Lovely Rainy Weather

Bless Me, the weather has turned. It is lovely and only 73 degrees. And did I mention rain? Oh hallelujah. I don't want to be one of those people who only complains about bad weather and never extols the virtues of wondrousness that can occur randomly in July in San Diego.

I'm still getting nothing done. That's not true. I'm cleaning. I'm doing yardwork. I spent 2 hours last night watching The Matrix and cutting out little pieces of fabric. Tonight (or maybe this afternoon), I will watch the second Matrix movie and cut MORE little tiny pieces of fabric. Maybe someday I will grow up and actually Make A Quilt this summer instead of constantly playing with little pieces of fabric.

My mom sent me this note:
Good Housekeeping Tip

Always keep several get well cards on the mantel..... so if unexpected guests arrive, they will think you've been sick and unable to clean.

I'm all about that.

So...the good and awesome news is that two of my pieces got into the Fiber Arts 2006 show at Gallery 510 in Decatur, Illinois. They'll be there in October at the Madden Arts Center. I wasn't expecting TWO pieces to get in. They accepted High Tide and So Deep, So Wide.

Here's High Tide, a poignant (yeah right) picture of single motherhood. Yeah.


A detail.


Another detail, this one of the children spilling out of the drawer in mom's belly. Scientifically accurate of course.


Here's So Deep, So Wide, which I posted back in June or something (even though I finished it back in January or something). I don't even remember my blurb explaining this one. I know it's a post-divorce quilt, which just means that it deals with my stuff post-divorce. Stuff from the divorce still is spilling out into recent drawings, unfortunately.


For instance, I had to drive past this pizza parlor about 10 times in the last week that was a significant piece of my divorce. Sounds wacky, I know, but that place, just SEEING it really bugged me. So it'll be in a drawing sometime soon. Scary how things and places and events really carry this weird remnant of a relationship, good or bad.

The second quilt hasn't been in any shows yet. The other one has (and currently hangs in my hallway). OK, motivation to finish quilts in the form of an acceptance letter. Maybe that's the Kick In The Butt that I needed.

Finished! Well...Sort of

I'm finished with ironing 821 pieces of Wonder Under to the appropriately colored pieces of fabric. I used approximately 63 different fabrics in this quilt, not counting the background. Holey Moley. I did not realize. I thought it was like 25 until I actually counted them.

What I really need now is about 2 or 3 really good movies to watch while trimming all the pieces of fabric to their appropriate size. I've spent all week doing teacher education stuff, and I am Ready to Roll. Oh, and clean house so it will be presentable when the Non-Working Moms Who Have Cleaning Ladies drop their daughters off for my daughter's birthday party. Yeah. That's it.

No pictures tonight. That seems lame. OK...searching the archives...



I don't think I ever posted this...mostly because I wasn't that happy with it. It's called Genesis, and it was in response to a challenge of "Something that causes joy". I think. Can't really remember. It's kind of weird. Funny for the artist to say that, but we have to have things in our body of work that will give the art critics something to go on about when we're dead, or they won't write books about us.

Smallest Room, Most Living Things

This is my studio floor. There are more living things in this room (many on the floor, as you can see) than in any other room in the house. At last count, 3 of the 4 cats, a puppy, and a small child. There's also an unwanted spider on the ceiling. It's the smallest room, the hottest room, and I am having to step carefully over all these beasts so they don't squawk at me.


Puppies get very flat when it's hot.


Limbo (the cat) is really pissed off at me. I've picked him up unceremoniously and dropped him on the floor and yelled at him about 14 times in the last 24 hours. He wants to sit on my fabric and he wants to sit on my carefully ordered bits of Wonder Under. He's driving me nuts. I put him where he is now so he would be out of my way. He's really irritated...you can tell.


I left the room for 2 minutes to get water, came back, and he was sitting in the middle of this pile of fabric.


This pile is the fabrics I'm using in this quilt. It's surprisingly lacking in bright colors. Lots of grays and browns and earth tones (despite the blurry photo, which has achieved a bizarre fluorescent and unreal glow). Not sure what the whole quilt will look like, because I don't do color studies. It's all in my head. Scary, eh?

And what the heck does this mean? Bizarre...yes, I used this fabric in this quilt.

Heat Exhaustion

This is crazy. It was 111 degrees yesterday. I can't even think straight, let alone get a quilt done. It's frustrating, because I only have 4 weeks until school starts and takes over my life again.

I did seriously consider sleeping all day and then getting up to make art from 9 PM to 5 AM. Small problem of my children, and the fact that it's too hot to sleep, and that I have to spend all this week in teacher classes (but they will be AIR-CONDITIONED). Pros and cons.

