Make Art

I'm Moving

2006-11-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

My blog is moving to my very slowly developing website. Come find it at www.kathynida.com. Oops...just outed my name. Oh well...if you have a problem with anything I've written, you can take it up with my alter ego. She's responsible for anything that might get me into trouble. Me, I just make art.

I'm MELLLTTTIIINGGG

2006-11-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

First off, things you shouldn't do with a plastic bottle of honey.

Pay attention to the microwave, you silly cow.

Second, in response to a comment on You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown...first of all, I used to BE the Spelling Police, and second of all, if Bayles and Orland write "artmaking" without the hyphen, then I say whomsoever does NOT do so is fully delusional about his or her hipness in the art world.

Check it out, man. You can borrow my copy except I think I already loaned it out to another artist...Amazon.com Art
and Fear.

In other news, drawing has occured, and I am currently dealing with wiggly women and two-headed beasts. Tune in later this week for details.

Pumpkins Gone Bad

2006-11-05T13:59:00.000-08:00

Blogger's actin' weird. I don't have any buttons for adding pictures. That's too bad, because I've got an AWESOME disgusting pumpkins-gone-bad picture. Oh wait...blogger's just being slow. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm defragmenting a disk at the moment :-). Yeah.

Anyway, I think I need a shovel to get rid of these blobs.

I had an all-day meeting for school yesterday. I drew during the meeting when I got bored. I don't know why she has 4 arms. She started with 3. Like that makes sense.

Tonight, I would like to draw. Self, please allow yourself some time tonight to draw. You have two good drawings whirling around your head that need to get out. Yes, you have two-week's worth of grading to do, but even if some of your students' parents are by some amazing coincidence reading this blog, surely they must realize that you slave many many hours for your job and for minimal pay? Surely they would not begrudge you an hour of drawing time on a Sunday night?

Yeah right.

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

2006-11-03T21:48:00.000-08:00

My kids were in a play tonight: You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. One was Lucy, one was Schroeder. Not an amazing thing unless you realize how shy my kids can be. They were awesome...they projected, they knew their lines...I'm not sure who those two kids on stage really were...

In other news, I'm finding these shoes really comfortable.

They're not Crocs; they're Holeys. I wish I had 4 or 5 different colors...but my students already give me trouble for wearing them.

I had my students make paper-plate skeletons on Halloween. It was a good introduction to the skeletal system, but not really difficult. I only had half my classes that day, because of an in-school dance, so I didn't want to do something that the other two classes would suffer from missing. I think they turned out cool.

Here's the link to the instructions...

The lack of artmaking is depressing. I'm spending all day tomorrow in a school-related meeting, and I'm not even caught up on grading from the last 2-day conference. I think I should accept the lack of art during school time, but I was doing really well last year, and now I'm not. Last year at this time, I was dreaming about making art but not actually making any. Sigh.

Unexpected Money in an Envelope

2006-11-01T20:53:00.000-08:00

Get home after long day, get mail, toss endless political ads for upcoming election, see envelope from show I'm in, open, see check. Scream. OK, I didn't actually scream, but I won Best of Show at Fiber Arts 2006 at the Gallery 510 Arts Guild in Decatur, Illinois. The show just closed, so they'll ship the quilt home soon. This quilt has made more money than any other for a long time...it's not a lot of money, but it'll help pay the property taxes in December (breathe a little easier). This is a detail of the quilt.

Here are the results of all the sewing I (and my mother) have done in the last two weeks. Mom made the wizard (my machine is fussy about fancy fabrics) and I made the pirate. The bottom of the skirt was supposed to be straight, but I decided that was boring and made it jagged. Gotta have a good reason to use the fancy pinking shears. Dad wanted me to post the picture with me in it. I had to dress up for school, so I went as my natural self.

I have a new nephew who is currently nameless. We place so much importance on our names, and yet we don't choose them. Weird concept. I feel like there should be a renaming ceremony at age 25, where you get to pick a new name or keep your old one. I think I would be Zenobia, my grandmother's middle name.

OK, back to the sag paneer (Indian food) and finishing up my grades.

Ode to a Tarantula

2006-10-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

I'm guessing a giant hairy spider is going to show up the next time I'm allowed to draw. Whenever that is.

I thought maybe the tarantula was trying to molt. For days, it did this psychotic attack dance every time I walked by.

It spent a lot of time squirming around on its back, looking like a spider trying to molt.

I thought it might die. And it...he...did. I miss him.

No really, I do. Sounds weird, I know. But he was a companion for a year or so and I enjoyed watching him and yes I have a pretty screwed up life if a tarantula provides comfort.

Sleeping Beauty, died October 27, 2006
Birth unknown

Rest in peace, little hairy one.

Today I Took a Test

2006-10-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

My school made me take what was apparently a 7th grade test today. It's self-leveling, so as I got answers right, it got harder. How mean is that? I was into Calculus (and drowning) very quickly. I RECOGNIZE calculus, but I can no longer DO calculus. It was very disheartening.

My tarantula (the small one) is on its back today. It's been struggling, like it wants to molt but forgot how. I hope he's not dying. Not sure what to do for him except think good molting thoughts.

I don't get to make art right now. I was going to write that I accept that, but I don't really. I just get more and more frustrated and cranky and like I want to break out of my skin and run screaming naked through the yards of my neighbors. OK, maybe not. But you know how that feels...

Here is my oldest cat, Juni, and her new army. She is completely in control of them.

Here's a picture from the San Francisco trip. I wanted to take lots more, but never seemed to have camera out or appropriate lighting at the right time. I took this one even though the light sucked, because despite the awesome nature scene, this is a porn club. Yeah. I wanted to go closer, but felt a little um weird about it.

I went to a kids' make-a-plate event, and made plates for my kids. Hope they like them. You color on the paper and then they transfer it to these plastic plates. My kids made them when they were little. I even have my daughter's footprints on one.

I did get to see Quilt National 05 and the Gee's Bend show, both of which were very enjoyable. But frustrating, because I'm incapable of finding time to sew at the moment. I thought the best Gee's Bend quilts were those that used old work pants in their construction. They were wonderful. No question in my mind of their artness. And I really enjoyed seeing some of my favorite QN artists up close and personal. I remember seeing a Susan Shie quilt in person for the first time and having a distinctly faux-religious experience. I'm sure there's a better term for that feeling that greatness is in the room, a word that doesn't use the word "religion".

Halloween Looms

2006-10-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

What sewing I do involves optical illusions that make one sick to one's stomach. I can't actually look at the black and white fabric without getting dizzy.

A pirate costume. Yup. That's the sewing I'm doing this week. I don't have time to do any quilt stuff, so I'm making a costume instead. Yeah.

