Weekends are…

Well. Yeah. Weekends…are made…not for Michelob. But for relaxing. I hear. I apparently don’t practice relaxation well. And I wanted to draw, but that didn’t happen. Long story on that one, but just so you know, if you’re out in a bar or restaurant with me, I don’t usually draw unless I know you pretty well…because you’re gonna want to watch, and then I can’t draw because you’re watching. So yeah. I didn’t draw. I wanted to. In fact, last night, I wanted to dump all the hours of work that needed doing and draw then too. But I didn’t. I feel really buried by work at the moment, and the only way to deal with that is to get some of it done in some sort of power rush of grading and organization. And then I can relax a bit again until I have to do it all over again.

So Saturday was full of work, freelance and school. I guess I am now a semi-expert at converting doc to epub…semi-expert because there are always new problems that will pop up. It’s the one thing I learned from working in publishing…no matter what you think you know how to do, the next project will bring you something you don’t know how to do. Anyway, so there was that. And then grading papers and assignments…lots of that. But sometime in the late afternoon, I finally got the binding on the baby quilt…which I’ll post below (baby hasn’t been born as of yesterday afternoon, so I’m still good…although I’m still hand-sewing the binding on).

I didn’t do any art stuff until Sunday though, when I finally pulled this out…

I’m in the endless stage of cutting stuff out. I have a lot done, but everything I pull out is a huge piece of flesh with a million pieces on it, so it feels endless. I did get a lot done last night, but there’s at least two more hours in there. I’m days behind now. Gotta catch up. Fours weeks left. Iron it together this week, stitch it down, sandwich? I do have a 3-day weekend coming up. But a shitload of grading this week and a meeting or event every night but tonight. Crazy week after last week, where I felt all this empty alone stuff weighing me down. And snot weighing me down as well. I didn’t get really sick, but I definitely have snot going on. Gotta watch it, because I ended up with pneumonia this time last year.

Here’s the baby quilt…hidden below the fold so she won’t see it…Facebook just posts the first picture on the blog.

It was a good choice to go get another binding. This one finishes the edge nicely. Ties it all together. The others didn’t. I’m fussy about my bindings.

My opening is tomorrow night…

Looking forward to seeing the whole show…it wasn’t fully installed when I left (my stuff was)…hoping people show up. There’s some new work, some old work, some never-been-shown work (well in person…everything’s on the web…well, most everything).

OK, taking my sick self to work to infect the minions who infected me. Not really. I was probably most contagious on Friday…and that kinda crept up on me during the day, so I obviously didn’t infect them on purpose. Might wanna watch who I sneeze on today though. Could be retribution of sorts…

Sleep Is Not My Superpower

I have a sleep app on my phone that tells me how long I slept (notionally…because I can be pretty still when I’m not sleeping) and how well…more movement meaning I wasn’t sleeping deeply. It also has an alarm on it, which is useful. I started using it years ago to try to figure out why I was so tired in the morning…and here’s where all the people who know me personally start cracking up, because they think I don’t sleep. I DO sleep. For about 6 hours a night…I don’t go to sleep early because I can’t fall asleep early, and there is no damn point in lying in bed, flopping around, praying for sleep. In fact, the insomnia specialists advise against it. Go to bed when you’re tired. So I do. Well, sometimes I go to bed earlier than tired because I know it will get ugly the next day. I think I had a whole year there of 4-hour nights, but that’s depression for you. But now I’m back to 6-hour nights, which works OK for me. And yes, I do exactly what I’m NOT supposed to do on the weekends…I sleep in. I like that lie in. I look forward to it, especially after 13+ years of soccer games early on Saturday or Sunday mornings, or sometimes both days. I like waking up slowly that morning, hearing the world around me but not getting up yet, reading a bit, or rolling around with a kitten cleaning herself by my head. Well, as long as it’s not at 6 AM. Sometimes she starts then, and that is not a good thing.

My sleep app last night, on a night where I went to bed early (for me…before midnight) and had a chance for a lie-in…says I slept at 50% efficiency. Now I’m normally a pretty efficient sleeper. I spend the right amount of time in light and REM sleeps. But last night was a flopping clusterfuck. And I’m glad the app backs me up on that. I am sick. That doesn’t help. But I’m not THAT sick. I wasn’t coughing or moaning or anything. So what the hell? Weirdness. I don’t usually have that bad a night ever. Oh well. Moving on. I’m used to functioning somewhat like the walking dead. No change there.

