I had to leave for school yesterday with only 9% of my book to be read. I think it said 18 minutes. Good book; wanted to know how it ended. Day job. It’s fine, I read during my prep period and then continued cleaning things and putting them away. I have a giant paper cut from all that, which I don’t appreciate. And a few bruises of unknown origin. Always fun. But yesterday was that great day when you get to the end, walk next door to your coteacher, and say, wait…what do we do with ourselves? Grades are done. Everything is set up for the next three days (well, besides whatever clusterfuck we don’t know about yet). I’m supposed to be at an awards breakfast in 25 minutes (ugh…that’s just for setup). But school is mostly done, besides the surviving part. And cleaning. It’s amazing. I’ve almost survived it. I don’t have to go home and prep, plan, or grade. A joy. Almost a joy. Still teaching today.
I still haven’t started a new art piece. I need to start drawing, and to do that, I need to not be exhausted at the end of the day. Haven’t gotten there yet. Wednesday night, I finished the Tinsel quilt for my mom…
It needs hanging stuff and I need to handsew the label.
Only 2 1/2 years. I thought it was less. Oh well.
Last night was my monthly stitching meeting with friends, so I worked on the June Rooted block.
Progress. This one has a lot of fussy little things in it. I’ll be here a while. This stuff is very relaxing though. I came home and kept stitching on the bits and pieces of the Homegrown borders, which have been sitting around and waiting for a good long while.
These are all Sue Spargo blocks of the month. I find them relaxing and fun to work on in between other stuff. I’ve got two of them to quilt as well, so I might do some of that in between other things this summer. We’ll see. At the moment, I can’t see past today, so there’s that.
Too true.
Dragging the Man out to a protest march tomorrow. I’m boggled by the crazy out there…not the protesters…the government. The lack of forethought for their behaviors. Yes, if you arrest all the farm workers, there will be no food, you idiots. One of my coworkers said they were only arresting criminals. You know who doesn’t go to immigration interviews? Criminals. People who are following the rules do. There’s no due process here, no checking to see if people have legal status. Hell, they keep throwing congresspeople to the floor. No questions! It’s terrifying. Mindboggling. Anyway. So I get to go to school today, sit through one promotion lineup, dump my kids off to turn in their Chromebooks, teach the rest of the day about goal setting (something no one is doing right now), handing back time capsules, then hopefully going to ceramics. Protest tomorrow. Two more days of school next week, mostly outside in the sun. Which reminds me, I need sunscreen for today. That’s important.
I love that I said I’d be cleaning my classroom this week, because that hasn’t happened. At all. And it’s not likely to any time soon. I’m teaching, talking all the time, for the next three days, then we have a day of practice and crazy antics, then actual promotion. By the end of the day, hell, by prep period, I’m out of it. Today. Today I will use prep period wisely. I will. I swear. My coteacher and I will go get all the stupid signatures we need to check out. That’s my plan. The last of the to-be-graded assignments are due at 3:30 today. I have a union meeting after school, and then I’m grading. I came home yesterday and graded while on Zoom with my stupid school board meeting. Fun times. I had pilates (finally, I got in…I need the exercise and the time to concentrate on something besides school, something that’s good for me), so I didn’t go to the board meeting, but my stalwart coworkers stayed past 8 PM. It’s never an hour with this board…it’s always three or more. No efficiency there. We went to Belmont Park with the whole promoting class yesterday…my coteacher and I rode the roller coaster early (it gets chaotic after that).
Look! Real smiles! Seriously love me a good roller coaster. I didn’t go last year for some stupid reason. It does make for a long, exhausting day though. We combined our classes for the last two periods and watched Into the Spiderverse. We didn’t even start it over for the last period; just kept watching. For the last 30 minutes, there was a big ice cream celebration for most of our kids. We kept 7 and sat in the dark air conditioning. I don’t really know how I managed to stay functional during grading for an hour or so and then pilates, but I did.
The pro is that I’ve had some time to stitch in the evenings. I’ve been trying to get the flowers on the Sue Spargo Homegrown borders finally. It’s a lot of little pieces on a giant thing. During book club on Monday, I worked on her Rooted quilt…
Here’s the June block on top of her Tinsel quilt, which I’m finishing for my mom. It’s taking forever…
Teeny tiny binding requires tinier stitches. I’m finally on the sleeves, so hopefully, I’ll finish tonight. I have two more Spargo quilts to finish up. I did have a drawing pop into my head during pilates last night (don’t ask…it’s how Art Brain works…I’m trying not to fall over and it’s creating shit). I’m not saying I won’t start some art thing before finishing the two Spargo quilts…I haven’t made any decisions, because I literally don’t have the brain power for that.
