But Soon…

Oh wow. Friday tired and it was only a 4-day week. Can’t imagine how next week will feel. Puppy is behind me talking to Kitten. He has this funny growl that sounds like he’s talking and she is just staring at him, like WTF is your deal, dude? He still has a cone on his head, which means he bumps into everything and needs his head scratched on a regular basis.

I had my stitching meeting last night and finished another bird in the Sue Spargo thing I’ve been working on for like three years…there are only four birds left and then I can piece them together. Maybe I’ll get to that this summer. AND finishing the other one, which is pieced, but needs a flower, a stem, and a leaf, and then to be sandwiched and quilted. I really should do that.

I also got confirmation that I will be doing that little owl as a commission, so I’ll get working on tracing that soon. I pulled my Etsy site…nothing was selling and I suspect only my friends were liking stuff. So that was a bust. I’m honestly flailing a little this year on increasing income…I bid on a bunch of copyediting and proofreading jobs, but suspect there is always someone there who will underbid just to get the job. I can’t afford to lose time unless I’m getting paid the going rate, so I spend time preparing a bid and doing sample edits, and sigh. Maybe I just suck at it. Or maybe I don’t work hard enough at trying to get new jobs. Because I’m buried in school work. And tired.

So last night, I figured I had earned tracing time…I graded all day in class while students were watching puberty videos. Today they’ll be working on vocab, so I’m gonna keep grading…because hey! School’s almost out! And I’m going to sleep in a lot! Because I’m so tired! I always give my co-teacher shit for overusing exclamation points and there I used like four in a row. !

Last year, on this day, I was ironing the first bathtub quilt together.

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There are now two bathtub quilts. There are at least three more bathtub drawings, one of which is enlarged but needs some heads (seriously, both people are headless due to my drawing off the paper, which drove my 5th-grade teacher bonkers. She was an artist and kept trying to get me to fit ON the paper. But my vision was always bigger.) and one that will never be a quilt because it’s just too loosey goosey. But the other one, with its crown of thorns, it could be a quilt. HEY! One of the shows I’m looking at entering is about WATER. And bathtubs…they have WATER. Wait. !!!

Yeah. I’m a little punchy.

Puppy and I are equally NOT interested in our boring breakfasts today.

So I traced last night…Still filling up the third sheet. Most of what I’m doing now is tiny, filling in between the ribs.

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Last night, I traced some more grapes and grape leaves, and then a homeless woman with her shopping cart and her sign (which is bloody tiny, I must say), and then I did a butterfly. But I stopped when I got to the cocoons, because it was after midnight, and I really do try to go to sleep at a “reasonable” hour (I know my doc thinks it should be two hours earlier, but then I would get NO ART DONE and that is unacceptable. Plus it’s hard enough for me to fall asleep at midnight.).

See the tiny little pieces interspersed among much bigger pieces? Yeah.

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I’m at piece 714…with another hour in…at this time of year, slow and steady is about all I can handle. Not quite halfway, but maybe…well, tonight maybe not. But soon.

Plod on…

So when the kids are here, I can’t blast music in the morning. Well. I guess I COULD, but…it would be mean. I didn’t realize I’d gotten used to being able to do that whenever I want. To their credit, they tried to organize the kitchen counters yesterday, but there’s piles for me to deal with, and I don’t have time. This makes me laugh. Because that’s why the kitchen looked like that in the first place: Time. Not enough of it. Been the story of my life. Really, no. It’s just that my priorities are different. Probably most people don’t come home and grade for a couple of hours and then trace Wonder Under for another hour or two. Or iron a few thousand pieces of fabric. Or quilt around a uterus. Boychild wanted to know why I had expired coupons. Plus they found one of my reproduction folders (I was looking for that…it has the printouts of circumcision in there…I was trying to explain that the other day). And the girlchild’s senior photos (whoops. I’m pretty sure I should have handed those out to people like last year. I suck.).