I did get into the Form, Not Function show. High Tide got in. That's cool. I'm happy about that. High Tide normally hangs in my hallway. It's in Illinois until mid-November, and then in January it goes to Indiana until March.

I was in San Francisco from Wednesday night until Sunday morning. I have other stuff to write about, but it will have to wait until I have more time. HA! OK, maybe it'll wait until I'm procrastinating about something else and log into blogger as a way to avoid the something else.

Why I Can't Make Art Excuse Number 37

2006-10-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

This week, I am going here

to hang out with a bunch of these

That's part of my job.

But I also get to go here (San Jose Quilt Museum)

to see this from 2005

because I didn't get into 2007.

So I think I will be OK.

Will I make art? Hell no. Won't be time. UNLESS! I have an idea so that I can sew on this small quilt I've had pinbasted for a million years, but I have to get my act together before I leave to get part of it machine-stitched down so I can hand stitch in San Francisco. It's a possibility. Don't hold your breath...I don't want you to turn

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mylakent/34427376/

Check out Myla Kent's photos...I love the colored smoke photos, which I found by googling (well, dogpiling) "blue" under images. But she has many other wondrous photos.

Go See This

2006-10-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

Art Quilts XI: Stages, Cycles, and Fits

Venue: Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Ave., Chandler AZ 85225. This Chandler venue is located at the northwest corner of Arizona Avenue and Chandler Boulevard in Chandler, Arizona.

Dates: Oct. 20-Dec. 30, 2006

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday; Noon to 4 p.m. Saturday

****Opening Reception: Oct. 20, 2006, 7-9 p.m.*****

Photos from the opening reception are welcome, as always. I would do a road trip, but I'm supposed to be in San Francisco for some geeky science thing that weekend. Oh yeah, like I would put the kids in the car on a Friday and say, "hey, is it OK if we go to Chandler for dinner?" 5 hours or so later...

My piece Portrait of an Ex is in this show.

Anyway, go. Go, I say.

October...Beautiful Month, But No Free Time

2006-10-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've always loved October: great weather, not too cold and not too hot. The skies are beautiful. Exercise is thoroughly enjoyable. But I don't get any art done in October. I looked back at last year's journal...same complaints of no free time, no art making happening. Makes me feel better, yet worse. Better because it's not that I'm flailing this year any more than last year. Worse because I'm still flailing.

Here's my friend J. with her miniature crazy quilt. She's been working on these tiny blocks for months. They are so delicate and gorgeous, with the most amazing fabric highlighted in the blocks. She finally stopped making them and sewed them together. I'm hoping you'll be able to see it in person at some big quilt show in the future...if so, I'll let you know, because she has just as much right to be famous as any of us.

Here's a closeup so you can see some of the amazing stitching.

Here's a scary cleaning moment in my house.

I just want to get a box and put everything in it, slap a label on it, and deliver to some kid's house in about 20 years. That would be funny. My mom did something along those lines when I bought my first house. Even my training bras were in the box. Yeah. I tossed those suckers.

Arlee reminded me to draw something in a landscape. Yup. It's in my head, the whole drawing. Too bad there's no technology for getting it out of my head onto the paper.

Reaction Time

2006-10-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

Seems Quilt National has notified its acceptances, so us losers wait for our thick, slide-filled envelopes once again. I must have QN PTSD, because my reaction was to enter another show with the rejected pieces. Hey baby...I don't make quilts because I want to enter them into shows or get them published or sell them. I make them because I have to. I ain't got no choice. So be it.

Some pieces in progress...

I keep making these little pieces on black backgrounds. Not sure what their purpose is.

I've only ever finished one...this one...called Violated II (never finished Violated). Sigh.

Head Throb

2006-10-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

Not heart throb. Must be headache season. High pressure, low pressure.

I sewed this weekend. This is what I sewed (horrible blurry picture follows.

And then I sewed this.

I didn't really sew this. I just sewed stuff ON this. Not the same. No artistic satisfaction gained from either.

Many years ago, I sewed this, and it only recently returned home after two years of traveling with one of the MasterPieces shows. It's in my hallway right now because the piece that normally hangs there is in some show until the end of November or December. I can't stand blank spaces. Its name is Third Eye Blind.

I just realized it is the first of two pieces of mine with three eyeballs. I'm on a roll. Roll...eyeballs...oh my.

I drew this during a staff meeting. Tells you how I normally feel in staff meetings. I plan to draw it bigger with lots more cool nifty stuff on it. When my head stops throbbing (or more importantly, when I get done grading the 20 tons of stuff I brought home).

I don't remember last year, this time of year. That's probably an indicator that it was just as bad as this year in terms of free time. I remember sewing like a mad woman over Thanksgiving. I don't remember getting much done. It feels worse this year. Don't know why. Maybe because I thought it would be better.

Good news. The new bras arrived. Doggy lips are not allowed near them. I killed 4 rats in all and since then, there has been no more sign of ratty rustling.

Death and Destruction

2006-09-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

Death: 2 rats, by rat trap. Eew. But I don't want those silly vectors anywhere near my house, and when I start to see multitudes of them in broad daylight? Well, it's time to take action.

Destruction: My bras. Four of them. By Puppy. Not appreciated. Luckily, VS is having its annual sale, so replacement is not totally heinous. No, that's not a picture of me. I wish.

Doesn't really count as death or destruction, but they stuck a huge needle in my heel, and ironically, now it feels better (three days later). But it's still taped up, so I'm showering with plastic bags over my foot.

Art? Not happening. I think about it a lot, but nothing's happening. I'm so disorganized at the moment that I'm scared of what ball I'm going to drop. But the skies have been nice lately.

I don't really do landscapes. In fact, my people are often floating in space. Maybe I should draw a landscape with a human ON it or IN it. Wow. If it weren't 10:26 PM and I weren't completely exhausted, I might draw that. Someone remind me of that in a week or so.

Do I Have to Admit It?

2006-09-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

Do I have to admit to going through the same Quilt National process as everyone else? Do I have to admit to how many years I've sent a "donation" to Quilt National so they could reject my work once again? Do I have to admit to having a QN plan every other year, to make a piece that is QN worthy? OK, I don't really do that. I do try to challenge myself with new pieces, pieces that push my envelope in some way shape or form, but I don't make pieces just for Quilt National. But yes, like you, I am watching the mailbox for my rejection notice. Maybe I should finish my body part crazy quilt and send THAT in one year.

I have a fabric-related goal for the evening. I don't want to deal with work. It's incredibly frustrating and irritating at the moment, and my PMS-state is such that I don't think I can deal with work even if I need to tonight. There are so many bits and pieces that cause frustration that I can't get a hold of any single one and make sense of that one piece. I walked on the problem today (meaning I walked and listened to music and let the problem float around my brain...sometimes that provides a place where my brain can create a solution). It didn't work. I drove home thinking about it too, and that didn't help. So maybe if I stop thinking about it consciously, that will help.