But really, even when I was a kid, I wasn’t a great sleeper. I read under my blanket with a flashlight until well after midnight when I was in elementary school. My boy is the same way. But we both know as adults that we have to sleep at some point. So we do.

I worked last night. I’m incredibly behind on grading. I finished two assignments. I figured that was enough for one night. Then I cut out little pieces of fabric…

I’ve got about 5 hours in. I’m probably not going to finish today. I have too much else to do. Because there’s probably another 4 hours in there. And I need to do other stuff.

I folded fabric and reunited the binding fabric (now clean, no chemical sizings) with the quilt. That’s on my plate for today…put the binding on.

I also have a pile of work to get through…school and other job. I got an email yesterday from a company I applied with back in early November. They apologized for the amount of time that had passed, but had me upload info on their database. I honestly don’t know if that means they’ll use me or what, but I did it. It’s science education materials…so I’m highly qualified. But I think a million other people probably are too. I don’t need a lot of extra work…there are only so many hours in the days…but I do need some. I’m short a good chunk of money for the kids’ college in the next three months. More than a month’s salary short. It is what it is. I will figure it out. Somehow.

Someone said yesterday that I’d be done with my tasks (ironing or cutting or whatever) if I didn’t write this blog. Except this blog is what keeps me doing everything at the pace I’ve adopted. It’s motivating knowing that every day I’ll be telling myself (and apparently you, but know that I rarely think about you when I write) what I got done and reviewing how that made me feel. I felt pretty good last night. I was bloody efficient and I was able to check a bunch of things off the list. I needed to be able to do that this week. The writing also clears my brain…I can dump all the shit I don’t want to think about here and then walk away from it. Also, you have to understand that I write really fast. And I don’t think very hard about it. It was painful to watch a former boyfriend edit his Facebook status over and over again, torturing himself with whether that one sentence was the best possible combination of words, editing it over and over…I don’t roll that way. There’s no time for that constipated verbal shit. It’s here in my head and I vomit it out on the screen. There. Done. Now I can move on.

I will do some art thing today. I know I’m at a show tonight for quite a long time, and my sketchbook will be my trusty companion. So expect drawings posted in the next few days. I LOVE to draw. I’m looking forward to it. I’m hoping I feel better by then too, but if not, there’s cold meds for that.

Probably Not Today…

Well the boychild finally made it out of here…knock on wood, because his plane hasn’t left yet. I’m gonna miss him and his sister. But they both made Dean’s List…so I’m proud of them. And I will figure my shit out and find a mental balance with them gone. Probably not today though. Today, honestly, I’m just gonna hold it together long enough to get through the school day. Which I am officially NOT doing right now. Holding it together that is. I do have a job that distracts me from emotional crap, so that should help.

Saturday…it was a challenge. But I finished grading the assignment from hell…and have a post-it reminding me never ever to assign that again. It’s not worth my sanity and the kids don’t take it seriously. So I’m kind of in this Fuck ‘Em mode…which may be the most healthy thing I’ve thought about school for the last two months. Grades are due tomorrow. I haven’t even started them. It’s OK. It won’t take long.

When I finished grading, I ran a million errands, and then walked in here…

This is where I wanted to be all day long. Notice it’s dark. Yeah. It was like 6 PM. I was pretty crankballs by then. Yeah. It’s a mess. I might clean it up when I finish this quilt. Depends.

I knew with the figure being most of this quilt, and with 10 arms that sit behind each other, I was going to need a larger range than normal. So I sat on the ground with the pink bins and my phone flashlight (it’s dark down there…need to install fairy lights or something) and picked a run of 13…plus lip colors off to the right and finger- and toenail color above.

I didn’t use all of them in the end. I used 11. And I added two purples. So it took me 2 hours and 40 minutes just to find each flesh piece and decide what fabric it was supposed to be. And I tried to match pairs of arms on each side, but I don’t know if I was successful.

The flesh pieces ranged from the 0-100 box to the 900 box. So I went through all of them. As I did that, I set aside the non-flesh pieces…the heart, veins, lungs, rocket ship, hair, eyebrows, etc. Two uteri even. Lots of eyeballs. So this below is what I still have left to do.