Hey, I am not a perfect parent. For one, it’s just me here. For another, there’s no manual for how to fix this and do that. I’m winging it. After spending all day with 7th graders. I can’t be amazing Supermom. I can just be me.

Speaking of uteri, I am full on into teaching human reproduction now, so my days are full of explaining spontaneous erections and semen and periods. It’s tiring, but it’s easy enough, except my voice is not trained this year…we talk less now that everything is online. So it feels like a stretch to talk almost all period. There’s some minor behaviors to deal with this week, certainly, but we should survive it. It’s almost a relief to get to this unit, because I know they will pay attention and I’ve been teaching it so long that it’s second nature. I used to have to look up the answers to a lot of their questions (because I like to be accurate), but now I just wing most of it. I looked up some data on cervical cancer yesterday. None of today’s questions require more than a basic knowledge of how stuff works. Although there were a couple of boys yesterday that wanted to know when their periods would start. Oh my. Parents? Are you telling them anything? Or are you just fucking with them? Because with those two? I’d be OK with that.

So that’s the daily grind. Grades are due in about a week in a half, so I’m trying to stay on top of it, but it’s hard. I’ll get there. The hard way.

Last night, I managed to go to the gym, finish my book for book club…in July (seriously, I think I’m a month ahead? Plus I am totally Gaiman over Pratchett…Pratchett is funny at all and sometimes really good, but not like Gaiman. Sorry if that’s blasphemy to you.), grade a pile of science journals (not all of them though, because the couch was co-opted by college kids and I was forced to work in here), and finally persuaded myself to come out and start tracing stuff. I was really tired, but I always want to get some time in.

Luckily, I was pretty efficient. Got over 100 pieces traced in about 45 minutes…that’s the channel changer on the light table…the girlchild went to bed about 5 minutes after I went in there, so I got control of the TV! This is another thing that I have to get used to…

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I did the section with the giraffe and started the leaves and grapevines above it.

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I didn’t do a lot of the grapes though. Look at the clock. It’s midnight. You’re tired. But you can see a whole pile of giraffe spots on the right…

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I cut those out as one piece of Wonder Under and then iron that down to one fabric…it saves time. Then when I cut out the fabric, I can cut out each piece. I can’t do the same thing with the grapes in the lower left corner, though, because they overlap, so they’ll have to be a variety of colors. If I were really smart, I’d figure out a 1,2,3,4 range for those and mark them now and draw all the 1’s together, then the 2’s, etc., but I don’t usually like thinking that hard at this stage. So I’ll just have a million small grapey pieces of Wonder Under floating around.

There is no shortage of small pieces in this quilt…with the big pieces tucked behind. Most of the lower torso is now done and I’m moving up into the upper ribcage area. I think I’m in the high 500s now…yup. Checked my notes. So a third of the way through…6 hours and 16 minutes. So 19 hours? Not a bad guess. So much easier to meditate with Wonder Under at night than to do work. That damn mockingbird is still torturing me every night. I had one night last week when he wasn’t out there until almost 3 AM…and then he was further away. I could barely hear him. Last night? He’s back at it, loud as hell. I’m tired of sleeping with a pillow over my head. I tried earplugs, but they make me feel all clogged up (doesn’t help that my sinuses are being all stuffy with allergies).

Anyway. I plod on.

Countdown

There aren’t many days of school left. I’m trying to get caught up, but little things get in the way. Yesterday I bid on a proofreading job…which meant a sample edit…plus some other stuff that needed editing…so I got no grading done. I’m behind. I need to focus today during prep, which is often really hard for me. Here…teach hard for about an hour and a half and then STOP. Then focus on grading stuff. Then teach again. My brain doesn’t like that, so it often refuses. Whatever. Plus I have yard duty before and after school for two weeks, which is a giant clusterfuck to my organization and schedule. Plus the kids emailing me about their grades. Please please give me a giant extra credit packet to fix my grade! I wasn’t gonna deal with that. Bloody hell.

School is making me cranky. Said every teacher the last month of school. Plus other crap. Think I’m gonna just crawl into bed and come out in July.

