s a good thing. She’s not done. But I like the shapes. A good start. More drawing. Nope, this isn’t the one I’m supposed to be drawing, but it was all I could handle last night.

It’s always hard when the kids leave. Girlchild was only here for 2 weeks, but boychild’s been home for almost 3 months. Empty nest again. May they stay safe. That might be need to be true for all of us.

*Yazoo, Situation

Land of the Some-of-You-Can-Be-Free

Well, America, I’m not very impressed with some of you today. White America especially, some of you are really pissing me off. The thing is, I suspect those who piss me off are probably not reading this blog…because I think that type of person wouldn’t put up with my art either, or my rants. They’re long gone, hiding away in some back-alley private Facebook page, calling me a skanky ho. Well, as long as they spell it right, I’m not bothered by what they call me. I am bothered by their ignorance, their lack of logic (and trust me, I’m not the most logical at times), and their general dumbassery. Their desire to get back whatever they think they’ve lost, to hurt others in the process. As if they have the right to do so. Their hatred. Their need to tear down and break things.

But I’m not sure how to talk to those people. I don’t know how to change the mind of a 20-year-old white male who can’t see his own privilege. I can’t even figure out how to talk to the white folks on my campus who were offended by my students’ anti-bullying and anti-Trump door sign last year. How can you work in my school and espouse the beliefs that you do? I’m like the governor of Virginia…just leave. We don’t want you.

But that doesn’t solve the problem of racism and gender/racial gaps and inequity and what our police would have done if faced with a similar situation except with a less white-washed crowd. It doesn’t solve the problem of how to solve this damn problem! I can’t talk to these people and make any sense of what they say. They feel disenfranchised? Because they’re not better than someone? I’m not sure I care. Except I care that they’re making it worse for the rest of us…no, not just us whitefolks, but everyone else who fills my country. Who make it strong and beautiful and artistic and challenging and entertaining and tasty and sometimes ugly and smelly and warty. I want it to feel safe, not threatened by nuclear war because of stupidity, not mired in fascist Alt-Right idiocy because…shit I don’t even KNOW why. I really don’t.

All I can do is go to school and meet my new mostly refugee and immigrant students, my mostly NOT American-born white students, and teach them how to stand strong and have faith in humanity (some of it anyway) and hopefully some science too. And that not all the white American-born people hate them. Because I don’t. I try not to hate anyone, although a certain orange-faced dickhead certainly gets no kind feelings from me. Or his minions. The ones backpedaling right now as people find them on Twitter or Facebook and out them for their beliefs. Cowards. But even them…I don’t want them hurt. I want them to grow up and change and be more human to ALL humans. I don’t want to kill them or run them over or hang them. OK. Some days I want to put them all on a very hot and dry island somewhere very far away. It’s true. But normally, I don’t want anyone hurt.

It hurts to be an American right now. It shouldn’t. Land of the free, home of the brave. We stole this country, this land, from the First Americans…the least we can do is keep all those who live here safe and give them as much support as we can. Try to make up for previous dumbassery. Try to make it right, best we can. Try to make it better in the future. Starting now.

I finished a quilt yesterday. Post-election, I have focused on women’s rights for a while and now on climate change, although that’s about to change again. There are so many issues that need support. It’s overwhelming sometimes to keep it all in my head. All the quilt needed yesterday was eyeballs…I’d decided not to cut out tiny fucking pieces this time…instead, I would make tiny French knots…this is why I have a thread stash. This is a Finca thread, but a 12…I was looking for a Valdani or Perle 12, but couldn’t find one in the right color, but this is finer than a normal 12.

This bird originally had two eyeballs, but I decided one was better.

The sheep and the cows all got to see…

Tiny little beasts…

And the fish as well, although I like the whites behind the black on the blue fishies. I also added some ink…

I took her to the photographer today. Done early!

Then I started sewing the birds together in columns and rows…

A few beaks got squished in seams…same with some feet. Something to remember as I make more of these. Or not. Here it is all sewn together, after a year of not sewing them together.

And then the border fabric went on.

I did cut the fabric for the stems and the 96 colored balls…they are much smaller than I thought they’d be. And I don’t know when I’ll get to them. Sometime, I hope. I have other things to do…processing the American hate of the last few days, moving on to the next art quilt, starting school, sending the boychild back to college. Trying to make sense of the crazy.