Then I started ironing all those pieces down to the fabric I’d chosen…here’s number 5 in the range.

Yup. That’s a lot of pieces. Some arms, some fingers and toes, and ribcage parts. That funny bone that sticks out on your foot that probably has a name. I went and looked it up. It’s complicated. You can Google it yourself.

Ironing it all took my Saturday art time to 4 hours plus. Ahhhh. You could hear my brain sigh from there, couldn’t you? Because I was in a dark and angry place over school. And art saved the day. Put my brain back in a decent place.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far.

And I tried to get them to fit in the box once I’d ironed them, but the flesh pieces were too big to fold into there.

I have no idea how many pieces are left. I think I’ve got 6 1/2 hours in, so maybe another 3 or 4? Just a guess really.

I was at a meeting yesterday and started cutting stuff out. It’s only an hour so far.

But it’s a start. And it’s something to do this week…less than 5 weeks to finish this quilt. Finish ironing pieces by tomorrow night? I have a baby quilt to finish tonight if I can pull it off, plus grades. I tried to finish the baby quilt last night and got everything quilted except the border. I started that and the thread kept getting caught on the spool and doing stupid things, so I quit. I’ll try again tonight. Maybe it will behave better. And if I can be a good girl and get a bunch of the grades done at school today, then I’ll be ironing later? Maybe. Maybe not. Then trim them all by the weekend? It would be nice if I could start ironing it together Saturday, because I actually have time.

Shit. I might actually finish it in time. Don’t hold your breath though.

Post-It Note

Well hello there Saturday. You’re finally here. Yesterday I determined there was a full moon coming, which might have explained my students’ behavior. Or not. It was a rough week at school. Too much administrative crap. And grades are due Tuesday. And I’m not done. Or ready. Today I am working all day on school and fabric. Seriously, I have about 2 errands to run and I have to cook/prep some stuff for tomorrow, but otherwise, I’m just working until my brain shuts down. It’ll be OK. I’ll feel better afterwards because I can cross some shit off the lists that are taking over my brain. Just in the last 24 hours, I’ve crossed off a million things, like rescheduling the boychild’s flight to school because of Snowzilla or whatever they’re calling the blizzard back East. Now he’s flying Monday. Better than Thursday, which was the other offer (school starts Wednesday). I managed about 17 online issues last night and this morning, but the post-it note for this weekend still has 7 things on it. I’m really liking this method of writing it so I can see it (don’t think about the fact that last weekend’s post-it still has stuff on it that you haven’t crossed off). OK. I put two things from last week’s post-it onto today’s. Even though they won’t happen. Not sure that’s logical, but I did it anyway. I am nothing if not logical. By that I mean I’m not logical at all.

I did not do art last night. I barely did it the night before. Last night turned into a giant mess because of the flights and the girlchild’s phone and a bunch of other stuff, so after dinner, I tried to get caught up on grading and I ended up not getting it all done and just getting frustrated and then I was too tired to do anything else, so I went to bed. Sometimes that’s all you can do. I expect more today though.

I did recently put some new stuff on Etsy, if by NEW I mean stuff that hasn’t been there before, because it’s journal quilts from 2005 I think. I was part of the Journal Quilt Project that traveled to International Quilt Festival that year, and I still have the little quilts. Although there’s one I can’t find, so I haven’t put it up yet. Wait. I just found it. Dammit. Have to write something else on the post-it note.

Because honestly, I don’t remember to do stuff except go to work and make art unless my phone calendar tells me or it’s written on a post-it note. Sad but true.

So these are about 8 1/2″ w x 11″ h and I did one every other month for the year 2005. This one normally hangs on my wall…

This one is a little strange. Couldn’t tell you what I was dealing with…postdivorce?

Another one. The relationship I was in was all phone-based due to distance and it was difficult.

Another bird from last year that never sold…one of the few.

And this one! Ha. I’m not putting this on Etsy. And it has a big sister that’s never been quilted…for those who flipped out over the vulva in One Paycheck, this would give them paroxysms.