Monday was ceramics…I painted the torso for the fourth time…this time, I actually covered everything, but I had to reattach that damn hand again.
I saved some of the mix of underglaze to patch the hand…smarter than usual. Friday, I’m hoping to start glazing more of the other bits, which will take forever. At least.
The base has been bisqued, but the colors were a bit much, so I finally decided to underglaze over them. I also want to do a wash over it all, but I can’t wipe that away without wiping the glaze away, so I’m going to have to fire it again. Expensive. That said, this piece has so many freaking hours in it, I’ll never be able to sell it. At this point, I just want to be able to finish it.
The crazy stuff I do for fun.
Here’s a sampling of kid stuff about sex ed…
Made me laugh.
A lot.
Sigh. That one. Literally they had a chart to help them fill this out. I mean, he’s not entirely wrong.
Anyway. I’m putzing along with all the things. I have a lot of things unfortunately. I did book my flight up to San Francisco to see the girlchild and all the art that’s up there, including my piece at Sebastopol. So my two summer things are planned. The rest of the summer is managing all the shit at home and getting things cleaned up and gotten rid of and painted and fixed and trimmed and planted. And sleeping and reading and making art. Maybe not in that order. Maybe sleeping first. For a week or two. Not that the living things (or my body) let me sleep for long. I would rather be reading my book today than teaching about sexually transmitted infections, but that’s not an option. Union meeting after school. Then grades. Then stitching of some sort. Wait. When AM I reading today (most important question ever)? Good question. Always.
I wake up to gloomy Juney skies in Southern California, with 7 days of school left, at least 3 of them are chaotic evil, OK, maybe neutral, but probably not good. Today includes two staff meetings, maybe three, with one optional but is it really? I mean, they sent an email at 9:30 PM about it. Last night. Fun times. Free donuts though. How do you get teachers to show up early on a Monday morning? Yeah. Free food. We’re sad. We had this discussion that our appreciation week this year was pretty sad…the wonder of no PTA and IDK what else. It is not ideal.
Meanwhile, the government is trying to make a case for sending the National Guard into Los Angeles, after not deploying them during the January 6 insurrection. I mean, if there were ever a time to use them (since 1960), that would be it. And to ignore the governing bodies already saying, “We got this”…nah, let’s escalate it. After arresting tourists and US Marshalls and kids in or on their way to school and people who have been going through the legal process, paying taxes, contributing to the community, sometimes for YEARS, let’s deport them. Immigrants pay $96.7 billion in taxes each year. They’re not freeloaders, unlike some billionaires.
This picture was all over the internet yesterday…some of my extremely right-leaning friends posted it.
Claiming it was part of the ‘riots’ in Los Angeles. Problem is, that’s not a current picture. It’s from 2020. It doesn’t help when the elected politicians are part of that fraud.
Liars. That’s how they start riots. Lying.
Exacerbate the issue. Make California the problem. Bring in the military. Many of whom are people of color, immigrants. In fact, y’all, most of us are immigrants here. My lily white people weren’t born here. We came from somewhere else. Most of you did.
I’m so irritated by the government’s flailing at the moment, so scared for my students’ families, so worried that those who are apparently in charge will be making things so much worse. Power. Greed. Money. Not empathy, not taking care of people, not making sure things are safe. No Kings protest on Saturday. No dictators. No rich people in charge please, unless they get it. Unless they donate books to schools or homes to the homeless. Donate a significant part of their income. Pay their damn taxes. Pay their bills. Then they can be in charge. Not these bloated idiots.
Sigh. It’s not surprising I can’t make new art right now. Between school ending and all this shit, how could I? I did finish the in-between Boom quilt…
Friday night. Nova not helping. At all.
My mom had given the Tinsel quilt back to me after she finished the snowflake embroidery…
I think she gave it back to me in November, and then it’s been sitting around. I finally quilted it…just luckily had the right colors of thread. Good thing, because I don’t know where to locally get thread any more.
I mean, it’s not like Joann had regularly stocked thread in the last couple of years anyway.
I appliqued stuff, mom embroidered, I pieced it together and added some pieces over the edges, appliqued the snowflake bits on. We changed the borders. I didn’t like the way it was in the pattern, and someone else had done a nicer version, so we did that instead.