Yeah, Kitten, I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either. I thought we were trying to move past all that into a better existence. I guess you can’t just ignore those people who are so angry at the existence of other. I don’t know how to fix them, though, Kitten. I really don’t.

Please Don’t Bother Trying to Find Her*

Most summers I manage to make some monster of a quilt, something with 2200 pieces that measures the size of a refrigerator or something. Not so this summer. Too much cleaning and other work. I did finish one though. Well. First I have to embroider a bunch of eyeballs that I decided NOT to cut out of tiny pieces of fabric for once. I know, right? I totally forgot about the eyeballs last night. I came home from school exhausted, ordered pizza and sewed binding for about 3 hours straight. Because that was easier than thinking about anything. The quilt goes to the photographer tomorrow, and now I need to do eyeballs this morning. No problem. That’s easy. But I was already in bed and about to turn the lights out when I remembered the eyeballs thing. So I put a reminder on the calendar…so yes, my phone keeps popping up with a reminder that says Embroider Eyeballs.

It’s all good. Artistically arranged puppy good.

He was helping me. That background…think it came from one of the donated piles of fabric. It got well used. There’s about 5″ of it left, which I could realistically use in a quilt somewhere.

I’m trying to be a responsible fabric user…haven’t bought a backing fabric in a year or so. I just reduce and reuse.

She’s long and skinny, that’s for sure. About 68″ long (so taller than I am).

I’ll post official photos next week. I don’t have total hours yet either…since the eyeballs still need embroidery.

One of the things that’s interesting about this quilt is in the time analysis. It’s probably the same size as the Bathtub quilts, except it’s long and skinny. But it had almost twice as many pieces than the most complicated one of the Bathtubs. It took much longer to trace pieces and iron them, but the same amount of time to quilt. The amount of detail is greater, but the length of the stitching line is about the same? This analysis helps me figure out how to estimate future quilts, both time and price. And to try to control some of my detail tendencies…but it does explain why size doesn’t matter.

Which reminds me, The Goddess of Never-Ending Chaos is currently in Birmingham, England, at their Festival of Quilts.

She no longer belongs to me…but I have another meditation-pose piece in my head at the moment. I should draw that. Is there time for that in my crazy schedule?

More stuff in the feather stitches…straight stitches and some French knots, filling in space. That’s the official title of this thing, by the way…Filling in Space.

Then my brain froze. I was exhausted by the conference yesterday…really more a matter of too much interaction (900 teachers is a lot of interaction) than actual physical exhaustion, like what teaching does to you. I had to get up way too early and I didn’t sleep well the night before. I seem to be alternating between stressy interrupted sleep and conking out the next night. Fun stuff.

Anyway, I think I was talking about this Sue Spargo BOM Bird Crazy (oh wait, that’s not the real name…that’s what I call it…it’s called Bird Dance) last summer, about all I needed to do was to trim the blocks and sew them together and then put borders on, and I was debating that, because it seemed easier to sew the 96 circles in the border on before sewing the borders on the rest, but they do need to BE in a certain place, and that’s a pain in the butt without having them sewn on. SO. I didn’t do anything. They’ve been sitting in this box on the couch since then. Like a year (I just looked it up. I finished the last bird on July 29 last year…the BOM from 2013.). You have to be impressed by that, right? You don’t even know how many soccer games these bird blocks saw…so with my braindead brain, I went and trimmed all those fuckers down to the same size (well, except for the two that are not quite big enough). Which I was going to do last August. And didn’t. And then once you’ve done that, you’ve got to sew them together because you just cut off all the knots that are keeping the embroidery in place.

So I laid them out. The cat was NOT helping.

Luckily I could just follow her picture, because if I’d had to make decisions about what went where, we’d be sitting here in 2020 trying to figure that shit out. And I started sewing them together…until I got distracted by moving the bed and fixing the shower faucet and then stressed out about how I never ever ever get my house clean and organized. EVER. I’m going to finish sewing them together today and put the borders on though, because this is something that can be completed and checked off a list and that’s a good thing right now. I really should be panicking more about school at this point, but I can’t even.

It’ll be a year at least before I get 96 balls sewn on and embellished. No worries about a quick finish on this. And the other BOM of hers that I finished? Still pinbasted from last year. Oh yeah.

So I went to bed way too late last night because I was cleaning at 1 AM, you know, like you do. Because if someone can answer the question of What the Fuck Do I Do with All the School Shirts I Have That I Don’t Like to Wear? Well I’ve got a reward of some type for you. Like a bunch of school shirts I’m thinking. I even got rid of like 5 of them already.