A friend of mine sends me pieces of ties on a regular basis to try to entice me back into the world of crazy quilting. It may work. I'm tempted.

In the past, when I've been really truly messily frustrated with my existence, I have this printed out and taped to my computer monitor (attributed to Our Lady of Guadalupe): "Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything." What's ironic about my finding comfort in that quote is that I am truly an atheist. If you've read that book where Mother Mary comes to this woman's house to stay and man I can't remember the name (and I just searched the bookshelves and can't find it), then that is kind of what gives me a good feeling. Weird. Goddess worship maybe. If you know what book I'm talking about, please remind me. My brain is turned off.

Mornings Should Be Quiet and Calm

2006-09-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

I guess when you're 50-plus years old and the kids finally move out, you actually get to have a whole cup of tea in the morning in a calm manner before it gets cold. This is my theory. Instead, the dogs have been at it for the last hour, Ivy has now peed on the floor and on a couch (first load of laundry) this morning, and when a cat (WARNING>>>GRAPHIC CONTENT FOLLOWS) starts to gaaak up her breakfast into a pile of your fabric, so you pick her up to put her on the floor, and the dogs rush her, thereby sending the puking cat into some other part of the room so I can't find the puke pile...WELL. That's it. It's 8:16 in the morning and I am irritable. I don't WANT to be irritable, but...

I got the pattern to the new Southwest block. After searching the internet and harassing my teacher, I now know that the building is a hogan, not a kiva, and the thing that looks like a tipi in the drawing is actually a tipi of wood pieces for a bonfire. I think this thing has about 200 pieces in it, which doesn't scare me, but I'm not dealing with it this morning, because I am cleaning house. Here is a pile. It has taken over a chair.

It's not really a useful chair anyway, because only three of us ever eat at this table. But the pile has been there since June. Yeah. I am a horrible housekeeper. I hate it. I want a clean house. There aren't enough hours to even get enough sleep each night, let alone be a functional artist some weeks, and I need a cleaning lady. And new carpet (no point until the Peeing Puppy stops doing her deed in the house). Even this poor old piece of embroidery isn't hanging straight.

One thing about my job that is peaceful is the drive to work. It's long, about 35-40 minutes, but the view is gorgeous. This is the valley where my school is, and some mornings the clouds sit over the valley and look like an ocean. This is not one of those days...it's a little too much like looming. But beautiful nonetheless.

So now I've yelled at the dogs and the kids, I have a nonlocated pile of cat puke somewhere in the house, and I have a cold cup of tea. Sigh.

Sore Throat

2006-09-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

Yup. The first one of the school year. Nope. Second one. Fought the first one with Airborne and won. This one...I think I'm going DOWN. I spent 3 hours on Friday getting my kids out of jail.

My kids say I'm the only mom storing crickets for the spider in the cereal cupboard. The cats go after the cage if I don't hide it. I can hear the crickets chirping away in there. I fed the tarantula at home...I had to bring one home because one of my students kept putting his hand in the cage. The other bigger one is apparently too scary for him to do that. I'll take the crickets to school to feed the bigger one tomorrow.

Speaking of school, it's not going particularly well, but I've taken steps to control certain aspects of the not-well-ness, and I will find time to make art, dammit, or die trying (I spelled that "dye" first).

I sent two quilts to the Fiber Arts show in Decatur, Illinois last week. I have to put a second sleeve on one to ship it to Chandler, Arizona. I entered a couple of shows last week, so it's not that I'm not doing art-related stuff...I'm just not making any art. My goal this week is to find the other hand applique piece so I can finish it at soccer practices (oh wait, it has another giant naked lady on it), and to trace a bunch of Wonder Under for the next quilt. I can't figure out how to get these other two quilted. I've been too tired at night. It'll have to wait until I find some more energy...in 2011.

I'm glad other people post quilts in progress on their blogs so I know the whole world hasn't stopped making quilt art. Speaking of the whole world stopping, here's a not-great picture of the 9/11 quilt top I made shortly after the event. Folded it up in September 2001 and haven't looked at it since. Couldn't even watch the memorial shows last week on TV...started watching one, started crying, and changed the channel to something that didn't cause more trauma.

Complaining, Whining, Wah.

2006-09-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

I hate this job thing where it sucks your brain out your ears, leaves you with no energy or time, and barely pays you enough to cover the bills. My work load is heavier this year, with an extra 25 or 30 students, plus a whole 'nother content area that I know nothing about. They asked me today what a Least Common Multiple was and I had to look it up. When was the last time YOU used that term? No fair answering if you're a math teacher.

Needless to say, I'm not making art. I did draw last night. I'm not sure where I was going with the drawing...it just sorta dribbled out as I watched House, then Supernova, then the Northern Exposure wannabe.

I have to sew a second sleeve on a quilt that's going to an exhibit. I hate sewing sleeves on after the quilt is done. I'm trying to get motivated to do that. Watch me get motivated...yeah...uh huh.

Gratuitous picture of kids and puppy...growing puppy...

I Have Four Minutes

2006-09-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

As usual, I'm in a rush. I got my camera back from school so I could photograph the horrible blue aquamarine crystal stuff Alex and I somehow spilled on the runner mom made for me.

But I Shouted it out! And it's gone now. Took two days.

I finished a quilt and photographed it. Here's a detail. I don't have time to clean up the big one right now. I did in fact put french knots on the aeriola thingie (however it's spelled) while in my son's piano class...they kinda looked like flowers and I folded the quilt so no one could see the rest of it. I'm so devious...can't spell though.

It's Back-to-School Night. I'm already exhausted and my feet hurt because I did a lab in class today (instead of walking 5 miles around the classroom during the day, I probably did 7).

OK, gotta go. I might be coherent later...like October.

San Diego Quilt Show

2006-09-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

Sigh. I want my city to have a good interesting quilt show, I do. I even found a friend with a working camera to take to the quilt show so I could take pictures to blog about. BUT. There was nothing worth photographing. One friend's quilt was there, but I'd seen it before, and everything else was intensely boring and sometimes even bad. I'm sure some of the traditional quilts were very well made and technically perfect, but yawn. Shoot me if you like, but I think the only reason I went was for the vendors, and even THAT was a yawn. No hand-dyes. Maybe there were some hiding in a booth somewhere surrounded by fat quarters of fabrics I could get at Rosie's, but nothing called out to me at all. Nothing. How depressing.