Eh. Whatever. There’s another one of the journal quilts, but it’s not up yet. My Etsy site is easy…it’s just my name. Or the link is over there to the right on the sidebar. I don’t know if my stuff belongs on Etsy or not, but I figured it was a good place to stash the less artsy quilts, the smaller ones, in case someone wanted a bird or a cat. I will probably put the birds up there as custom orders at some point. It does take time to post stuff, and I don’t have any of that at the moment. In fact, I’m done here as well. Gonna go grade (torture myself) for a while and then do fabric I think. I might have to grocery shop first. But there’s a plan to make art today, and that’s all I care about. It will motivate me to speed through the rest of it. Damn post-it note.

Less Molasses and More Lightning…

Oh My Lord the molassesness of it all. I have this to-do list that is miles long and I’m trying to get through all the things on it, one at a time, and then other crap inserts itself into that, like writing teacher recommendations with 6 essay questions that I can’t answer without interviewing the child sometimes and that means I have to find time during teaching to do that and THEN write the rec as well and administrative crap is burying me and everything takes so LOOONNNGGG. Girlchild’s phone has worked fine for months and now that she’s back in Boston, NOW it’s acting up again. Not even sure if I can handle that thing, because she might have to take the phone in (it’s an AT&T insurance thing now). Plus grades and college money and writing a new genetics test because the other one won’t work and managing science stuff in general and don’t even throw my family into that mix or the boychild who will probably have his flight cancelled tomorrow morning. Hopefully before we have to get up at an ungodly hour. And taxes and FAFSA and financial aid are all hanging over me as well, because it’s almost the end of the month.

I will get through. I went to the gym yesterday and worked out and it was glorious. Plus I got to read my book. Which was also glorious. More of that please.

Girlchild owes me $20 for making me sign her back up for the gym for a month and then never going. But the guy there saved me an additional $5 a month by changing my membership from family to single until she gets back. How am I going to spent that $5 a month? Oh joy, I do not know. Who can I hire to help me at $5/month?

I graded last night. I also spent time on the phone dealing with family stuff. So I didn’t get as much ironing done as I wanted, but honestly, I would have had to stop there anyway…I did all the stuff on the rug…a mug, a cat, and a book…

I had done the rug the night before. So at this point, I think I was up into the 50s. Pitiful amount of time for that many pieces really. I’m moving like molasses. Too tired? I don’t know. Too stressed maybe.

There’s the not-very impressive pile.

The reason I had to stop there is because the next batch of pieces is the human figure itself, which honestly is most of the quilt. I need to pick all the flesh colors at the same time so I don’t forget what I’m doing…which basically means picking about a run of 10 fabrics on this quilt from light to dark and then going through each bin and pulling all the flesh pieces, because they’re spread out from piece 60-something to 900-something. Yeah. That’s gonna be a bitch. I’m going to start tonight and finish who-the-fuck-knows-when. If I knew I didn’t have to deal with grades or flights or baby quilts or other shit in the next few days, that would be awesome, but I know none of that. Or I could come home tonight and grade for hours and be done with it (I’m never actually done with it) and then pick fabrics tomorrow. I may decide to do that. Sunday is already a goner, so I’m wiping it off the list of available days. I don’t think I can get all the fabric ironed this week. Realistically it’s not gonna happen. Not even this weekend.

Sigh. I’m aiming for Monday night done now. If I can get all the fleshy bits picked and ironed by the end of Saturday, then maybe I can pull it off. There’s a lot of non-flesh bits in there (hearts, hair, rockets and the like), but I don’t think they’ll take me long if the flesh is done. I just need to be moving faster than I am. Less molasses and more lightning.

So I was looking at this mug that’s on the quilt and thinking to myself, I drew a pizza slice on the mug. I often draw things on the mugs, although usually rainbows…very 80s. I don’t actually own a rainbow mug. I mostly use mugs I painted myself, although I’m down to one. Which sucks. I have others people have given me that fill in, although I usually drink milk out of them instead of tea (don’t ask…it’s just what I prefer). But there’s a pizza slice on that mug.

Pepperoni. I drew this on New Year’s Eve while watching sci fi. I was thinking (yet again) about being a woman, a mom, a teacher, trying to do everything and be everything to everyone because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and then I remembered last Friday, after my first week back to school, and I tell the boychild I’m ordering pizza because I can’t handle dinner and he says “I figured.” Because I’ve been his mom forever and a teacher for as long as he can remember (he was maybe 7 when I started teaching…or 6? Can’t remember.) and the first Friday back to school after a break is almost always pizza delivery. So it makes total sense that the pizza slice is on the mug. Sign of a busy mom.