Last night, I put the binding on and made sleeves.
I’m not done with the handstitching, but I probably will be tonight.
Trying to do all that while the dumb government attempts to take over the state. I’m willing to stop paying federal taxes…they don’t pay for anything I want at the moment. No education, no USAID, no saving people’s lives with cancer research, no NOAA, so what am I paying for? Teslas? Starlink? Gold toilets? Nothing I want. Nothing I need.
I’m still teaching sex ed. This is a legit concern.
Four more days of that. Today is pretty chill. Gonna test them. Then grades are due Thursday, so I did a bunch of that this weekend, but I won’t be done until Thursday.
This is also legit. Above and below.
She’s an immigrant.
Sigh. I’ve got to get through this week. So many meetings. So much stressful crap. Hoping LA holds it together, but stands their ground. Hoping the pressure of 22 governors against the feds will back all this shit off. Mass deportations. The people who voted for that don’t understand what it really means. Also, tourism is down. Shockingly. You can’t give aid to the fire victims, but you’ll pay for this. You won’t help people hit by tornados or hurricanes, but you’ll pay for this. You won’t send the Guard out to protect people in the Capitol, but you’ll do this.
OK. School. Meetings. Free donuts. Grading. Cleaning the classroom. Trying NOT to build a pillow fort and hide in it for a year or so.
I did not fall off the face of the Earth…I just had a ton of stuff to do. And if you’re my school district, trying to figure out where I went this weekend, the answer is NOWHERE. I didn’t travel anywhere. I really didn’t. I did take a necessary day off though, and they don’t like that, especially before a 3-day weekend. I had a sub though, which is a plus.
There was a lot of art this weekend, which was good and necessary to the processing of my brain. There was also a lot of schoolwork this weekend, which was unfortunately also necessary to my surviving the next month or so. This week, definitely, because I am entering the hell of 2-hour meetings for the next three days, all school-related. Sigh. Not looking forward to that bit. And some medical stuff, which is what it is, and can’t all happen after school hours, much as they’d like it to.
So the quilt in progress went from all ironed to fabric Wednesday night? I think…
98 fabrics…in just under 9 hours of ironing.
Then Thursday night, I started cutting them out…
Finished Friday night? Again, maybe that was Saturday night…yeah, I think I’m off by a night on all of this…
That took a little under 7 hours…I was on a roll. And then Sunday afternoon, I sorted them…
Sunday night, started ironing together…
And this is last night’s progress…
With all those 2-hour meetings, it’s gonna be a fight to get an hour in each night, but that’s my goal. More than an hour, actually. I have about 200 pieces left, so I’m figuring I’ll be done Wednesday, iron to the background Thursday, start stitchdown by Friday. Tight deadline, but I’m going for it. Have I mentioned grades are due next week on top of all those meetings? Yeah. And Saturday is shot to hell by a mammogram and an art meeting. There is no down time.
Ooh wait, here’s the cutting-out I did on Thursday night. Hmmm. Maybe I finished ironing fast and then cut stuff out?
I’ll ask Nova. She might know.
Setup for a class I took this weekend…
Loads of fun. Totally recommend taking classes that aren’t related to what you’re doing at the moment.
I also went to an opening and an artist talk, and I have photos from that, but no time to process right now. Because I need to get to work, need to beat the tree trimmers out of here.
Friday night’s dinner drawing…
Cute sister cats…
This current quilt is small enough to ALMOST fit under one teflon ironing sheet.
IDK when I’ll have the brain power to do something bigger this year. I’m supposed to be doing a drawing this week as well. Deep breaths. Might have to wait until Friday to have the mental space for it.
My succulents are making cute little flowers…
I hadn’t been paying attention to the plants with all the other crap going on.
I hate that.
Also finished mom’s snowflakes, so this went back to her for embellishment…
Then it’ll come back to me for sandwiching and stuff. Not sure what stuff entails at the moment. Haven’t touched the other quilt I’m doing for a friend…it’s been a rough week. It’s still a rough week.
OK, work today, something to do with light and UV damage (I feel like I should know what the something is), then a 2-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting, then I get to cook tonight (woo!), then more ironing. Full-on survival mode this week. Bring it.