The evening was spent at the zoo, the Zoo at Night, to be exact, where a few animals did venture out of the dark to be seen and heard. That was nice. My camera is still at school, 40 minutes away, and I may actually have to drive there to get it so I can photograph my quilt. The one that's not done yet. Yeah. Sigh.

No pictures.

Quilt Show, No Camera

2006-09-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Silly girl. Left her camera at school. San Diego Quilt Show is this weekend. Sigh. I'll have to try to borrow one.

I'm very tired. It has been a long week. Yesterday, I gave up doing school stuff and made a cup of tea, dragged my current quilt embroidery out, and did some stitching with my headphones on. Yay.

Portrait of an Ex got into Quilt Art XI: Stages, Cycles, and Fits, in Chandler, AZ, Oct 20-Dec 30. If it reminds you of YOUR ex, that's not my problem.

Who is that lovely lady???

Cat Eating Peas

2006-08-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

I didn't quite catch him in the act...this is post pea-eating. But I saw him. Of course, you're thinking, hey...why are there peas lying around on the table? Me too. I am asking this question. I have kids...what can I say. They reject food...it can't stay on the plate...it has to be on the placemat. I would prefer trashcan, but not an option.

My son asked me today if I thought any other teachers had houses as messy as ours. What a nice boy. I said he should go to school and ask his teachers how messy their houses are, and then ask them if they have kids and a spouse. Then I told him I was joking and he shouldn't ask that, but maybe he could go clean something. He only likes to clean things with sticks (brooms, mops, etc...sticks). Kids make messes; spouses occasionally help to clean them up. At least I think I remember that.

Couldn't figure that arty blur out? Here it is from farther away. Yes, they're going to school.

But I've managed to get approximately 13 seconds of handstitching done per day since school started. Yes, I stitched for 26 seconds yesterday and none today. OK, exaggeration. I actually took the giant naked lady to my daughter's piano lesson, folded it carefully so no revealing bits showed, and stitched away on the flames at the bottom. AND I found slide film in my fridge, so I don't have to try to make a kamikaze trip tomorrow to get some.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my blood sugar is sky high, I have a deaf student and an autistic student who are great kids and a bunch of future jail residents. I'd like to think that they aren't set in stone at the age of 12, but some of the parental influence is so pervasive that I'm not sure any of us can cut through it.

On that cheery note, my checkbook needs balancing.

The Smell of Blueberry Muffins

2006-08-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

My SIL is to thank for this indulgence. I mean, it's 100 degrees plus out there, so it makes sense to turn the oven on for more than an hour to make blueberry muffins. We didn't get to pick our own berries this time (although we did spill a whole pint over the back of my car. They look good, don't they? Imagine how they smell...

I'm doing some embroidery on the Earth Mother quilt. Simple stuff. Here's the thread, perle cotton size 8. I got some more at the quilt store the other day. Didn't have enough colors. As always. I NEVER have enough colors.

I just started while the kids were swimming today. Haven't done much. Don't have much time to do it, if I want to enter this in some show this fall. So I will be a good girl this week and make sure I make time for it. By the way, so you understand my insanity, my students show up on Tuesday, all 158 or so of them.

Speaking of students, I ran into one the other day whose name I totally couldn't remember. I felt bad. But I've had over 600 students in just over 3 years, and I'm about to learn another large batch. It's amazing I can remember my own kids' names. Anyway, this was a gift from a student who blew off school to go guess where? So he brought the teachers shot glasses from his trip to Cancun. This still makes me laugh. Maybe he thought they were cute little vases. Yeah right.

Comments

2006-08-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Comments always welcome. Karoda mentioned "etching" out time for art from my job. It is a matter of using a sharp implement, not just to carve out the time, but to poke at the people who try to take the time away from you. And then to poke at yourself when you waste time doing stupid stuff like cleaning house or futzing around on the computer instead of making art, when you already gave yourself permission to make it tonight.

My goal last school year was to find more time DURING the year to make art. It happened. A little. Not as much as I'd like, and I found my mental status suffering when I didn't. My goal this school year is to get better at separating school from real life from art time. Unfortunately, I currently have 40 more students than last year and a whole new class to teach that I suck at. At which I suck, to be grammatically correct (and no, it's not grammar I'm teaching...I'd probably be OK with that).

However much I need to be planning for school tonight, I will make the time to work on this and on the embroidery I want to put on the piece I just finished binding.

I have 10 minutes before I need to leave for piano lessons and Boy Scouts...I don't really feel like I can take the embroidery with me, because of the whole giant naked lady issue. That part sucks. Maybe I should make more benign, family friendly art. Naah.

Make Art, Not Schoolwork

2006-08-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

OK, so the last two days, what I should have been doing is preparing for the new school year, driving up to school and getting my room ready, devising amazing lesson plans with the two new curricula I'm getting (but don't actually have yet), or researching intriguing methods of teaching Darwin on the web. But I didn't do any of those things. Instead, I finished the binding on the last quilt and ironed a new one whose pieces had been sitting around since April. It went really quickly, one day. I took a picture of the head in progress. Nice leafy neck.

I also took a picture of the whole thing ironed, but it was really blurry and horrible, so you'll have to wait until I have another chance to photograph it. I feel good about getting it done. School can't be my life. I mean, it CAN, but I won't let it.

The dogs are now fighting over toys. Growling and snapping and aargh. Exhausting.

Tonight, I could worry about the math curriculum, I could schedule the science curriculum, I could really worry about my class sizes (37+ kids in a classroom that seats 28), or I could quilt.

Southwest Block 10

2006-08-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Here it is. Sand Dune Arch. Arches? Can't remember. Ready for Pattern 11. No pressure, oh teacher of mine. I know you started school today. I understand. No really. I do.

I got all the binding on the new quilt. What's funny is that I was pinning the binding back at my daughter's soccer practice, praying the entire time that no one would ask to see the quilt (I had it folded with just the back showing) because it has a HUGE naked lady on it. I may be a soccer mom, but I'm a bit of a twisted example. I'm even team mom...bwa ha ha. Infiltration of the pack. I will take over the WOOOORLD.

Right. Back to sewing or ironing or some other girlie pursuit.

Dysfunctional Camera Card

2006-08-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

I guess I need a new camera card. I took pictures of my significantly nonawake kids this morning on their first day of school, and the camera says the pictures are corrupt. Corrupted? Hmn.

It did take some pictures. For instance, and I don't know if my parents read my blog regularly, but I have been searching for my 9x13" Pyrex dish for about a month now. It wasn't in the drawer where it always is. Back when I was married, if I was looking for something that I used fairly regularly and I suddenly couldn't find it, I knew my ex-husband had taken it, used it, and left it in some totally random place. I asked him if he had my Pyrex (knowing that it was unlikely). He didn't. I asked my mom if she'd seen it (she occasionally unloads my dishwasher). She hadn't.