It’s all gonna work out. Some things won’t get done or will get done late. And that’s how it always is. I should probably find time for meditation though. Because not doing that is kicking my butt. Gonna calendar it now.

Moving to the Next Step…

The next project is already moving…good thing, because I only have a short period of time if I’m going to get it done. Five and a half weeks, to be specific. It might not be possible. But so far, I’m doing OK. I finished cutting out Wonder Under last night, with just over 5 hours into that. Trash on the left, pieces on the right.

It was still early when I finished, so I sorted them…missing the two boxes on the right in this picture.

Apparently I have the brain power to sort pieces late at night but not the brain power to take a decent photo of them. They’re in boxes by 100s, so there are 10 boxes total. Well, that’s not true. Here’s box 11.

The Wonder Under is separating again. Sigh. It’s OK. As I iron, I go through this box and find the piece of fusible web that’s the same size as the paper piece. Or retrace. Whichever is easier. And that one piece is missing a number. I don’t usually do that…forget to write the number down. But it does happen.

I’ve been using WU for so many years and been through so many chemical compositions for this material…this last one has been the best. It releases well, but usually only when it’s supposed to. I do keep it “sealed” (not really sealed) in a bag when I’m not using it, which is supposed to help. Oh well. It makes my life a little more complicated, but it’s not a lot of pieces that released.

The next step is to pick fabrics…AND to quilt the baby quilt. I have a mostly free day on Saturday I think, but grades are due as well, so I need to deal with that. Too many things. I did not do any schoolwork last night (well, not true…I emailed myself some stuff and answered some email), because I spent all day helping kids call home about missing work. And that’s frustrating. Tiring. Even annoying. Plus watching kids do the interactive stuff on the website and then yell out, “I’m done!” Done with what? Playing around? Awesome. Go back and answer the questions and write the paragraph. What paragraph? The one I told you about in the beginning of class. But I already did the whole thing? No you didn’t. You did the playing. Now do the work.

SIGH. We have two parent meetings set up already, working on the third. A fourth is coming in with a possible meeting time today. I hate parent meetings…hate scheduling them…hate having them because 80% of the time, maybe more, nothing changes after the meeting. The kid continues whatever they were doing before and if I call the parent NOW, they get all irritated because Insert Reason Here. They’ve already come to the meeting. Why am I still bugging them?

I really need to walk away from the school stress…hence the art when I get home. The most I can…because I do have to grade things…but try to come home and be a real human instead of a teacher.

Kitten agrees. Apparently I finished that other traditional quilt so she and Midnight could fight over who lies on it every night…

The other thing I’m doing tonight is tossing some other small quilts I found up on Etsy.

Not that anything’s happening there, but it’s a place to stash the smaller things. They might sell eventually.

Ah yes, and then there’s the unnamed quilt…

It’s actually Bathtub 5, but it will need a real name…and it’s number 5 because I numbered the drawings, not the quilts. The first one is Bathtub 2. Confusing? Only to you. I know exactly what I’m doing…

She dyes her hair by the way, like the majority of women my age. The next one will have white hair. Here’s where the second owl came from…

I’m also really happy with the wine glass, although it was a heinous pain in the ass.

And those toes. Love them.

Oh look, there’s the glass. I love my photographer. It’s like he’s psychic.

And the sewing stuff. Because I sew in the bath. Don’t you? I would sew in the bath.

Maybe. Anyway. It needs a title in the next week. No, I’m not asking for help with that. It’s in my head and percolating. First quilt of 2016 though. Should redo all the pages so Recent Work is recent. Later. Not now. Now I have to go teach Punnett Squares. Then I get to move to the next step…art…not science.

Not a Diptych…

Long weekends should be relaxing. But they so rarely are. And now I’m sick. Oh well. Get through it. I spent a lot of time ironing yesterday and trying to organize for the show installation today. I’m a little wigged out at the moment, but it will all be better by the end of the day. Well, it will be installed anyway.

I even worked on the other quilt…basically blowing off grading completely yesterday. I did send out the team email, so I didn’t blow everything off.

My couchmate waiting for me…I will have to move the boxes of Wonder Under to sit next to her.