Then the dog started barking early this morning (up way way way too late last night) at the construction next door (will it NEVER END???) and boychild made good smells throughout the house (clearing out the freezer I believe)…

Both kids can cook. And it’s not because of me. Impressive. He leaves Monday. It’s gonna be a rough week. And I have to try to start drawing the next quilt, because it has to be done in 80 days. Well, before that, so it can be photographed. No problem. (ha ha ha) But first the damn embroidered eyeballs.

*The Zombies, She’s Not There

There’s a Secret Magic Past World*

My brain appears to be blank this morning. Or at least the part that’s available for writing is blank. There’s another huge part that’s trying to make a Saturday to-do list. I already know the boychild and I will be making a dumpster run, but he’s hiking right now. I didn’t have the energy to get up early to do that. I’m very protective of the right to sleep in…because I spent years getting up early for soccer games and driving to the middle of nowhere to sit on a wet field and wait for games to start. Plus sleep is this thing I’m always chasing…trying to do it right. Such a joke! Because one night of doing it right is never enough. So people tell me to go to bed earlier. OK. So then I can lie there for even longer, trying to fall asleep. This is not a new thing for me. My whole life has been about bad sleep.

So I had a number of hours in sleep mode last night, but I also had all 4 animals in the room. They were fussy after the boychild left to hike. And the neighbor’s workers showed up. Then Kitten had to boisterously clean all her parts and Calli started to whine about going out. Then Simba started with the snorts he does when he wants to get out of the crate. Sigh. Midnight was the only quiet one. So I’m sitting here, a little drugged on not-sleep, and Kitten is next to the computer, sound asleep. I guess I make her sleep through typing and The Cure, but it does not seem fair. Cat naps. Smart beasts.

So back to today. The last Saturday before school starts. (NOOOOOOOOO!!!!) Got some art stuff tonight. Just heard about another one of the art buildings we’ve visited multiple times…they’re kicking the artists out (Glashaus in Barrio Logan, for those who are local and maybe have gone there). Ripples from the horrendous Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. Artists kicked out before fixing problems? Hard to say what’s happening there, but I know it’s frustrating for the artists in 21 art studios there. The downtown studio I used to have is now all living spaces. They could make more money that way. I couldn’t afford a studio any more…gave mine up when I was pregnant with the boychild. But I loved those spaces, free from the house to-do list. No distractions. Just a pure workspace. I’m lucky to have space in my home and to make art that is safe to do in a house (although we set up the garage space so I can screenprint again if I choose to do so). People working in glass and metal or needing space for kilns or whatever, living in rentals…they absolutely need reasonably priced space to work and store materials. This town doesn’t support that…never has. Art is so important to our existence…I wish the money people would see that and make space for it.

I had a conversation with an artist friend the other day about how we create alone so much of the time. She’s older than I am and the going out and interacting with others gets harder, for sure. I’ve gone through times when I really don’t interact with other artists at all. I’m socially not the best in the world (hello introvert), so that doesn’t help. I can see as mobility and energy lessen that it would be more important to save what you had for making art. Hard to explain that to non artists. But these studio buildings help with that. Plus the exhibition space. I’m going to miss the openings there.

Yesterday, I did manage some stitch down at my last summer daytime quilt meeting…Susan is knitting something that is apparently very brain damaging…

I got more than halfway done, which is good, although I’m still behind. And I’m not sure how much I’m gonna get done today. Gotta go move some trash.

I worked on this at gaming last night, mostly on the top…but I’m a little concerned about the vast difference in sizes. Hmmm.

I’m pretty sure they should be the same size. Yikes.

Here’s the back of the stitchdown. I got above the midpoint…

So that was about 2 1/2 hours. Bodes well for a quick finish, but first I need to load a bunch of crap in my car and try to dump it in my parents’ dumpster (I have permission…just trying to beat the neighbor). And pick up my Earth Stories quilt, which is home after a long trip around the United States without any protests, despite the fuss when I originally suggested a quilt that was about birth control and Planned Parenthood. Which is good…I have a show to enter where that would work.

OK, no matter what, I need to just get my act together. It helps that I’ve had a cup of tea while writing this. My brain responds to caffeine well. Luckily.

*Rocky Votolato, White Daisy Passing

Infiltrating My Brain

Awww school. You’ve infiltrated my brain dammit and now I’m in panic mode. I keep looking at the calendar and reminding myself that there are hours in there and I will get organized at some point. My brain is unraveling. I haven’t bought supplies, I don’t have my stuff into the print shop, my room is a disaster.