Woke up to Careless Whisper by Wham!. Not sure what to think about that, on the first day back to work in 2024. Can’t get it out of my damn head though. So there’s that. Hey you know there’s 74 days until Spring Break! You know the worst part about coming back is when you don’t feel rested and refreshed, and everybody is all asking you if you feel rested and refreshed and please share one relaxing thing you did over break, and I’m like I READ 78 BOOKS BECKY precisely because that was my escape from not feeling rested and refreshed. Also I’m just a cranky old lady sometimes, and today is one of those times. Not enough sleep. Not enough shit got done. As always.
Speaking of not enough time, I really am trying to up the ante with this quilt, getting it done in an insanely small amount of time. How? Grabbing minutes when I’d normally do something else. I had 45 minutes yesterday afternoon before driving out to an art meeting, so I ironed instead of lesson planning. I had 30 minutes waiting for the Man to get dinner ready…same deal. I got the room cleaned Saturday in the hour before going to see his show, and when he sent me an updated start time (later), I sat down and got half a really complicated exhibition entry done. It’s good, but it feels like I can’t ever just sit down and relax. Hence my post-break feeling of no, not rested, not relaxed. My fault, but semi-necessary at the moment. I’m not letting another year of school fuck up my ability to make art. I’m gonna figure it out.
So I had everything laid out and ready to go on Saturday…wait. Stop. I need to be chronological about all this.
First of all, on Friday, I ran a million errands. I even wrote the blog late because of it. I spent about an hour staring at this asshole…
Which is the slow annoying one, because our faster one has been broken down most of the fucking school year, so we’re stuck sharing this with the front office, who keeps telling us we’re not allowed to use it. Uh huh.
Fast forward to Friday night (I did other stuff, very little of it art related)…I drew at dinner.
I was in a pretty positive mindframe at that point. Except she is holding her head. Legit position. Then we went out to see a friend’s band play…
Sonic Moonshine…ironically, we’d be back here on Saturday night for the Man’s band, Radio Thieves. But some drinking and dancing happened, probably too much of both.
Saturday dawned early, as it always does. I had a quilt guild meeting, so I worked a little on her face.
Slow stitching forever! Might finish in 2030.
Then came home and focused on cleaning up the art space, putting fabric away, even cleaned the floor because there was something on it that made it very slippery in one area (don’t wanna know what) and I was afraid I’d fall and break something. Like my leg. That would make life fun right now, right? Oh wait! Before I cleaned up in there, I had to deal with this. So we have this older friend who isn’t a quilter, but she had these blocks she cross stitched, and then I sandwiched them for her and she quilted them (the white threads are all my basting threads)…
And then I couldn’t deal with the sashing on a quilt-as-you-go, so we mailed it to a friend who used to live down here (she’s retired) and she put it together, mailed it back to me, and then I took it BACK to our friend and she hand-stitched all the sashing sides down (I taught her ladder stitch…she’s really NOT a sewer). Then it came back to me and I put the borders on and shoved some batting in there on Friday and Saturday, and then I removed all that fucking basting thread I put in last summer or whenever it was (2022? this has been going on for a while).
See pile of threads in the top right? So that happened before and after the quilt guild meeting. I needed this to get off the ironing board so I could use it for ironing.
Then I quilted one of the white squares on Saturday…
And one on Sunday. Yes, I could just do it all in one go, but it would take a few hours and then I would feel like I got nothing of my OWN done, and I cannot abide that at the moment. Nope. So my goal is 1-2 white squares a day and then the damn sashing and borders. I’ll get there. It just won’t be quick.
Then on Saturday, I laid out the first 100 pieces (after cleaning the whole room, floor, etc).
It’s not a big quilt.
Then I went to see the Man’s band play (more dancing, a little drinking, learned a lesson there I guess).
Home again. Spent Sunday getting ready for school, but also carving out time for ironing. I’m in the mid-100s, I think…something like that.
I got almost 3 hours in yesterday. Good times. You’d think I’d have more ironed, but there were a lot of little things going on and they took some thinking.
I also went to an art meeting and sewed down (during dinner) 9 of the 48 circles I need to stitch down for my mom’s thing.
See, I AM doing all the things. I’m just cranky about most of it. Except the ironing for my quilt. That is joyous and not cranky at all.
I’m sure everyone has seen some cool art or fabric in a TV show and screen shot it…this is the wall art from an episode of Suits.
Fascinating. I had some stuff burst into my head from this. Too bad I have to go back to school today instead of nurturing my Art Brain with some drawing time. Luckily there are no kids today…just adults and the bullshit the district wants us to do. Am I still burnt out? Oh yeah. I am. Do I have some plans for keeping myself from fully burning out? Uh huh. I do. Watch this space. Still got that damn song in my head.