Then she snuggles with her head on my leg. Sweet. Slightly annoying. But she doesn’t usually complain if I move around. She’s not a good replacement for a human though. The next kid leaves Saturday…Calli has big shoes to fill.

I actually got more than half of it cut out in a really short period of time. I think that’s because so many of the pieces are the same color, so I lumped them together, and they only get cut out once at this stage. Once they’re ironed to fabric, it will take longer because I’ll have to cut them each separately.

So I might even (hopefully) finish cutting them out tonight. Although if we get done with the installation early enough and I don’t feel like shit (had to take a nap yesterday because I felt like shit), then I’m putting that damn baby quilt together. THEN cutting out Wonder Under. Then maybe torturing myself with grades.

Hopefully I can get to ironing Wonder Under to fabric tonight or tomorrow (shit, I don’t think I have a background…of course I have a background. I must have a background. Huh.). With 980 pieces, picking fabrics is at least 10 hours. So plan to be done Saturday, with trimming starting Sunday? I have a meeting Sunday. I can trim there. Grades are also due, but they’re only progress reports, so I don’t have to kill myself to get everything in. There’s one thing I want to finish and another I should do, but might not get to, so there we are.

I might get this quilt done in time. Just might.

So this morning, I rolled up all the quilts by semi-size (not really, but didn’t want them all in one roll). These are the medium-sized ones.

Up on the bookshelf are the small ones…with the large ones on the coffee table.

Finally installing. For this, by the way…

Yup. There it is. My first show that isn’t just one or two pieces with a bunch of other people. I’m sure there’s a better name than “two-person show”…like a diptych but not…a dipexhibit maybe. Except apparently the “p” belongs with the “tych”, so that’s diexhibit, which has the word “die” in it. Whatever. Taking my sore throat and my spacey head and my cranky boychild (I meant to remind him of the time last night, but I was a mopey mess) and my cold feet and going to hang a shitload of quilts. Wish me luck.

Just Keep Doing

The routine. Ugh. What did you do today? I got up, ate, went to school and taught all day, dealt with crazy stuff after school, came home, vegged out for a bit, cooked, then ironed and dehaired a bunch of quilts, and then traced some Wonder Under. Attempted interrupted sleep. Did it all over again. But then again…it’s probably that routine that makes all those quilts. Because it’s already in my head…what I’m supposed to do. Get up. Make dinner. Wash dishes so you have time and energy to make art. Do it earlier. Don’t start at 11 (although at some point, I have no problems doing that…not on the week school starts back up). Start early. Make it work. Blow off all that grading. You did enough work at school today. What is your life about? Being a teacher (a little) or being an artist (a lot). Yeah.

A frustrating hour with a parent issue and a bunch of kids who were dragged to detention by admin didn’t help. I’m about to give up on that. I’m about to give up on a lot of it. Usually we wait until April…but Spring Break comes early this year…and the lack of follow-through on the kids and the parents is just wearing me thin. Especially the little stupid things. There’s an answer key on a disk I have at home. I want to put the answer key on my school Google Drive, so I emailed it to myself. The school email rejected it because of the “type of file it is.” You mean a PDF from a school publisher? Because that’s what it is. And I emailed it to myself. Fuck me. So the parent that wanted me to make 14 phone calls yesterday in the very short time I have during the day that isn’t eaten up by everything else…yeah. Same deal.

This is why the art. So much of it.

I had one pile on the left of stuff that was ironed and had slats or dowels, but then it was getting too heavy. It’s supported by a large flattened cardboard box on two chairs and a computer desk. On the right is now the larger quilts, with a couch and a coffee table and a cardboard box full of books. Trying to keep cats off…

And dogs for that matter…

Is not easy. But it’s worked so far. I have about 18 done…and I’m not really sure how many I need, and I’m still culling. I pulled one yesterday, and there’s one in this pile that isn’t going as well. In the first pull, I just grabbed anything that might work.

These are the ones that are still in need of ironing and slats/dowels. I don’t know how many are in there, actually. I just aim to iron about 5 a night. Some have more cat hair on them than others…if there were safely rolled up most of the time (which probably meant they weren’t going to shows due to age or just whatever), then they were pretty clean. It’s the ones that didn’t get put away after they came home that are the biggest hairy mess.

But there’s progress. And that’s good. And I’ll feel a sense of relief when it’s done, that’s for sure.