Walk away.

So I had my stitching meeting last night and started the next month’s blocks. This is May though and not April. April is not sewn down yet. I did stems and legs and grass. The legs are awesome…two couched threads with bullion knots over them.

I have lots more to do on these. Obviously. And I should start sewing April down too.

When I got home, I finally started ironing more quilt parts together. I iron the eyes separately and then put them on the face.

There they are. The eyes are the most important part of the quilt, I think.

Aliens in my quilt, polluting my world.

Seriously. Alien ships give off CO₂, right?

Ironed the head/land to the rest. Most of it’s rolled up.

But then I realized that I hadn’t washed the background fabric in Retayne, and the dark fabrics, especially the batiks, bleed like a motherfucker. And then they say not to use the high-efficiency washers to do that, so I stirred for 20 minutes.

Which was good, because it didn’t bleed at all. Midnight did not fucking care.

Then I finally got her ironed down. She’s taller than I am. Not that that’s hard.

Head ironed. Woo hoo.

Now I need to stitch the whole thing down. Like today. Ha! Well. It will probably take 5-11 hours, based on the last two quilts. Probably closer to 5 hours. But I need to do school stuff too and deal with the bedroom and the garage, all of which are stressing me out.

I’m glad I’m at this point though. She’s good. I’m good with her good. But now I need to go do shit so I can stop panicking.

Back from That Soul Vacation*

It’s frustrating to keep making plans to get a certain amount of art done, and then you end up barely getting anything done, whether it’s because of limited time or because things take longer than you thought they would (my fault for so many tiny pieces) or even both! Which is what I’m dealing with today…along with a cracked filling that needs replacing because I grind my teeth. The same with exercise and cleaning and organizing and getting everything done. Life is time-consuming.

Anyway, I’m back to the dentist today to deal with the filling, unfortunately…but it’s gotta be done. I don’t know what to tell her about grinding my teeth…I was busted for that the first time my freshman year of college. I need to socket the exercise back in regularly. I am definitely a work in progress. Sigh.

I did some of this while I was finishing something else up…more stitching in the bottom left, the lighter color, pistil stitches and fly stitches.

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And I have almost all of these sewn down…just eyeballs and those big yellow flower things. I need this done by Friday. Maybe Thursday. And I was watching the last bit of an episode I can’t watch on the computer…

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So ironing started late. Same time as when I’m teaching, ironically. What else did I get done yesterday? Some major cleaning in the bedroom again (still not anywhere near done), boychild needed shoes, some other stuff. Then I ironed the rocky crotchland.

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So yeah, this sits right above the legs…and then the land sits above it. Normal people might just do one piece of brown behind all the rocks and water. I am not normal. But I like how it looks, so that’s my problem. I didn’t get much more in height yesterday…

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I did start on the land, but you can see there are a ton of tiny pieces here…

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The sheep will look more sheeplike with outlining. Hopefully. So this afternoon, when I’m recovering from the dental crap, hopefully I’ll be ironing. Before that, I’ll be dumping 10 bags of clothing and other crap at the thrift store. It’s progress. I know when I’m done with this, it will be a good thing. It’s just sucking up so much time. This is nothing new, right? I’m so at peace when I’m ironing though. Makes me want to do more. Less likely to grind my teeth, right?

Anyway. Teeth call. Louder than the other things.

*Train, Drops of Jupiter

A Balance of Sorts

I really did take a (timed) nap with the clothes on my bed yesterday. I was so tired. Set the timer for 20 minutes and did the perfect nap, drooling on the pillow, woke up and (here’s the important part) GOT UP when the alarm went off, and felt mostly awesome the rest of the day. I love it when the science works. Now if I could just figure out the falling-asleep-at-a-reasonable-hour stuff, followed by the staying-asleep-all-night stuff and the not-waking-up-too-early-in-the-morning-and-then-not-being-able-to-go-back-to-sleep stuff.

Yeah. Well. Been working on that shit all my life and I still suck at it. I have bad sleep genes.

So I did deal with the hangers last night. The crochet-covered wooden hangers in the bag were all made by this friend of the family, an ancient woman named Craigie. She died when I was pretty young, but I do remember her. Makes it harder to just get rid of the damn things, but I can’t keep all of them. Mom gave me permission to pick the ones I like and thrift shop the rest. I kept some of the plastic skirt hangers, with the squeezy part? You know what I’m talking about? Because you can hang quilts (small ones or blocks) from them. And then I came in my office and realized I have like 10 of them already. Sigh. OK. Don’t need those, do I?