When I’d finished all the tasks at hand (and I’m sure there’s some I forgot), I did trace stuff. The first thing I did was a full trace of the owl that’s in this drawing…

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I think this is Owl 3.0. He was originally under a rib bone and a uterus, so I drew those bits out.

I’ve done two others (one of them multiple times)…here’s 2.0, still available.

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And 1.0 (although I didn’t think of him as that)…which I made three times in three different colorways for three different people…

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Yeah apparently I have an owl obsession. This new one is small…fits on an 8 1/2 x 11″ piece of paper, but has about 100 pieces. That guy up there has about 26.

Anyway, from there, I went on to the real business of tracing…apparently very slowly, because I only got about 60 pieces done in an hour…

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I traced a uterus and some tulips and the background stuff behind the giraffe. And then I looked at the clock. Time flies when you’re staring at a light table apparently. I’m on my third yard of Wonder Under, although I’m still filling in smaller pieces on the other sheets.

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Told you this wouldn’t be a quick one. That’s all three yards laid out on the table. You can see I just started filling in the third one on the right.

When I shut down the tracing, I sat down on the couch for a quick moment…just to relax a bit after standing all day. Midnight was looking for attention (I guess puppy got most of it this evening)…

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So there was some attention given.

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I spend a lot of time petting furry creatures. It makes up for being yelled at and dealing with teenaged crisis. And trying to bid on jobs when I have to BE at my other job. And getting left alone a lot when I really don’t want to be. Rough night. So today I go on to teach puberty (because that’s an easy thing to teach to kids who are going through it)…and tonight there is exercise on the calendar (yay!) and I will trace some more. And pet more furry beasts. And count down one more day until summer break.

Recap

Three-day weekend recap: Sleep? Not enough. Art? Not enough. Grading? Not enough. Exercise? Not enough. Glad I got an extra day off? At this time of the school year, absolutely. I start teaching human reproduction today and I don’t feel ready. It’s time-consuming and challenging, even though at least I have their attention…not a small thing for the last three weeks of school.

So I spent about 6 hours yesterday putting together a post about the Feminism Now exhibit I’m currently in…if you want to see the whole show, you have two choices: go to the FIG blog here, or come to the closing show Saturday, June 11, from 6-10 PM. The owner might open up for appointments…I’m waiting for an answer on that and will update the blogpost on FIG when I have one. So that ate up a lot of time, but I’m glad it’s up there to document the show.

I did manage to get in some tracing time last night, but late…I did trace the owl…you can see him on the right.

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Lots of wing pieces. The bigger pieces you see are mostly the flesh background behind all the tiny plant and animal pieces. I’ve done one whole side under the hand, which is just above the belly button, plus the middle section. Tonight (assuming I get to it) will be the giraffe and whatever else is on that side.

More big pieces from the earth at the bottom and little flower pieces filling in the blanks in between.

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It’s faster now. Smaller pieces. I got just past 400 last night (only 1550 to go, right?). So I’m at 4 1/2 hours…catching up. Sixteen hours to go? And school calls.

Support

About 4 or 5 years ago, I was coming to the realization that my work doesn’t necessarily fit in the quilt world, that there are shows I can get into, but there are also many that I can’t, because the imagery is too challenging or controversial or hell…it has boobs and a vulva and those things aren’t allowed. Because 50% of the population needs to have their parts hidden away? Well it’s not like there’s a bunch of art out there with penises on it, unless it’s the oh-so-acceptable sculptural types from the Renaissance. I was in a few quilt groups that ran on the art side of things, but I was looking for local groups, places where I felt less isolated and out there in the art world. I wasn’t in the San Diego art world at all.

So I started looking, and I found two groups that I’ve been a part of since then, one juried and one not, and between the two of them, I’ve been in about 10 shows in Southern California and beyond (one is traveling to Sweden next year), but more importantly, I’m growing this support group of people who know my work and support me and have no problems with fabric inhabiting the art world. I can have a conversation with almost anyone in either group, and I’m starting to find other opportunities because of belonging…my 2-person show in January absolutely came about because of my membership in one of the groups with the curator. I was just juried into another group and members from both groups voted for me…hence more opportunities to show work.