OK. Self realizes last real day of Winter Break is upon us. The to-do list is heinous. The month is ugly. I’m still feeling burnt out from school…not a good sign after three weeks off. But it is what it is. What I can have in place is a giant pile of books to read as a reward for doing whatever yucky thing is that I had to do to earn the reading, a solid exercise plan that moves for nothing and no one (almost), an art project that has a deadline, so it cannot be shunted aside. It would also help if I had a cook and a cleaner, but I’m not holding my breath for those. Best I can do today is cross off a bunch of stuff. I’m dropping my school computer off this morning and getting a loaner so that I can actually use it in class. At home, I’ve been projecting it to another monitor, but I still can’t see the login box (I don’t need to see that to get in, luckily), and a goodly chunk of the doc and tabs are unavailable. So I’m glad they were available to get me a loaner today. I’m also shipping the Supreme Court quilt to its new owner. I made some videos before I packed it up, so I’ll be hopefully getting those processed and on the blog this weekend. I’m picking up another quilt from a show; I’m glad they were open today so I could do that. Trying to do all this stuff during a regular work week is really challenging…half of these places aren’t open late enough for me to even get there. Frustrations aside (is that even possible? I feel like it’s a daily occurrence to be frustrated these days…ask me after today.), I have today planned pretty solidly. Hoping to get a hike/walk in there, but we’ll see.
So I’m on the speedy track with the first quilt of 2024. Why? I have a collaborative project I’m supposed to be doing in the next few months, and I also need to (want to!) make a baby quilt for a good friend having her first. Also there’s a deadline and I don’t have anything at all for it, which is weird and frustrating (there’s that word again). So I traced the whole thing in just three nights, I think…
Spending more than an hour a night, obviously staying up too late, sigh, those are the hours I am most efficient, but also the hours I need to be asleep so I can get enough sleep so I can get up at ugh in the morning. It was less than two yards of Wonder Under. I started cutting it out Wednesday night after finishing the tracing…
Didn’t get far, but did the rest of it in a couple of hours last night…
Today, I’m going to sort it, make sure I have a background, buy one if I don’t, and start ironing to fabric, which means putting everything away from the last quilt first, and honestly, I need to put the borders on the other friend’s quilt I have had for a over a month first, because I need the ironing board and table for that. So do that first. Realistically, that’s a lot, considering everything else I need to do today, but we’ll see how it goes. You know me; I’m all about progress.
OK, I’m going to have to write the rest of this later; need to book. *** Time Passes *** So I wrote that at around 8 AM and now it’s 12:15. I’ve been productive. I have a loaner computer and mine is winging its way (well, probably driving) to Apple for repair. I copied all the papers needed for the first two weeks of school (one copier is already down, so I stole paper from it and went to the office copier, so that reduces my Monday stress). I picked up my quilt from Visions, because the show ended. I shipped the sold quilt with insurance, which is why I had to drive into a part of town I never go to…it has to go to a customer center, not a UPS store. Annoying because they’re not open past 2 PM, so doing it during the school day is impossible. I might even have partially solved the insulin shortage problem; we’ll see about that. Why am I short insulin? Long story involving a defective pen months ago that still isn’t solved. Yet.
I also washed my storage bins that I use for sorting fabric and Wonder Under. The pencil had been transferring off of the pieces onto the boxes, and I didn’t want the fabric to get dirty. To be honest, I only washed the first 6…because that’s all I need right now. So later today, I’ll be sorting fabric. I also checked my background stash and I have something that will work well for this quilt, so there is (unfortunately) no need to go shopping. Wah. But also, that’s probably a good thing. I’m waiting for the loaner computer to finish updating so I can go lesson plan for a while…not my favorite thing to do, but I have a chunk of time when I’m not super tired, so I should do that now. My future self will appreciate it.
I’ll take a break while lesson planning to put the borders on that quilt and clean up the sewing room, so I can start ironing to fabric later today. The Man and I have a date night planned, since he has a show tomorrow night, so we’ll be going out to dinner and to see some music for a while. Tomorrow, I’m planning for more lesson crap and more ironing joy.
Last night, during my quilting-friends Zoom, I made wontons from scratch, to provide me with three days of lunch joy (and last night’s dinner). It’s too time-consuming to make during the school year, but it’s one of my favorite meals, so I make it once during break if I can. Then I started pinning the snowflakes on the borders of mom’s Tinsel quilt. Oh, I put the borders on the other day…
We changed the snowflakes to two different sizes of circles…
And then changed the borders from the pattern, only using 6 of the snowflakes Sue Spargo planned.