I found it this morning. In the cupboard under my bathroom sink. Where my dad had put it to catch water drips in case the faucet he had newly installed leaked. About a month ago. You might ask why I hadn't been under the cupboards...well, he was going to adjust the faucets, so I didn't put anything away. I asked him if I should. He said no. I didn't. Until today, when I realized I was tired of tripping over the stuff, he was gone for 3 weeks and then had guests for a week, and then was off to a wedding for another few days, and it would probably be October before he had time to deal with the faucets. Which Is Fine. But I'm not tripping over all that stuff until October. So the Pyrex is found. And a man used it and left it somewhere I wouldn't even think to look for it. The universe continues.

I'm reading this book. Mom gave it to me for Xmas and after having read Angela's Ashes, which is as depressing as any book I've ever read, I just couldn't bring myself to find out what depressing notions about teaching Mr. McCourt was going to bring to the table. Then my new principal sent us a letter with 2 pages of quotes from the book, and I was intrigued. It's not bad. He's still depressing, disturbing, but somewhat funny in a cynical and sarcastic way. The Resolve? Dog is not potty trained.

Now I will use my childless day to find binding for the big quilt, trim it (have to clean the floor again because the dear sweet puppy thing peed on it again), and maybe get that done. Yeah. And start another! It's funny how it still feels sad to drop them off at school on the first day. Some reminder of their getting closer to leaving me for their own lives. What a mope I am. Meanwhile, the dogs continue to try to kill each other for fun.

And now you know how messy my house is and what kind of destruction the cats have wrought upon my furniture.

Three Hours and Counting

2006-08-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

Actually, three hours of just quilting the background. I think it took another three or four to do the line quilting in the darker color. But I'm done. And that's a good thing.

This picture of wrinkled paper intrigues me. I'm not really an abstract artist, but I keep taking weird abstract pictures for ideas. I'm also not really a landscape artist (I didn't draw those Southwest blocks), but I keep taking landscape pictures too. I guess you can't really take pictures of the stuff I make into art.

Yesterday, I had to go to three sewing stores to find this thread. My extremely local quilt store has a not-great selection of rayon thread and this background is a weird gray blue color, so nothing matched. I went there yesterday on the way to my daughter's soccer game. Then I went to a JoAnn's that I normally don't go to, because it was near the Birkenstock store, and I needed new shoes for school. That JoAnn's obviously caters to a different clientele, because they had a totally strange collection of thread, none of which was appropriate. So I gave up and made my driver (yeah, right) head north on the freeway to the other JoAnn's, where I found the right color in 3 seconds flat, and then in true JoAnn's fashion, spent an inordinate amount of time waiting in line to pay for it as some woman argued over the sale flyer and what was in her basket with the clerk. I hate that place. It is a necessary evil, I guess.

I bought three spools. I usually only buy one, but this is a big quilt, so I figured I would need two, and then I thought I'd ran out on the last big quilt, so I bought three. Don't question my logic. I did of course forget to buy any for the next pinned quilt, which was really dumb, because now I'll have to go back tomorrow. Sigh.

I have two days before I have to be at school. I don't have enough helpful information to feel prepared to start teaching again. Know that I do not wish to be a principal or a superintendent, but I do know that there are ways to deal with staff effectively, and I have yet to have a principal who seems to understand that. Maybe it is my years in the corporate and freelance world, where bad behavior tends to get you fired or to have all your employees quit.

Then I took this picture of some window film back in May 2005. Another weird abstract that intrigues me. Maybe I should use them as backgrounds.

Tomorrow, I will do some hand embroidery and maybe some inking on the quilt. I will probably have to go buy binding fabric, unless miraculously I have something appropriate in my stash in enough yardage. It seems unlikely. The kids have their first day of school. I feel their pain.

Insert Additional Animal and Increase Heat

2006-08-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

Not a good equation. My parents are traveling, so Missy comes to visit again. Yet now Ivy is here too, so the two spent all day yesterday playfighting. Exhausting to watch or even hear, and I worry when Ivy's entire head fits into Missy's mouth. Seems Missy is getting Pissy.

Eventually, though, the heat and exhaustion kicked in and they stopped fighting over the toys. The dogs that is. The kids are still fighting, but since school starts MONDAY, these are the last few days of summer for them.

I pin-basted this piece yesterday. Had to clean the entry floor first, and then some dog peed on it after I had finished. The floor, not the quilt. Ugh. Although someone (I'm not naming names) peed on another quilt on which I'm still trying to sew the binding. So I can't throw it in the washing machine, because it still has pins in it, but I can't stand the pee smell to finish the hand sewing. I don't even know how it ended up on the floor. I rinsed it out (the pee was still wet) and hung it up to dry. We'll see how that goes.

I don't have enough free pins around now to pin-baste another quilt, so I'll have to finish quilting this one before I do another. Like that's a problem! Although I did finally find the master drawing for one I've been working on since April...couldn't iron it until I found that. My studio is a disaster still, despite an entire summer of "free time" to clean it up and organize it. I have come to the conclusion that there is just Too Much Stuff in there to actually clean it satisfactorily. And I sold some of it and took a bunch to the thrift shop. I know the problem. It's an 8-foot by 10-foot room that is my office for school and my art studio. There are three tables, a file cabinet, and 3 bookshelves. I need more bookshelves (Dad, are you reading this? Are you going to help me build the second story for my library???).

And yes, I know I can buy more pins at the store. I'm ignoring that fact in hopes that I will actually finish something this summer out of necessity.

More importantly, I started quilting. Unfortunately, it is hot here and my foot pedal is even hotter. I am currently waiting for it to cool down so I can quilt some more. I burnt my toes. And before you tell me to put shoes on, I don't really feel like I have good control of the foot pedal with shoes on. I've tried socks, but they're too slippery and the heat goes through them pretty quickly.

Maybe I should finish writing my Christmas thank you notes instead. Don't say it...

Backs

2006-08-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

I finished stitching down all the pieces on my current fabric wonder. Why do I do this? Because they don't stay down otherwise. I know that some quilt artists do not stitch them down, or they let the quilting hold everything down, but I don't. So there. First of all, I'm not using just hand-dyed fabrics, so they don't always stick as well as they should (that and the crappy old Wonder Under I keep using not on purpose). I enjoy picking out weird and appropriate (or inappropriate, as the case may be) commercial fabrics for each part of my quilts. Hence, there is always an image on the back that is hidden away as soon as I sandwich the sucker.

Here's the chick who resembles Mother Mary.

And here's her weird little kid.