Being in local shows doesn’t seem like a big deal…I get work into shows all the time and it travels all over the world. But it is a big deal, because the local shows are where I meet people in person who are looking at the work and talking to me…giving me tangible support to keep making. Not that I will stop…not that I know HOW to stop. This drive does not slow down for exhaustion or my job or other obligations. I hear it in the back of my head all the time (Make Make Make). But now I have people I see at shows, people who have my back, people who talk to me about my work, their work, work in general. People who push me to do different work, like the 17-foot woman from last year and the nightstand I’ll be doing this year. This is all good.

We had an artists’ talk for my women’s art group yesterday at our show Feminism Now. Amusingly, someone actually did some mansplaining for us, telling us how the problems we think exist don’t any more. Say what? But it was a good discussion anyway. I got to hear a few artists talk about their work, artists I hadn’t heard from before. As our group grows, I’m finding it hard to make sure I can place name with face (we need to work on that as a group), but I do know the group serves to support female artists in a city that is known for ignoring or even censoring our presence. This discussion of what is a feminist, what is feminism NOW, and especially to us…it’s important and our group isn’t going to let it drop.

Here’s most of the women who were in the show (there’s a chunk of women who weren’t…it’s a big group now).

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Wirework outside the gallery…suspect Spenser Little at work…

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So most of my day was picking up work from being juried and spending time at the gallery for the talk and trying to get better pictures for an official group blogpost of the show…but I did eventually (after grading of course) come back and start tracing again…

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This piece is slow going, but it will be worth it. I’ve got about 3 hours in and I’m only on piece 220. The first 115 pieces were large and kind of convoluted, so they took longer to trace. Now I’m into the tiny pieces mostly, with some background stuff in there.

This is what it looks like from the back when I’m tracing…

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Except the light on the light table is on. But the numbers are all backwards, which takes some getting used to. I did the left thigh last night: a raccoon and some flowers and leaves. I stopped when I got to the owl, because it was 100 pieces (at least) and it was after midnight. I was tired. I stayed up another half hour to let my brain relax…don’t know if it worked, but I zonked out pretty fast. Good sign.

Apparently I have to trace the owl twice…although I think I will redraw him so he has all his parts first…because he’s missing some parts of his tail I think, and part of a wing. I could do that today as well.

I do have two more classes of the last unit to grade today, plus making new seating charts…very exciting stuff. And groceries and laundry. It’s nice to have an extra day for it though. It would have been hard to deal with going back to school today with everything I was trying to get done over the weekend. Trying to keep up with my job and live life and make art…it’s a lot, and I’m totally looking forward to a break in a few weeks with summer vacation (I’ll still be making art…just not trying to juggle the job in the middle of it). I’m looking forward to sitting out on the deck and relaxing with my sketchbook. I’m looking forward to having the time to reconnect with my art brain in a less stressful way. Also eating and peeing when I want…those are pluses. And fewer demands on my patience (only 2 kids instead of 155 and mine are adults, so hopefully that will help).

Listen to the Body

Ah the challenges of the end of the school year, and your college-aged kids coming home, and a puppy in the house, and all the things that need to be done. The puppy now has been neutered…although it was problematic. Poor guy had one undescended testicle…I wonder if that’s why he hadn’t been neutered yet…they were waiting or they realized it was more expensive to do? It’s done now. But he’s not a happy camper…

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He does have plenty of people around to love him and help him maneuver with the cone, although all he really wants to do is lick his butt, and he’ll have to wait 2 weeks for that joy. He mostly slept last night…a very different puppy to the one we normally have.

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We all went out to dinner at the Indian place…oh my golly, I forget how good that place is. I don’t go at all when the kids are gone, unfortunately (I should order takeaway)…and I usually get multiple meals out of one dinner. Yummy.