One of the other participants did it this way and added a bunch of different embroidered snowflakes randomly throughout the border, and I liked the way it looked better than the original. So my job is to applique down the 48 circles. Then I hand it over to mom and she does the embroidery. Then back to me to sandwich and quilt…she could probably do that, but that’s OK. I’ll give it back to her to stitch the binding down by hand. Then it’s hers. And when she’s gone, it’s mine. Unless my SIL or some other close family member wants it more. Then it’s theirs.
So those circles are my evening stitching after eating dinner. It’ll be a week or two to get done.
Here’s where I’ve been lesson planning. It got dark last night while I was working.
It’s kind of chaotic, but it works better than sitting on the couch. I did finish grading that last academic assignment, so that’s good. I have progress report grades due in a couple of weeks, and I don’t want to stress about it. I don’t have TIME to stress about it. Every weekend from now until February 10 has stuff on it. Some of it is art or music, but that doesn’t make it any less busy (there’s also tree trimming and mammogram, so it’s not all fun and games). I’m eyeing February for camping or something, because I’m gonna need it.
Kitten is such a good baby. Fifteen and a bit. Definitely likes the sun.
And to be near me. Sometimes annoyingly so. But sweet here.
The composter in the front yard has a visitor.
Probably rat. Need to put more water in there. They don’t like it when it’s super wet.
Also, she’s touching me. Make her stop touching me.
Anyway. Coping mechanisms in place. I’m on some new supplements and hoping they will help with sleep and energy. And hot flashes, which may never go away. We’ll see. But for now, I’m going to eat happy wonton lunch and plan for a while and then not plan for a while. The art is what saves me, on a daily basis, y’all. Without it, I’d be bonkers, seriously nuts. I’m so glad I have that.
Weird frame of mind. I don’t have a clear idea of what art I’m working on next, which is hard for me. So I’m trying to get that taken care of in the next day or so. Plus I’m realizing I have to go back to school…I ignored school for almost a week and then I couldn’t any more. I graded the last of the big unit yesterday, so I just have one really short and easy assignment to do next week. The bigger deal next week is planning for the rest of this unit and as much of the next one as I can get through. I keep waking up in the middle of the night and my brain is trying to plan things that give me some down time in class. Please give me more time. I’ve been just slotting assignments in without thinking about how demanding they are on ME…and I need to try to fix that. Best I can. So that’s next week.
Artwise, I took all my smaller sketchbooks (not the super smalls, but the 9x12s) to the copy store after skimming through and tagging some I thought would work. I copied 11 drawings at 250%…
I started at 200%, but the pieces were too small. Then I started cutting and taping them together, numbering them as I went.
Takes about 12-22 minutes a drawing, depending on how fussy the pieces are.
Then I stared at them and tried to decide what to do. These are all just random drawings, mostly while camping or traveling, some during the Winter Break Draw-a-Day things I like to do (no time this year). So they don’t have a purpose or a theme to them, which is fine. I think of them as practice for the real stuff, but although I feel like I just finished some really complicated stuff (still recovering from the Supreme Court quilt), I can’t just do a light, easy quilt right now. And most of these roll in that realm. Not really light, but not really purposeful. So I picked this top one (of the 11) and added paper to the bottom…which is where I’ll add some purpose. Whatever that is. I have some ideas, just not fully formed.
That said, we’re taking this weekend off in the mountains, not camping (it’s raining and cold), but a little Airbnb with some hiking and nature. A reset. Of sorts. Might need one a month to get through the rest of the school year, but that’s not an option financially. Ah well. This should be nice. Hoping. I am taking the drawing (and two more sketchbooks) with me. And books. And stitching.
I got all the embroidery done on this (mom did the majority…I just did the little in-between bits).
When we get back, I’ll put borders on it and sew the little snowflake circles (we’re not doing all of them), then hand it back to her for embroidery.
This year has been difficult. There hasn’t been enough time to make art, and I hate that. I managed to stop thinking about work for a few days, which was good, but yesterday’s run through town to donate fabric, books, and clothes seemed to let the work back in my brain. Not good. I’m trying to make some positive changes in the next half of the school year, though, and hoping the next school year is better, but I’m counting on nothing at this point. I remember drawing every week. I remember making art almost every weekend. I just need more of that. An hour a night isn’t enough. Keeping that in mind…
Here’s my tree, which is already undecorated and back outside, so it can (1) enjoy the rain and (2) not be eaten by Kitten, who keeps throwing up the needles. Sigh.