And as far as actual quilting goes, I like the image to pop out, so I usually use a black or dark thread to go around and line everything, and then I use some allover pattern in the background. I'm really way more about the image than the quilting. I like a texture in the background, because I think it makes the unquilted areas more apparent. I like LOOKING at quilts with amazing quilting (Melody Johnson www.fibermania.blogspot.com and Robbi Joy Eklow www.robbieklow.com are two I've enjoyed recently), but their stuff is more abstract than mine, and it lends itself to quilting like that.

Anyway, that's my view on quilting my own pieces. Your mileage may vary. Speaking of mileage, how irritating is it that gas prices fall the day after you fill your tank? Sheesh. I coulda used that 30 cents.

HA!

2006-08-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hey. You know who you are. Happy birthday! Scary...huh?

Life Interrupts

2006-08-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

It always does. I spent yesterday at Legoland with my daughter and her friends for her birthday party. It was actually fun, but exhausting, and it meant I got no quilting done on Monday or Tuesday. Prince Charming kissing Sleeping Beauty looks really weird in Legos.

Monday was filled with housecleaning (yes, I did it...no really) and replacing my windshield, which cracked I believe because some bad juju is hanging around me and trying to spend all my money. I didn't have the money to spare, but it's gone now, so I guess the juju is successful. I should draw the juju. Actually, I tried to draw last night, but I was too tired and I was watching something with subtitles. Note to self: you cannot draw during TV with subtitles.

That's my son hanging upside down in that thing. I did it with him the first time, and it took about 45 minutes before my stomach stopped moving around without me. So he did it with some complete stranger teenaged boy the second time (SECOND time? Is he NUTS?).

Today I am exhausted. Not enough sleep. Not enough rest. Still have 40 million errands to do and only three weekdays until the kids start school. I bought batting and washed it (yes I'm anal), so I'm ready to sandwich this baby as soon as I get it done. Maybe today. This little piggie gives up and takes a nap. Like that's an option.

Priorities

2006-08-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

I laid out the backing on my floor...it's linoleum, so I just iron right onto it, although it helps if the room is CLEAN (more on cleanliness below). Then a puppy kamikazes into it and I yell and have to reposition the fabric.

Then I lay out all the pieces and try to get them to line up and iron them down enough so they'll stick. Then I pick it up and do a serious iron with water spritzing and counting to 30 and all that official stuff. Then I try to figure out what pieces I've lost (I wrote most of them down, and they're usually the really little ones, the ones the size of grains of rice). I replace all those.

Then I start sewing. And I sew until my foot pedal gets too hot to stand on, and that's my enforced breaks, so I don't get pain in the back or shoulders. Yes, the repair guy has taken apart my pedal and can't find a reason for the excessive heat, but I'm sure it will catch fire some day while I'm sewing, and it will be at a really bad time, and I won't be able to get a replacement for weeks.

Back to CLEAN. I have little girls and their moms coming on Tuesday for my daughter's birthday excursion. My house is not clean. It doesn't even approach clean. I mean, there's clutter, but under the clutter it is not clean. If I had a choice, I would spend the next two days quilting this sucker. But you know I will have to clean. At least some. So I will balance the cleaning (which the kids will help with) and the quilting (which the kids will NOT help with). In the end, the house will still be a bit messy and cluttered, and the quilt will probably not be done, but I will be happier then if I left the house the disaster area that it is today.

My fairy godmother needs to bring me a cleaning lady.

A Woman Fused

2006-08-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

She's fused from head to knee. The lower legs will be attached when I fuse to the background, as will the horrible halo thing that has Wonder Under Stickiness Issues. She will look different when I quilt, because I quilt with a dark thread, and I will probably ink and embroider also for more definition. She is so calm looking. Obviously this is NOT a self portrait. Today, if the kids behave and if I am paying attention, I will get her fused onto the background.

Hi, I'm Kathy, and I'm a Fabriholic

2006-08-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

It's true. I can't deny it. I've been fighting the urge to acquire fabric for about 3 weeks now. Almost every day, I come up with a roundabout way to find time to go to the local fabric store, and every day, I talk myself out of it. No money. Can't afford it. Have plenty (ha! as if that's possible).

Yesterday, a friend who is downsizing handed me a box. One of those boxes that you buy a million reams of paper from some office supply store in...a big box. And a bag. ALL FULL OF FABRIC. Oooh.

I managed to keep out of the box until after dinner tonight, and now I'm washing it all (yes, I'm anal, and also allergic to fabric chemicals). It's gonna take about three loads, I think, maybe four, and I am orgasmic.

See, the thing is, everyone has their fabric buying niche. You buy the same colors and tones, and when you realize you're doing that, you try to go out of your way to buy in a different color, to build up your stash of yellows, or like when I started the Southwest quilt, I knew I needed more orange, brown, red in the earth tones that you see in Utah, so I went shopping especially for that. But my friend, she buys in a different tone than I do, and that's what makes her donation to the poor me so awesome. There's stuff in there I don't think I ever would have THOUGHT to buy, but it so complements what I've got.

AND. There's a brown fabric I must have bought in about 1990, when I first started quilting. I love that brown. I use it in applique all the time. It's probably in 90% of my quilts. It is the quintessential brown. And I have maybe a 3" square of it left. I probably bought 1/2 a yard back in 1990, and I don't use big pieces of it usually, and recently I've been more careful about using it up. She had a good 1/2 yard piece of it in her stash. I Worship This Woman. I owe her like homemade cookies or a stripper or something. Not sure what.

On another note...
I entered two shows today. I was feeling lame and stupid about having spent the whole summer NOT accomplishing diddly squat in the quilt arena. At the beginning of the summer, I needed to finish 3 quilts. I start school in 11 days, 11 hours, and 40 minutes (not counting), and I still need to finish those 3 quilts. Aargh. But I managed to enter these shows and consider entering three more in the next month or so (assuming I finish at least ONE of these three looming over my head).

There are photos that go with this post, but Blogger AGAIN is having issues with posting them. I'll try later.

Less Spider Content

2006-08-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking I should find a spider webring to link to, since I seem to have more spider content than quilt content some days.

My daughter, whose 9th birthday is today, bought herself a Venus Fly Trap (as many daughters that age probably do, right?). Yes, this is a freaky picture of her.

My mom helped my daughter catch some flies and put them in a ziplock bag, so she could bring them home to feed the Venus Fly Trap. No, my mom is not clinically insane, but she is a little wacky.

Then my mom called me later and asked me if I wanted another tarantula (because I love spiders So Much, let me tell you). Well, as part of the Official Science Teacher Code, I am required to take any animal offered me, dead or alive, creepy or cute, poisonous or benign, so I said stupidly Yes, gimme the big scary spider. As I'm on the phone with my mom (who found the creature in her backyard...well, the dog found it anyway), I'm imagining my dad in the background, restrained by my mom, as he holds a shovel up in the air yelling "Get out of the way! I'm taking that thing DOWN!!!"