Then we came home and rallied around puppy for a while, until the kids went off to bed or room and I started tracing Wonder Under on the newest quilt…which currently is called Earth Mother 2016…I’m assuming I’ll come up with a better name eventually.

I didn’t get far in the numbers, because the whole bottom section is a giant half Earth and the pieces are pretty large.

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So I traced the entire Earth part and got partway around the edge of it until I thought it was pretty late…and I knew I had multiple places to be this morning, so I needed to sleep. I didn’t have the mental energy to do a lot else last night, even though I brought home a huge pile of grading for the three-day weekend. One of the things that sucks about being a teacher is that every single three-day weekend is during school and you end up grading through at least one of the days. Sundays are already trashed by lesson planning etc on a regular weekend, so it’s nice to have one extra day, because it means I will try to treat at least one day of the weekend as a real day off…no grading, no errands, no cleaning. Just relaxing and reading and hiking and hanging out. If that works.

But I do hope to get more tracing done on this over the weekend…around the grading and the artist drop-offs and pick-ups and artist talk and all the other stuff. And right this second? I need a nap. Sad but true. Massive headache plus tired. Not a good mix. Might be worth setting the timer for 20 minutes and putting a pillow over my head. Just a quickie. Listen to the body…it’s telling you something.

I Suck at Sleeping

Ahhh tired. I never think about you at 11:30 at night when I’m thinking it’s time to start tracing. Even though I had to take a 20-minute nap last night before I found the energy to go to the gym. I’m not sure why our culture is so against naps for adults except for the elderly. I’m starting to think they should be a part of every day, based on my nighttime sleep habits.

It’s not that I hadn’t done art-related stuff before 11:30 PM. I had to iron, dehair, label, cut slats for, and pack up a quilt for a show. And make a label for UPS. So that was like an hour plus. That was the problem. And I graded before that. And gym. So it’s no surprise that I started late. I could have justified not tracing last night, but I want to get this thing done and that means working every night. Even though grades are due.

Head down, getting it done. All of it. Whatever it is. Mornings are rough though. And tomorrow will be no different, as I have to be in early to take my show down. Sleep! It’s for the…sleepy. Ha.

I haven’t cleaned out all the photo files from last year yet…I have a weird system, and I’m not sure it’s a good one, but it helps me find the photos I need for art stuff. Anyway, the March 2015 files are mixed in with the March 2016 files, and I keep opening the old ones…what’s funny about that is I was tracing Wonder Under then too (I think for Earth Mother for Ventura), so the photos look the same…except that one had way bigger pieces. These are freakin’ tiny. As I keep mentioning…

The pieces are so tiny that they don’t take up much room on the Wonder Under. I’m only 3 1/2 hours in…and up to piece 476, which is the jellyfish in the larger figure’s hair. So I’m past the halfway mark.

You can see I group similar pieces together and then draw a line around them, so I cut them out as one piece of Wonder Under and iron them all together onto the fabric. It saves cutting time at this phase, and if they’re really small, like some of them, I’m less likely to lose them.

So maybe another hour tonight? If I’m lucky? Tomorrow is looking a bit hairy. So probably Sunday night will be the next tracing day…although it also has its challenges.

I feel like this every year about 2 weeks before Spring Break. Exhausted, overwhelmed, head down, trying to survive. And the girlchild is texting me about how shitty she feels and you can’t make an adult who is 3000 miles away from you go to the doctor. Luckily, there’s Google and she can just diagnose herself. And probably medicate herself.

Meanwhile, boychild has scored himself housing on campus again just by waiting it out. I know I didn’t want to have a roommate by my junior year, but it’s easier than finding somewhere else to live. And he possibly won’t come home this summer. Which is depressing. But again, I did realize they would go away to college and eventually they would not come back, and my future would be this house, mostly empty, a really annoying dog who is scared of the ducks next to the pool and cats and everything in the world sometimes, and two very needy cats who headbutt my hand while I’m trying to do stuff and lick me and want to sit on me and get annoyed if I don’t do what they want. And all the fucking quiet, even with Pandora and TV and Netflix, it’s just way too damn quiet and empty.