It’ll be the New Year when I’m back…so happy new year to all, if that’s how you roll. If not, happy weekend. May art sustain us, however we take it in or push it out.
Well I’m off by a day again. Christmas seems a good excuse. I probably could have written this yesterday in between things, but I did other things instead. It’s all about choices, right? I’m the one who makes my rigid schedule, and there’s good reasons for it…it makes me write, but I’m also the one who can revise it at will. Besides, this is the floofy part of the year that has no purpose and no actual days of the week. Except for the one when the trash company picks up. You should know that one. And if you have to donate stuff by the end of the year, you should realize that is coming. And if you are trying to take advantage of some special sale deal thingie, they probably are up by now. Too late. So sad.
The holidays are days of chaos, no matter what your choices, I think. So Friday night, I picked up one friend and her kid from the airport and went out to dinner with them. I’ll see them next December probably. They live far away and I don’t get to travel much: money, time, all that. I kept quilting Friday afternoon and night…
And Saturday morning and evening…
Then Christmas Eve, I trimmed her…
Before we went to that party. I was wearing the outfit below, but with knee pads.
That was the Man’s holiday party. Then after Christmas night’s dinner, I put the binding on…
Hand sewing tonight and tomorrow…emailed photographer now. There’s a deadline on this one. So many have deadlines.
I managed to get all the applique pieces on this and started the embroidery at last night’s event.
We’re changing up the borders. I needed mom to cut a bunch of tiny circles. She has a machine and dies for that, which she brought to Christmas dinner…like you do.
It didn’t have the one size we needed, although the box said it did, which was just weird. So we cut some varying sizes. Figured we’d alternate between 1/8″ bigger and 1/8″ smaller. We’ll see. Certainly this is easier than cutting them out by hand. There aren’t dies though for most of what I do.
On Saturday, the Man and I went for a hike…
Apparently he was more excited about halfway than I was.
There’s been lots of dog activity. Or really, lack of activity…
Annie is still injured, so the cone is on most of the time. She licks her paw otherwise…occasionally she’s allowed out with supervision…Grandma is her favorite…
But she’ll settle for the Man…some sort of communal napping going on here.
Simba is always tortured by the girlchild’s costuming choices…
Poor little panda guy.
So I sucked at family pictures. Again. Here’s Christmas morning…
Chaos all around. Then dinner at the other house…
I didn’t even take pictures of the food. Spaced out. Ah well. We hope, as always, that we’ll have another year of it. Maybe I will remember photos in 2024. Luna hopes so.
But I have plenty of pictures of her. Here, she wants pets. More pets. This is after she hooked my finger with her claw. Bloody beast.
We also cleaned out the owl box.
We found the owlet I suspected had died in June.
Headless this time. Less of a haul this year. There were some rats too, but not all of them…heads missing. That might be their skulls. Hard to say. We’re leaving the box down for a few weeks. There’s 6 trees that will be trimmed in January, and the hope is that they will not destroy the owl box in the process. We might pull it off completely; we’ll see. Certainly I’m going to have to pull up some plants to protect them. Ah well. That’s January’s problem. And stress.
This week is not stress free. I have an arts application to complete, plus some stuff to ship out, plus donations to make before the end of the year. Lots to do. Grading still too. Hoping to get a good chunk done before the weekend, when we’ll take a couple nights of destressing. We hope. Then I’ll have to start planning the next unit and a half next week. Head down. There’s so much I can’t get done. I don’t feel very productive so far this break…or relaxed. I’m hoping to get there, but it’s been difficult. I know it’s supposed to be a mindset, but the weight of the to-do list is ever present. The only solution to that is to cross things off it and carve out some time for my sanity. Which is what the rest of this school year looks like. So not really thrilled with that. I did get some ceramics classes for Christmas…literally gonna carve those out of the schedule once I survive January. So that’s something to look forward to.
Hoping your holidays were what you needed them to be. I’m glad the official stuff is over and I can stop worrying about food and wearing stuff besides pajamas. Says the woman who needs to shower and go to the grocery store today. Yeah. Well. We do our best.