I did trace for over an hour and a half, and was way more efficient than I have been lately.

Believe it or not, less tired last night. Not sure why. But I’m in the low 600s now with about 5 1/2 hours in. Only about 400 to go, so if I can do 200 each night, I’m on track. I haven’t scheduled out beyond that. That might be an issue. Cutting out Wonder Under doesn’t take much time…ironing will be another 10+ hours. Cutting out those takes a little longer than Wonder Under. Then ironing. Yeah. I can’t see that far out. I have a bunch of stuff going on this weekend, a baby quilt to finish, grades due…all in the next 10 days. Then I can think more clearly. Just keep doing is what I say. I can handle that part. Last night I did well.

Back to the Grind…

You know, the one I never left, because I graded almost every day over break?

I’m up. I’m semi-ready (not mentally, but at least in all the other ways) for school. It was not an easy wake-up call…the dog apparently needed to pee in the dark. I got up and let her out and stood there, eyes closed, leaning up against the back door, relishing the moment when I could climb back into a warm bed and continue that sleeping thing. By the time I got back to the room, the alarm was going off. Not quite dark then. Wake up time. Ugh. It’s not like I did a good job sleeping in over break anyway, but it’s nice to not HAVE to wake up before your time. I meant to go to bed before midnight, but I was tracing stuff and finally made myself stop and then was looking at something online and saw the news about David Bowie…and since you can’t trust the internet, I had to go searching for reliable sources. Sad but true. An amazing musician dead too early.

So yeah, I started tracing Wonder Under for the new quilt yesterday. I did do some prep for school, even went into the classroom, if only to realize all the stuff my custodial staff disappeared from my room, even though I drew a map of the room and counted chairs for them and all that crap. Sigh. Oh well. Who needs a teacher’s chair? Or a trashcan? It will be fine. I made a promise to myself that after the packet that’s due Friday, and my threat to call any parent whose child does not return it or who fails it (no, you may not write IDK for every answer) in order to set up a parent meeting, after that, I’m done. Any kid that comes to me for help or whose parent contacts me with a reasonable request to help (there have been some unreasonable ones), I am there for them. But I’m not chasing down all these failing kids any more. I can’t do this for another 6 months without going nuts. This group of kids is just not getting it. I’m frustrated as hell. And I can’t be. I’m putting it back on them and their parental units. Someone needs to help me do this job.

So balance it is. Art it is. I did three hours of tracing yesterday.

I didn’t get a ton done…only in the mid 200s…but it’s a start. I also need to start on the quilts…I think if I do 5 or 6 a night…iron them, dehair them, make sure they have slats or dowels with eyebolts, then roll them up…I think I’ll be done by Monday. So that’s my goal tonight is to start that as well. I’m not grading at home this week. Not gonna do it. Nope. You can’t make me. I finished all but three assignments, and one of those is half done. I did OK. Not great. Just OK. And there are more Fs now than there were before break. Also sad but true. Makes it all feel kind of pointless…because these assignments were due AFTER I counseled all those failing kids.

Girlchild leaves tomorrow. This sucks. She has both cats here, although I think right after this, she was moving her toes around and Kitten attacked. Screaming ensued and now Kitten won’t come back out on the couch.

Later she replaced the cat with a dog. A very tired dog. We’re not sure WHY she was so tired, but now she’s on the floor in my office, so apparently she still hasn’t had enough sleep.

I did drop my other quilt with the photographer, and he asked about why owls? Owls have shown up on the last few quilts I guess. Or have they? Not sure. Owls are wisdom. But they’re also protective. I’ve always put birds in. The wings, the ability to fly…all fascinating things. I’m not sure the new one has a bird…I know I thought about it…and a dog…and another cat, because there is one on the rug lying in front of the figure.

I’m supposed to provide 1-2 paragraphs about my work for the upcoming show. Thing is, I had to pull work from way back, which is cool, because some pieces have never been in a show…and they’re good enough. I just never found a show willing to take them. They never fit with the others. Hey there’s something I understand. But trying to encapsulate 10 years of art quilts in two paragraphs of explanation is difficult.

OK. Must go to work. Back to the grind. First day…no, the first WEEK is always survival. National Pie Day is coming…there’s something to look forward to. Seriously. January 23…who’s with me? Pie. Yes, my brain’s all over the map. Stay with me here. Some sanity might return.