It's supposed to be hot as hell again today. I want George Bush to sit in my living room today at 2 PM and TELL me there's no global warming. San Diego is going for record of hot days in a row...hottest July in history...and August is usually our hot month. Yikes.

I went to the movies yesterday (air-conditioning) and saw A Scanner Darkly (http://wip.warnerbros.com/ascannerdarkly/). It's animated, but from real-live film, so it has this weird, disturbing, almost-real-but-not-quite quality that I found really distracting. It was OK story-wise, not great, but the movement of the colors on the animation was so distracting that I had a hard time even paying attention to the story. A time when being Visual is not a plus...and that's weird, because I draw in a way that looks a lot like what they do here, with different parts of the face delineated in different colors, like a screenprinter (gee, which is what I used to be), but when it's MOVING all the damn time, you just can't stop staring at it. And I was totally distracted by the black lines around the mouths.



Then again, the movie's about a bunch of drug addicts...maybe I'm supposed to feel all unsettled and disturbed.

Ironing in the Pool

I'm considering it. Ironing in the pool. If I put the ironing board on the bottom of the pool, the top would be above water. I could put my stash around the edges of the pool and swim from color to color. That whole "electricity-and-water-doesn't-mix" thang might make things a little too interesting, though.

If you haven't guessed, it's hot here. Too hot. I have no air conditioning.

Last night, I determined two things while picking fabrics for the newest Southwest applique block.

1. I do not have enough orange. Despite this drawer-full, it is not enough.


2. Quilt stores should be open until 10 PM or later.

I had these flip-flops with beads on them from the summer before the summer before this summer, and I liked the beads, but one part was slipping off, so they were no longer comfortable. I hadn't tossed them, because I am by nature a packrat, and I wanted to save the beads. Ivy (the puppy) helped me out with that goal. I'm not sure how to persuade her to do the other shoe without encouraging her to chew on shoes.



This is the entirely unexciting start to the above-mentioned Southwest block. What's interesting about this is that only about a 2-inch section of the sky will show in the final block.


And yes, I know about Extreme Ironing (www.extremeironing.com), but those people aren't doing it for REAL. I mean, I REALLY need to iron somewhere much cooler than my house at the moment. Why do irons have to be hot anyway. Sheesh.

Promised Stuff

Pictures. Then commentary. Why? Because otherwise I'd be mowing the lawn.

Two parts of the Egyptian piece with embroidery. I'm doing the last rein on the camel, then need to decide how to border the whole thing. Not sure I can embroider with my finger damaged. Although I can TYPE with it. It hurts. It looks Frankensteinian.



And here is the first of my brother's T-shirt quilts. Looking at it now, 2 years later, it's kinda lame. But it does what it's supposed to do. Hopefully I'll finish the second one this summer, and then I'll only have 42 more T-shirts to use up before he dies. Seriously. They handed me more T-shirts while I was there.


Lots of art quilt bloggers are either shutting down their blogs, whether because they are getting nothing done or because they are wasting too much time on their blogs. Others are detailing how little they're getting done. Me too. It's not because I don't want to work on stuff; I just don't seem to be able to put away all the stuff outside my studio that needs doing. For some reason, it seems more important to mow the lawn than to back a quilt or iron a new quilt or pick fabrics for the next big piece. I don't really understand it, but it's done as of today. No really. I only really have the summer to get big stuff done. It's so hard during the school year to find blocks of time, and this year will be worse, because I'm picking up a subject that I'm absolutely hopeless at doing. Math and me, we are not best friends. And yet I use it all the time in quilting. Maybe I'll have the kids make quilt blocks...that's funny...12-year-old mostly boys making blocks. Certainly need to consider that carefully...mostly because I don't have a spare sewing machine and I can't afford to have mine stop working.

OK, so I'm not going to stop blogging (or reading blogs), even if some of my favorite bloggers are stepping down. I'm going to be inspired by the fact the full-time quilters are getting less done than I do (that's a little evil, but if it gets me through the day, I can't complain). AND, I'm ordering the Nancy Crow book...not because I want to make quilts like her, because I am the Anti-Abstract, but because it's inspiration. So there. Caution to the wind.

Finger, Bloody Finger

I won't show pictures. Let's just say that human fingers are easy to cut badly. Yikes. I debated stitches. I debated calling my mom. I put my head between my knees and breathed deeply for a good long time. It did stop bleeding. It hurts. Left hand. That's a good thing. I don't sew with my left hand.

This tomato has issues. "I want to be a zucchini, Mom." "I'm growing a nose, Mom." I don't know what kind of bizarre genetic anomaly would cause this freakishness.



This was awesome. Butterflies in the Seattle zoo. My camera rocks sometimes.