I’m feeling squeezed by time. Again. As always. I know when school starts and I want this quilt to be almost done if not completely done by the time students show up. Looking at the calendar over the next two weeks makes that a little panicky, because I still need to deal with bedroom and garage. Plus put time in there today and tomorrow for relaxation and enjoyment of life, right? It’s all good. I’ll figure it out. But it worries me that the left eye has twitched all summer. I need to slot some exercise into the mess. Boychild has been working for grandpa for days and it’s been too humid and warm for a hike, but trying to fit something else in before he leaves would be good. Plus smog the car, buy him new shoes, read the two books the library just automatically checked out to me (only a thousand pages or so), and geez. I don’t even know what else. Panic. Cull my tshirts. I don’t need that many of them.

Anyway, I managed to iron in the afternoon (GASP!) AND the evening after gaming. A little crazy, that. I toned down the water on this one. The quilt is about climate change and how it affects the earth, and I didn’t think that beautiful turquoise water I love so much would be appropriate, so I went for the grays…

It’s very stylized in places, like with the fishies.

I added the ocean behind, with a couple whales and a shark lurking about.

Then I went to gaming and killed a bunch of goblins and an orc, but also shot splinters into my own people (ah, the chaos star), but they were OK with it (at least they said they were), because I killed the orc. All that’s a foreign language, eh? It’s a story…I like stories. But I stitch during the game, because it helps me focus and not fall asleep. Plus it’s relaxing as hell to do both.

So this is the 9th block I’ve finished in Sue Spargo’s Folk Tails. The embroidery is pretty fun to do. People always freak out that I work on other people’s stuff, but my own stuff isn’t very portable sometimes, and I don’t have to think hard about this. There’s something very relaxing about hand embroidery, especially on wool.

Here’s the 9 finished blocks so far…they aren’t in order. You can see one in the bottom where the left side is done and the right side isn’t. I sewed them together because there’s overlap.

I haven’t quite finished prepping the next month’s worth of blocks…I have one done (that one you see above) and another one almost done. So then I can start the embroidery on those. Probably not today, to be honest. I don’t get a lot of this done normally. But I do enjoy it.

After gaming, it was late, but I had almost finished this leg…so I determined that I could finish both legs below the knee and THEN go to sleep.

Well, see, that’s the crazy shit, because then art brain is awake and wants to keep going until she (or I) collapses. So I got the one leg ironed in place and then started on the next one.

The land goes in front of one leg and behind the other…and there’s other stuff to be ironed higher up on the right leg, so that’s where I quit. After midnight. Again.

I’m hoping to do a couple of hours today, maybe deal with the two drawers in the dresser, the other two drawers in the other thing, the hope chest (oh fuck no, I’m not doing that today…I’m afraid of what’s in there). I’m slowly selling things on Craigslist, I’m slowly shoving shit into the trashcans, I’m slowly moving stuff out of the house (that’s much more slowly…nowhere to put it but the driveway). As I clean out the house, my brain makes these complicated quilts. But I love that part of me. I look back at older work and the new stuff is so full of images and I love the process and the product. I haven’t bought any fabric all summer, but will need binding for this one probably. Maybe not. I’m trying to use everything I have for now. I know that won’t last. I’m too addicted to having as wide a palette as possible. But as I was picking fabrics out, I would search in the very back of the drawers for pieces that hadn’t seen the light of day, give them a chance in a new quilt, let them poke their little fabricky heads out and be seen.

The boychild and I talked briefly about what it would take to redo this room, my studio. I’d have to move everything out (I’ve done parts of it due to water heater issues), rip off all the wallpaper and paint it, then scrape the ceiling crap off, replace the trashed floor. Then maybe do something different with the sliding glass door, which is currently inaccessible. Maybe some built-ins for fabric. But realistically, it’s so low down on the list of rooms that need help. The bathrooms and the kitchen first. Thinking way far out, once college is done and paid for. And maybe there’s extra money. Maybe.

Yeah. Well let’s just get through today, eh? Ironing some stuff, hopefully selling a table, cleaning up a little, then a relaxing boat ride and maybe some art and music later. Food of some sort. Some human time. A balance of sorts.