Lots of Pieces…

Rain does one good thing for us, besides soak the ground and fill the reservoirs (I guess those are pretty good things)…it makes us stay indoors. Now honestly, on breaks, I’m kind of a hermit anyway. At some point, I don’t want to leave the house at all, because there is art to be made. And lots of it! So I do that. And I like it. Even if the weather is lovely out…which it’s not.

I have a leak in the roof…it’s been dripping very slowly through a light fixture (ever so safe, water and electricity). I suspect half of Southern California has a leak in their roof at the moment, honestly. Luckily it’s over a tile floor in a relatively unoccupied section of the house, so I’m politely ignoring it and hoping I can deal with it later…because accessing that section of the attic means pulling my studio apart. Not thinking about that. Might think about it tomorrow.

Otherwise, we’ve had 2.6″ of rain where I live…I’m such a weather geek that I have a website linked to a local weather-info-gathering station about a mile away.

And yes, in Seattle (which was sunny yesterday), this is nothing. But our annual rainfall has been as low as 3.3 inches before…our annual is somewhere around 9″/year. So getting almost that in 2 days? Roads underwater, rivers running through sidewalks, standing water everywhere. Plus no one knows how to drive in it, so when girlchild’s friend asked her to come over yesterday in the worst of it? I said nope. No. Not driving anywhere right now. Sure enough, people had to be pulled out of cars etc.

A damn good excuse to stay home and sew, if you ask me…although I did do a lot of grading too. But that’s just a survival thing. I’ll do it again today. I finished grading another assignment…and one class worth of the big unit that they turned in…just two more classes of those. I’ll do one today and one tomorrow. When I finish that one, I only have 3 assignments left to grade, and one is posters that three kids worked on, so do the math…I only have about 50 of those to grade instead of 155. Not that everyone turns in their assignments anyway. I should probably knuckle down and finish the torturous one that I did one class’ worth and then quit. Sigh.

Anyway, besides grading, I finished the drawing for the next quilt. Now this is for a deadline that I may very well not make. But I’m going to try. So it has to be within a certain size…easy enough for me to do. It needs to be a smaller quilt so I can get it done in time, right? I start the drawing…y’all have seen the headless woman with way too many arms…and then I added more.

She has 10 arms total and 3 heads (way more than anyone really needs). Each hand has an object associated with it as well.

DSCN2833 small

The drawing is about 30″ wide by 42″ high, so a finished size of maybe 40×50″? Same as the last one basically.

And I know I have about 7 weeks to finish it. With a major installation and school starting back up and grades due. But there are three 3-day weekends in there! It might not matter. I did finish one quilt in just under 6 weeks during school (well, with Thanksgiving and Winter breaks, so not really just school)…but I think it had a lot fewer pieces. Because I numbered it last night. And I was a very bad girl. I drew a LOT of pieces. As I was doing it, I was thinking to myself…that’s a LOT of pieces, Kathryn. But I did it anyway. Because it asked for them.

OK, the one I did in 6 weeks was 768 pieces…this one is 980. Big-eyed stare. OK. I own that. And I will figure it out. Either it will get done on time or it won’t.

I am one step closer to that happening though. Tracing Wonder Under tonight? Maybe.

Most of the afternoon, I spent piecing blocks for a baby quilt…

I was given the colors…cheated a bit with the one on top. Oh well!

I don’t make baby quilts often, and I always use the same pattern.

It took about 2 1/2 hours to make 20 blocks, and that’s because I was being careful, not fast.

I don’t piece particularly accurately unless I pay really close attention. Now I can lay them out…although I might wait until my parents’ dog is gone again. It’s hard enough to keep the cats off it. It usually takes about 5-6 hours for me to do one of these. Not hard. And it’s for a good person. Hopefully the baby won’t be too early, because I think she’s due in less than three weeks. It’s OK! I got this.

The post-it with tasks on it did not get much crossed off yesterday, mostly because what’s on there is huge things like “fix bookshelf” and “prep Grossmont show.” Which I really should start to do today. Like now. Except I need to grade too. AARGH. Too much. I got a lot done yesterday…and it still feels overwhelming today. Gotta work on that…the FEELING. Because the lots-of-stuff-to-do? That never goes away.