Why does this cat allow this? No one knows. She missed us a lot. Hid from the cat lady and from my dad, who she normally will come out and talk to. She has been head-butting me all day. And now she sleeps with the munchkin. Speaking of sleep, I'll put embroidery pictures in tomorrow. I'm too tired to deal with it right now. They do exist. I swear.


I even have a picture now of the FIRST of my brother's quilts, found in Seattle. That's the teaser. Oooh. Can't wait now, can ya...yeah.

Sugarmon Rolls

My niece's name for cinnamon rolls. Mmn. But I can't have any. I can't have In 'n Out either, but I make an exception for that.

I wish I could stitch on the airplane going home tomorrow. Maybe I will go downstairs RIGHT NOW and get that silly Egyptian piece and finish the embroidery. I was too tired last night. I read magazines instead. Brain dead after long drive back from remote cabin, dirt roads, solar and generator power, freezing cold water, a million tiny frogs (pictures to be added when I return), and lots of carbohydrates.



We miss the puppy. We don't miss the weather.

Oh Mr Sun, Sun, Mr Golden Sun

Please shine down on me. Not really. I don't mind no sun in July, especially when my mom says it's been 100 degrees every day we've been gone. I will post pictures later to go with these, I swear...

There is not a lot of stitching going on. Which is just fine. There is lots of food and going to parks and other places, and I even got to see a romantic movie with...my brother :-). It's all good. The oldest kid and I are currently entertaining the two small cousins, who are actually pretty easy to watch, although they may be hitting the melting point. Mom and my youngest are apparently out having their hair and nails done (not really, though I'm not entirely sure where they've been all this time if it wasn't at the grocery store). I've drawn nothing, although all the greenery is calling out to me. Japanese maples are the coolest trees.

Halt! I am Yogurt Man. You may not pass.


Unfortunately blurry picture of strange ritual dance that intrigues Yogurt Man. If it weren't so blurry, it would be awesome blackmail material for when MY kid turns dating age...assuming he ever does that.


Today we go to some remote cabin somewhere east of Seattle. We'll be back Sunday. There are rumors of a bat, a mouse, and possible black bears. I can handle the first two.

Seattle Is Nice

It's not hot here. It's lovely and cloudy and even hints of rain. Yesterday we picked raspberries and blueberries. Lots of them. Picking them is apparently more interesting than eating them, if you're a kid. We had blueberry pancakes for dinner, blueberry muffins for breakfast...not sure what's up next. I sewed a little, just embroidery on the Egyptian piece while watching the World Cup final on Tivo (which unfortunately did not tape the headbutting incident). No pictures yet...they're on my camera, but not sure how to get them on this (not mine) computer. Peace out...

Here's a picture of a picker. He ate them too. He'd still BE eating them if we'd given him the choice.

Travel and Goals

It seems my (psychotic) goal of having all 821 pieces of Wonder Under ironed to fabric and ready to be trimmed BEFORE I left for Seattle is about oh 700 pieces short. Oops. Life happens. I might get more done tonight, but I have to pack too.


I am taking the Egyptian block along to do the embroidery, so that's progress. Maybe I will get done with it.


Here are some of the fabrics chosen for the quilt I was trying to get going. They'll be here when I get back too. And summer isn't over when I get back...I just have to spend a week doing school stuff from 8:30-4 every day, and then it's August. August means school. Stress.


The one thing about summer that stresses me out is all the "have-to's" that get in the way of the "want-to's" and "hey it's vacation's". And then summer is gone. I'm really bad about it. I want to get so much quilt stuff done and then I have to run errands and watch kids in the pool, and I don't seem to be coordinated this year, so that I have cutting or applique to do while they're swimming. I'm just kind of flailing. Sigh.

PMS and Fabric Choices

I went to get background fabric yesterday. I bought two pieces. I never buy yardage, unless it's on the sale table. But I couldn't decide. My son was perturbed that I couldn't decide. He said it was unlike me.

So today I went shopping for new walking shoes, because mine are trashed, destroyed, beyond repair. Usually I don't take long to buy shoes. Today, I tried on about 7 pairs. Extremely unlike me. But comfort was an issue. Mom tells me this is because I am approaching 40. Aaah. Forty. That's months away. My feet aren't 40 yet. My son again commented (well, complained, let's be truthful) that I don't usually have a problem deciding. Wah wah wah.

I still haven't decided which background fabric to use. I have...well...about 38 seconds before I start choosing fabrics for the foreground, so I'd better get my butt in gear. Here are the two choices...by the time you see this, I will have decided...I'm leaning towards the lighter color because I often do dark, and I believe I should be challenging myself. More on that below.