It’s dark and gloomy this morning. That California storm finally hit us last night, but not super hard. We’ve had over half an inch of rain and a tiny bit of thunder and lightning…nothing like up north. Enough that I don’t have to water for a few days though. Enough that I don’t feel a need to leave the house today. Wait. I need binding fabric for this quilt…I want to finish it before the 26th so I can contact the photographer and give him more time…and the fabric store I usually shop at has heinous hours these days. Which they say they aren’t changing. So it’s today or tomorrow, and tomorrow is more complicated. I did finish stitchdown on Wednesday…just sat down and did it all after writing the blog. That is one of the things I miss about teaching before COVID…coming home for the weekend and spending ALL DAY Saturday just doing art stuff. It’s hard to pull that off these days. I always have to do all the stuff I didn’t get done during the week. Stitchdown took a whopping 2 hours and 44 minutes, then I sandwiched and pinbasted that night, so I put in 3 or 4 hours.
Delightful. I still haven’t finished putting up Christmas stuff. Or wrapping it. Or putting it together.
But the tree made it into the house.
Yesterday, I was doing other stuff all day…it took 3 hours to put labels on two quilts, clean them up, iron them, and pack them up for shipping. They’ll both be traveling until 2027, I think. Hopefully I’ll see them in the traveling exhibition at some point. So far, they’ll be too far away. So I did that all morning.
Then in the afternoon, I had a couple of Zoom calls, one with stitching friends, so I started work on this thing…
So this is Sue Spargo’s Tinsel block of the month from 2022. I wasn’t going to do it, but mom likes Christmas stuff, so I signed up. I thought I’d just make it for her, but realistically, I wouldn’t finish until 2030, so I did all the applique, gave her three blocks last Christmas, three for her birthday in February (a little late because I got sick), and three for Mother’s Day. She did all the embroidery, which is the fun stuff anyway, right? Then she handed them back to me in September or October.
So yesterday, I trimmed them all.
One of the fun things about this is that the seam allowances sometimes get a little tiny. Luckily, I’ve done quite a few of these and know how to fix that. Sometimes you need to re-embroider something over the seam allowance…like that bottom tree branch on the right, and the bottom of the pot in the middle one…plus the blue bits at the top of that tree. No worries.
I pieced them on Zoom with my stitching friends.
Then there are some bits to be appliqued and embroidered after it’s all together.
Then put the borders on and applique some of the dots…I’m actually changing up the border embroidery. Mom likes it better too. I’ll give it back to her for the border embroidery, hopefully next week, and then she’ll give it back to me to be quilted and bound. Then it’s hers! It’s only taken a year plus. I’m the slow cog in the wheel, as always. I have another quilt here from a stitching friend who finished her part…so next week, I’ll put her borders on, quilt it, put a binding on it, and then hopefully hand it off before the end of break. That’s the plan anyway. We know how plans go.
Meanwhile, I did start quilting last night…did a little over an hour…
I’m going to continue with that this morning, with the plan of buying binding before the quilt store closes today. At 3. Too early, y’all. I probably won’t finish quilting all of it, but I can finish the outlining. I don’t want to be stuck without binding on Christmas Day. Yes. Ironic. There’s a break between morning and evening stuff, though, and a hike and some stitching is the best way to fill it. I know what I want for binding, and I don’t have enough of it in my stash. So shop.
I also finally framed and hung the last two Quilt National posters.
I had to email and pay for shipping to get them, because I couldn’t go to either opening…timing plus cost plus COVID. Annoying. Maybe I’ll get into another one to fill that space on the right, and I’ll make it to THAT opening. Sigh.
Simba’s eyelid seems to be fine. Hopefully the growth will not come back. He’s a good boy.
OK, so I’m outline quilting until it’s done, probably another hour or two. There’s thunder again. And more rain. Gloomy as shit this morning. Then to the quilt store. I have a friend and her son flying in tonight, so I am braving the drive to the airport this evening to get them and drop them at their hotel. Then quilting again tonight, hopefully, at some point. It’s movie night first. I think. Tomorrow is grocery shopping for Christmas, plus a hike, I hope. Finish quilting. Get a binding on probably Sunday? Not sure. Sunday is when family stuff starts for the Man, then mine on Monday. Y’all know how that goes.
Anyway, enjoy your holiday however you can/need to. I know for some it’s not enjoyable, so do your best. Read a book. Drink some spicy something-or-other. Cuddle up with a blanket if appropriate. Southern hemisphere, do what you need to do. Make some art if that’s a thing for you. I’m working on a fellowship application due January 4. Plus all the other things on the to-do list, including grading, unfortunately. It has to be done. But also doing some things that make it easier to get through the have-tos.
Kathy Nida 