The hardest part about the new tarantula was getting it into the container, because it decided it wanted to go the OTHER way, up the tupperware, where my hand was, so I screamed like a girl and dropped the tupperware, the wooden spoon, and the tongs (all good spider-controlling equipment). I did manage (with help) to get that sucker back in the container. It's HUGE. Probably 4 times the size of the other one (which is now so obviously a juvenile). This thing creeped me out so bad that I had to leave it outside until I went to bed, and then I woke up in the middle of the night and weighted down the top (Super Spider will BLAST the top off the container!). Yick.

Quilt Content: here is a leg. Yes, I know most legs don't have cats on them or brightly colored yin/yang symbols, but wait 'til you see the rest of it. Hopefully today, in between making birthday cake and driving around the city to drop off and pick up kids, I will be able to make art. Yeah.

On Sunday, We Iron

2006-08-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

And that's what I've been doing. In fact, I'm still mentally in that mode, so I'm having a hard time coming up with words for this entry. Amazing, eh?

I had this vine ironed Friday night, or maybe it was Saturday morning...can't remember. It ironed fine. But then when I started working on some stuff above the head, I ran into monstrous Wonder Under problems. I don't know whether I had another bad batch of Wonder Under, or if I didn't throw out all the bad stuff, or what, but a third of the pieces had the really sparse webbing of one kind of bad batch, another third had the problem where the paper won't come off the fusible, and the last third was fine. I was seriously frustrated, and not looking forward to hours of fighting this stuff, not to mention what the last batch did to my sewing machine. Sigh.

But after taking 24 hours off from that (and recognizing the influence of PMS in my life), I started up again. I had a critic, though. Limbo was not sure of my color choices. Actually, he just wanted to play with the long pieces of fabric I was flipping around on the ironing board. He eventually left for less stressful arenas.

And I managed to finish the base piece with very few problems. A good sign.

Now I have to go grocery shop, or we all starve. I'll probably have to cook too. Sucks.

Progress Is MINE

2006-08-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

OK, that's a little over the top. But I'm so happy to be finally Putting This Dang Quilt Together. I started tracing Wonder Under and cutting it out in June sometime, I think. Then ironing all those pieces in July. Finished cutting the 821st piece this afternoon, and started ironing them soon after.

They look so pitiful in this box. Like there's no way all these inky dinky pieces are going to make anything of significance (and that may well be true). But I am spurred on by the arrival home of two quilts today that were in shows in Santa Cruz and Pennsylvania. Two more will ship off next month to Illinois. Another one is traveling the world...I don't even know where it is right now. So it's time to make something new.

I did pin-baste a quilt yesterday, an older quilt that I put together in January, but I don't really like it. It needs a lot of extra work, I think, like inking and maybe even embroidery, so I put it on the bottom of the priority list because it will take too long to finish. I honestly have about 2 1/2 weeks before school starts, and that's it. My goal this year was to finish more quilts than last year, and right now, I suck.

I did like how the leaves went together for the newest quilt. I ironed them real quick before the kid's piano lesson, with the damn cat continuing to try to sit in the middle of the carefully arranged pieces.

Unfortunately, Blogger is determined that I Post No Bills um Photos. Later, my precious buzzy bees. I will post photos once Blogger allows.

Tarantula Update

2006-08-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

Because that's why you're reading this blog...for the tarantula.

He's out. He's molted. He's getting BIGGER and HAIRIER. All things I adore in a spider...yick. Maybe someday soon I'll know what kind of tarantula he is. He used to be really nonhairy and medium brown. He's getting blacker and getting longer hair. Very interesting. Now back to fabric...

I'll upload the molted picture once Blogger comes to its senses...

Finally! I can upload. The tarantula is on the left, his molt on the right. He is significantly bigger. And creepier. Tarantula puberty.

A Tarantula on Its Back

2006-08-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

Um, OK, let me preface this with the fact that I am a science teacher. Because I am a science teacher, kids bring me animals. Sometimes they're alive. Sometimes they're roadkill. Sometimes they're animals I can stand to keep. This one...well, he's questionable. The kid who gave him to me, also questionable. Anyway, Sleeping Beauty (oh, I did NOT name him) has been with me for about 9 months. In the beginning, he refused to eat. I thought he was going to die until I saw him kill that first cricket. Then he finally molted, how exciting...I didn't see it happen, but I saw the molt and was thrilled, so I gave him a bigger cage. Then today, we had just dumped in a new batch of crickets and I had walked past him to check on the dinner status, and he was lying on his back.

OOOH! Say all you who know tarantulas. Realize that nowhere in my teacher manuals is there anything about tarantula behavior. So I freaked out and thought he was dying. I tapped on the side of the container, and he moved, so I didn't know what to think. Google. Amazing thing, Google. Apparently, this little sucker is going to molt again. Wow. Very cool. But also apparently it's bad to have the crickets in there while he's molting because he's very vulnerable. So my son, a 10-year-old with a very strong heart, offered to pick out all the crickets by hand (with a molting tarantula in the cage). Weird kid, yes. I tried using a fish net, but shockingly the little suckers kept jumping out of the net. And then, since apparently he's not going to want to eat for a week or so post-molt, and because I don't have a great method for keeping crickets alive for very long, I let the crickets go in my yard.

It's been a weird afternoon. Here's Sleeping Beauty now. On his back. Explains why he's been so cranky lately. And he's gonna want sex afterwards. Silly boy...I don't have any spare female tarantulas lying around (thank god).

Maybe I'll be able to get a molt picture later. Because I know there's a bunch of Quilt Art people reading this blog and it has absolutely nothing to do with fabric (oh hey, I sewed a backing together today. Wooo!). There. Fabric content.

Actually, I'm currently sewing up a snake. A fabric snake.

Lovely Rainy Weather

2006-07-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-19T23:38:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

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.

All Together Now

2006-06-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Here's all nine blocks so far. I think there are three more. I might actually have to finish this quilt...what a concept.

Blurriness caused by shaky hands caused by illness caused by student. Must rest now.

Southwest Block Number 9...Number 9...Number 9

2006-06-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

Canyonlands. Not sure about it. It'll be fine with the others, I think.

I need to try to cut out block number 10 sometime in the next two days. The 10th block is Sand Dune Arches in Utah. It's too dang hot here to do anything, unfortunately. I did a little cleaning. I have been working on my brother's T-shirt blocks. I'm running errands, because stores are air-conditioned and my house isn't. Sad, eh? And I have a cold, a parting gift from one of my loving students. So I feel like crap. Warmed over.

Now that's sleeping. We named the puppy Ivy. Only name all three of us could agree on. She seems OK with it.