I've been finally selling off Grandma's bizarre stash of fabric. Just bits and pieces of some truly strange stuff. Some sells, some doesn't. I figure that now that I've visited the grave, she should be at peace with my choice to sell these fabrics, obviously family heirlooms. I kept a portion of some of them, so when I use them in a quilt, I can look up at the ceiling and feel her radiate approval down at me. Yeah right. She'll be glad I made money from nothing...this is the woman who used to help me into dumpsters to get the aluminum cans out for recycling money. She was no dummy with finding ways to make money. And if it pays for my entries to art shows or for 3 extra yards of background material? It's all good. Two pieces of my inheritance below.


About challenging oneself. It's summer, so I'm trying to read enlightening material about creativity and art (unlike during the school year, when I am told to read enlightening material about middle schoolers and their challenging moments). I'm reading Shaun McNiff's Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go. It works well for sitting on the lawn waiting for the puppy to pee. Here's a quote from the book, and it's a dealbreaker for me..."A personal place of creation is a grounding influence and a partner through every phase of expression. I envision the studio as a nucleus of creation, a source from which creative experience flows outward to other areas of life and the place to which it returns again. I maintain my artistic workspace as a sanctuary, a place at home where creative expression is nourished and regenerated." I got that. It's a mess and I share it with way too many cats and occasionally kids, but it's mine.

Ed. Note: I forgot to explain the PMS in the title. THAT'S why I couldn't decide about the shoes or the fabric. I didn't realize until some weird comment on the radio made me cry. Sigh. Hormones...they suck.

I Don't Have Enough Fabric

Shocking, isn't it? Actually, I don't have a big enough mellow background piece to do this, my newest psychotic endeavor.


All 821 pieces of Wonder Under are cut and sorted into boxes of 100 each (except I ran out of boxes, so 600-821 are all in one big box, to be sorted later, when I've emptied some of the others).


Jim's quilt is put aside, to be finished later, obviously AFTER the Seattle trip (4 days and counting).


And Willow, the fat yucky cat who always needs a bath and skin treatment, is squawking at me because I spent 2 hours cleaning the laundry area and litter trays, and I haven't put them BACK yet. Well, Willow dear...it seems it is time for you to train yourself to use the toilet...you can't be any worse than my son is with missing the bowl.


The kids saw my errand list for today and squealed...there are about 20 things on it. Some aren't really errands though...like clean litter trays is on there, and I've done that. Only that so far, but it's DONE! I forgot to put "refill and replace litter trays" though. Maybe later.

What's silly about this current quilt? It's taller than I am. Not that it's hard to be taller than me...what's even sillier is that I don't have a piece of fabric that will work for the background.

Yesterday Didn't Feel Like a Holiday

I know, poor me. I get to have the whole summer off from work (well, mostly), so the 4th feels like just another day. Except there's fireworks. And we finally got to go swimming in the pool. Those were good things. But otherwise, I spent most of the day filling these...


And peeing and pooping this...


And I learned that photographing fireworks with a handheld digital camera is not as easy as it looks...(65 pictures later and only 3 or 4 are any good, and why did I take them anyway? No one knows. It's not like I'm going to make art out of them or like they are some representation of a picture-perfect day...I mean, my ex-husband was a huge part of the day because it was a holiday and he had the kids and they wanted me to be involved. It's all so FREAKIN' complicated). But here's a token firework picture...


And in art-related news, I finally finished tracing all 800 and something pieces of Wonder Under for the newest big piece. Pain in the butt, but but but. Now I need to cut them all out. I'm actually about halfway through that, but I think my goal of having them all cut and ironed to fabric before I leave for Seattle is IN MY HEAD. Maybe if I had another week and a lot more drive to do it.

Working Small

Work small? Work big? When I work small, it's harder for me to get enough detail in. For me anyway. Although when I was actively doing the Abstract Challenge quilts, I did OK. These are old.

Eight inches square, one word a month, make a small piece that abstracts that word. Some more abstract than others.

Flower


Female


Blue (I titled this Blue Moon...sing the song while you're looking at it)


Auto (sick, eh?)


City


Friendship. Friendship is very fussy, I think. But maybe friendships are fussy too. They shouldn't be...but I think when I made this, they were.

Visiting Graves

Funny. I thought it had only been 2 years since she died, but it's been three. Time flies. I forgot to bring flowers, so I apologized to her, but she does have flowers on her stone. I still haven't made the Sis Memorial Quilt. It's still strongly imprinted in my head, but I haven't even drawn it out. Not sure I ever will be able to. She's OK with that though. She left a bunch of her unfinished stuff with ME :-).





I think I like the pine cone motif better. Actually, what I like much better is to scatter ashes along some trail somewhere, so we can come visit it and it's not driving into a vast storage meadow where I worry about walking on someone else's dead people.