I guess it’s a contrast to my daytime job. I might sleep all Spring Break. Except I suck at sleeping. OK. Going to the job. The place that sucks up all my time and patience. Aargh. It’s chaos there right now. Too much.

Furiously…

I worked for 12 hours yesterday. I really wish I could say that I worked on ART for 12 hours yesterday, but I would have had to blow off my real job completely to do that. But wow, think of that. Getting up in the morning, having a cup of tea, then settling in for 3 or 4 hours of work, maybe go for a walk, have some lunch, another 4 or 5 hours…you can see how this day might go. Reality is that even when I have spring or summer break, I’m not that efficient most days. Some days I’ll pull 10 hours of artmaking, but never like I do with teaching. And it was stuff I needed to do. Yes, some was grading, but I have a project coming up for my students, and even though it’s probably the last year I’ll teach it because the standards are changing, I still felt a need to completely rewrite it. And I don’t know if that will help at all. It will probably still drive me crazy. It’s the nature of the beast.

But grades are due Tuesday, so there’s some of that stuff that just has to be done. I actually think I’m a little ahead of the game though. I have two more assignments that really NEED to be graded, and then a handful of makeup work, and then I’m done. Well. I still need to input all that crap. And take my show down at Grossmont. And deliver a quilt to another show. And pack up one for yet another show. So it’s not looking REALLY good over the next few days, but it’s certainly not as impossible as it seemed last week. At least I’m pretty damn efficient. Most days.

So I didn’t start tracing until late. In fact, I had a really hard time getting up off the couch. I didn’t even grade on the couch. I was just tired. I ran a lab in class yesterday with a ton of water, and the kids did really well with not spilling TOO badly. I had 20 towels in there and they were all significantly damp by the end of the day, but that’s normal. Last year was a lot worse. I should thank them for that…for not being as bad as last year.

But in an hour, I did manage to trace about 350 pieces, so I’m still going faster than I normally would. Because those pieces are tiny. Seriously tiny. Aargh.

This part is never very exciting to photograph. But that’s what 350 tiny little pieces look like on Wonder Under. I’m about halfway up the second torso, having finished the first one, which was only her butt and up. I don’t think the girlchild is thrilled that she’s naked in another quilt of mine. The second one is a full torso, so it will take a little longer. I’m almost at the halfway mark. So if I figure another half hour to halfway, that’s about 3 hours…so 6 hours total? That’s not bad. I might be able to finish by the end of the weekend…because this weekend is kind of a mess. I might try to start cutting them out on Friday at my meeting, although they’re pretty tiny and I don’t usually like to trim Wonder Under away from the house. It’s too hard not to lose pieces.

I’ll have to think about it. Speaking of thinking about it, I’m deep in my head at the moment. Reflective I guess. Trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be, where I want to be. How.

I stare at this every day…

The computer screen and then that crazy raccoon behind it from The Bloggess. Furiously Happy is Jenny Lawson’s new book (Lawson being The Bloggess) and no, I haven’t read it yet, because I don’t own it yet and maybe I should see if my library has it, because they bloody well should. They DO have it…and holy crap, it has 75 holds on it. OK. I can handle that. I requested it. I might be reading it over the summer. But I can read her blog while I wait. The real point is that phrase “furiously happy” because I really do think I don’t do happy the normal way, that I’m just not one of those happy perky people who can just BE happy with things, but I also think that’s what makes me good at the art and teaching and crap, because I’m never satisfied with what’s done or what’s out there. I need it to be better, to make more, to try this, to draw that, and if I were just normally happy, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. So I’m gonna get FURIOUSLY happy about some things, like mailing two quilts out in a week for shows that are a long way away and getting an article published and almost getting on top of my grading. And then Ima gonna (like my students say) get some of that furiousness (way better than furiousity) and channel it into making stuff. And maybe even cleaning the house and doing yardwork, but honestly, that’s more furiously irritable than furiously happy.

So if you live near me and you see me out in the driveway yelling like a banshee, it’s OK. I’m being furiously happy. About the dead leaves piling up. It happens.

Full-Funnel Conversion

First of all, no, I didn’t fall off the face of the Earth. I have 95 pictures on my camera to prove I’ve been out in the world Doing Shit. Never at home long enough to actually type a blog post. There are some pros and cons to that of course. First of all, I don’t have time right now to deal with all 95 photos. But I’ll get there. I’m sure.

Second of all, LinkedIn is convinced that I want a job…and it’s not that I don’t need work and money and all that, but it’s possible that I have Too Many jobs at the moment, hence stress levels akin to the beginning of school…but LI keeps suggesting the weirdest jobs. Post title: apparently I may be qualified to be a full-funnel conversion rate optimization specialist. Hmn. Boychild and I Googled that shit and we’re pretty sure I don’t know how to do that. Full-Funnel (cake) I can handle…the rest? Not so much.

So Saturday night was three art openings and a damn good burger. More about the openings later (can’t deal with that many photos right now). Sunday was a friend arriving from parts north. We hung out in her hotel room for a while and talked, because this was her view…

And it included over an inch of rain…

In fact, while sitting there, I think that entire inch of rain had drenched me between grocery store and car and then car and house and then house and car and then car and hotel room. Or something. Think I missed a step. But still warm and humid out. Dudes…this is why I don’t live in Florida.

But while sitting there, I started cutting out Wonder Under. Because my life is such that at the moment I cannot just sit anywhere. I have to be working. And that’s OK. Most of the time.

Once we left there for my parents, where there were lots of people and girlchild cooked, and I did manage to sit through dinner without cutting stuff out, I got really tired. Something about not sleeping well or long enough for two many nights in a row. So I went home and took a 20-minute nap. I do actually set the timer on my phone to wake me up. And that and a significant dose of tea woke me back up long enough to finish tracing the damn thing. First I had to readjust this sweetheart…

Um. Kitten. Excuse me. Sweetie, I need to move you. It’s really hard to move them when they look this adorable.

But I did. Because I wanted to be done. I had about 400 pieces and at first thought that was too many to get done, because it was late already…apparently I traced that night for 3 hours and 10 minutes. Yeah. So I got it done.

I had already trimmed one yard at the hotel and my parents’ house, so there were 6 1/2 yards total…

Laid out on the floor. It took 21 1/2 hours to trace the whole quilt. There are about 1852 pieces (more than that, but not a lot more…yes, I always miss some). So it wasn’t super easy to trace apparently. Last year’s big quilt took about 18 minutes longer to trace and it had 100 fewer pieces. I don’t know what that means. It also took me 12 days to trace and this one only took 6 days. That’s the difference between being in school and being on vacation.

Then yesterday, I had brunch with my friend before she left…then headed over to my quilt class, where I continued cutting…

And then hiked 5 miles with the kids (more on that later), ate dinner (do you need to know more about that? After hikes? It’s pizza. Delivery. Hallelujah.), and kept cutting for almost 5 hours yesterday (finished Wandering Pines and am still not sure it hasn’t jumped the shark in the first season, if that’s possible). I’m at almost 7 hours total, and there are 2 1/2 yards left to trim. I could do that today. Today is actually pretty wide open (except the girlchild needs stuff and I have money crap I’m trying to manage and I need to do a ton of writing today and I have an opening to go to tonight and I didn’t do all the grocery shopping Sunday because I ran out of time to plan and I wasn’t sure when my procedure would be scheduled and I’m still waiting on that).

Wow. Deep breaths Kathryn. But if I can get all these trimmed today and sorted (which will probably take an hour or more), then I can start picking fabrics. Fuck. Wait. I don’t have a background fabric. Add to list. Must go to fabric store (oh my) today. And I need a big piece. This thing is 60″ square pretty much. Need 4 yards. OK. So that’s on my list for today as well. Girlchild can handle that errand mushed in with her need for a suitcase, right? That’s what I thought.

Someone’s in the shower and it’s not me. Did I mention I have a leaky sprinkler issue on the deck? Tried turning the whole mess off last night, but it didn’t stop water dripping. Not sure what’s up.

My lord. I need an assistant. AND a house cleaner. I’ve been watching the show Humans and reading a book about AI, and maybe, if humans weren’t so creepy about how they would USE AIs, this would be really incredibly helpful to me. Seriously.

On With Life…

This morning, at around 6 AM, a mere 5 hours after I found my bed, the dog woke me…crying, whining, scratching at the bed, trying to burrow under the bed itself. Why? Thunder. She’s developed an intense fear of thunder, and we aren’t sure why, but it woke most of us up this morning. The thunder stopped hours ago, and she’s still scared and hiding. She refuses to go out and pee. And I’ve been up since 6 AM basically, so I kinda feel braindead. What’s new, you ask? Exactly. She’s lying so close to my chair that I can’t move.

I only have about 78 things to do in the next three days. I should be totally blowing off sleep to get all that done. This is not the most relaxing summer vacation I’ve ever had. That’s unfortunate. I should work on that.

I’m still tracing Wonder Under…

Some days, it feels like I will be tracing forever, but I think I hit a place last night where I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m at 1450 pieces, with only about 400 to go. That’s a day. Maybe 4 hours. I have the torso, one arm, and the head of the smaller figure, and then I’m done.

Kitten is absolutely no help. She was lying on the couch, but STILL lying on the drawing and pulling it towards her as she cleaned herself.

Nice. Well, I’ll be done tracing soon, and then she can lie all over the light table to her heart’s content. (But mommy, there will be nothing to lie ON.) Sigh.

I actually didn’t do much tracing yesterday, only about two hours. I spent the afternoon re-learning how to crochet and then cutting out Wonder Under for the smaller quilts I have on my list. I didn’t start tracing until well after dinner.

I’m over 18 hours in though. It hasn’t felt like that…

I did finally force myself to stop around 12:30 last night. Some part of me just wants to bully through, stay up all night, get it done, because I’m pretty booked the next three days, but realistically, not sleeping at my age is not a good plan. I already have enough issues with staying asleep, although I was doing fine last night, until the dog and the thunder.

Can I take a nap today? I did take all the Wonder Under that was traced with me to quilt meeting yesterday, but then the crochet thing happened (girlchild wants a hat and her birthday is coming)…I’ve gone completely through my stash of rubberbands saved from when we used to get newspapers (I quit those years ago), so am forced to tie things up with ribbons now. I have tons of those. I keep a bunch looped over a clothes hanger in my office, for when I need to tie things up…

But I haven’t actually started cutting them out.

Deadlines are piling up. My proposal for a collaborative art thang was accepted, so I will be working on that in August, opening on September 12, but I don’t even know what THAT is yet, due to the collaborative part of it. Then I have to do a surgical procedure thing on the lovely fibroid-filled uterus that will leave me feeling out of it and tired for up to 10 days (I don’t have time for that shit)…if they can schedule it far enough in advance of school…which they say they can. But that would then be happening in the next week or so.

I think, OK, this big quilt ALSO needs to be done by about September 20. And I’m booking at the moment, moving uberfast, but that will change. Things I can do while sitting on the couch: cutting stuff out (good). So if the procedure is early next week, I’m still cutting out Wonder Under. OK. Or if it’s early the following week, maybe I will have made it to the ironing stage and I’ll have more stuff to cut out. I suspect picking out and ironing fabrics will be problematic if I feel like shit. Standing for hours doesn’t sound like it will be an option. So the timing is not great.

So I’m all stressed out about making art. Oh well. It’s because I’m pushing myself and challenging myself with new types of projects, and that’s good, and it’s just unfortunate that all this other crap has to happen at the same time.

Plus I really REALLY need to meditate every day. Seriously. Did it in the MRI machine…it was rhythmic. Nice. Can’t have one of those at home though. Gonna have to just do it on the couch.

Enough writing. On with life.