Jim's Quilts

2006-06-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Two years ago (last time I was in Seattle) I delivered a T-shirt quilt to my brother. I finished the binding while watching TV in his living room. His wife had sent me a box of his old T-shirts, all the ones from high school and college that were sorta old and falling apart, the ones you can't bear to get rid of because of their HISTORICAL significance. You know what I'm talkin' about.

So I get this box and I start cutting out pictures and logos and stuff, and I iron them all onto some stabilizer so they won't stretch, and I start piecing sashing randomly around the edges, and I lay them all out, and I've got enough for like 3 or 4 quilts, man. THREE OR FOUR. So I finished one two years ago. It took me about 7 months to do it, because I'm lame. Anyway, in the process of cleaning out my studio for art-making summer activities, I found the box with all the leftover pieces, because I only made ONE quilt...not THREE OR FOUR. What kind of quilter am I? (A normal one.)

Here's the pile of remaining T-shirt pieces, some sashed, mostly not.

Here's the extra blocks from the last (first?) quilt. I feel motivated. Slightly :-). Can't ask for more than that...

Countdown 14 days until we leave for Seattle. Bwa ha ha. Meanwhile, I'm looking closely at my kids who learned how to make placemats at Grandma's house over Winter Break. Hmn. How can I use this resource wisely...

Puppy (What the Hell Was I Thinking?)

2006-06-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

OK, so I've wanted a new puppy since my good old dog died almost 3 years ago. I almost got one at Christmas, but a tree fell and I had to figure money stuff out, so it didn't happen. And I really wanted to get one at the beginning of the summer so I could train it all summer without having to deal with school too. I wanted a puppy because I have 4 cats, one of which is dog-shy, so I needed a baby whose brain could be molded.

So here she is.

She's a boxer mix, probably Shepherd (looking at her sisters). She's the runt of the litter and very sweet.

When she first saw Limbo (cat), she bounded over like "Oh BOY! Someone to play with!" Limbo's response was a little less excited, but I'm hoping because the puppy is smaller than the cats still, that she and they will grow into this relationship.

I made a few pound and humane society trips this weekend, but all the puppies were already on hold. I went to the local pet store to get crickets for the tarantula, and the local shelter had puppies. Man oh man. Once you get that "I want a puppy" thought in your head, there's no removing it. Now I have a new baby in the house who is not potty-trained, not sleeping through the night, and needs a lot of attention. I am nuts. But it was worth it last time, so I think it will be this time too.

In other news, I'm tired and maybe coming down with sickness. The house is still a disaster area, although I'm working on that. I think Ione thinks she can rock the puppy to sleep. Hmn. Silly girl.

OK, another big life change under my belt. Next I'll take up karate and shave my head (very tempting in this weather).

Two

2006-06-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

Two minimum days of school left...and counting. My fabric is singing a siren song. The yard and the house will not win this war...

I Touched Fabric Today

2006-06-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

The label I made for the back of Still Life (with all my identifying info scribbled out...in case my students are trolling the art quilters webring!). I fuse them on and then buttonhole the edges, to make it harder for someone to rip it off. Like someone's gonna do that to one of my quilts. I'm hoping to get this quilt ready to ship tonight, although grading finals will probably get in the way of that.

I finished the applique for the Egypt quilt. My teacher Susan drew the pattern from an Egyptian wallhanging her parents brought back from there many years ago. I decided bright colors were the way to go. It still needs embroidery. It's taken me a whopping 22 months of nonstop sewing on other things in order to get this done. No, I don't sew on it much. Now I just need to finish it.

And most importantly, I found the WD-40. Look in the middle, where the big white arrow is. There it is! Now why did I put it there? No one knows.

I Found This Note...

2006-06-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

On a serious note, the only fabric-related stuff I've done this week (besides go to quilting class) is shorten my son's shorts. He doesn't like the super-long shorts that are the fashion now, so I cut 7" off the bottoms and sewed them up. He's very happy. I also had an hour-long discussion of puberty with him and his sister tonight. He actually listened and asked questions, and then asked if there was any way he could avoid it altogether. Um...sweetie...no. Prepare for the roller coaster ride.

Four days of school left...

I was reading Laura Cater-Woods Idea to Image newsletter tonight, and she's talking about reducing mental clutter as well as physical clutter (see my blog about piles and more piles) before we can create. And how she's looking forward to 6 uninterrupted weeks of creating in her studio. Yes. That's my summer. I have 8 weeks. One week in Seattle, which will be good. One week of work-related stuff. But I'm not giving up any more of the weeks, no matter how much school pressures me. I need that time. I've been so frustrated and cranky and short-tempered the last few weeks because I can't find even a moment to make art...I say that, but I drew last night a little. And I try to draw every Sunday morning, because I can find the time and a nice hot cup of tea. And I've been trying to find even one evening a week when I don't have to grade something. But it's still not enough.

I love Laura Cater-Woods' work, so here's a link to her website. She's not blogging at the moment, and I can't find the link to her newsletter subscription...http://www.cater-woods.com/. Found it! It's on the Links page, scroll down if you're interested. She emails a newsletter with some words about creativity. It reminds me to go to her website and see what new work she has.

My son said today he doesn't want to have kids because he sees how horrible some of them are. I asked him if my kids were OK. He said maybe.

This time next week? Art will be in progress...

Summer is Short

2006-06-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

It hasn't even started yet, and it's getting shorter every day. I was accepted into the leadership program I applied for...good news is more money and resources for my classroom, bad news is I lose a week of summer quiltmaking. Oh well. I'll just have to be THAT MUCH MORE efficient. Sigh.

If I get to the end of the summer and I haven't finished a single quilt, yell at me.

From what I remember, this is a really bad digital picture of the quilt above my bed. It was done in a Joan Colvin class (go on...tell me how derivative it is) many years ago. I like it, but I think I need new art above my bed, and I have many quilts here that have not seen the light of day for a while. So...A Study in Flesh will be retired for a while.

There was no drawing for this...I freehand cut the whole thing. Seems insane, and explains why her boobs are making a run for her neck...or her neck has simply disappeared...and don't even let me get into the whole headcovering thing. Sigh.

More Pile Commentary

2006-06-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

I think my problem with my studio is that it is a disaster area, mostly because I am near the end of the school year and haven't had time to put stuff away since Spring Break. Plus I'm gearing up to make a bunch of quilts this summer, so I have stuff out for that. But I don't want to WASTE any time organizing or cleaning up. (note...in the previous post on piles, there was mention of a quilt in one pile that I was scared to look at in case it was unfinished...you'll be glad to know it IS finished and has since been moved to The Room of Finished Quilts.) I know deep down that organizing my space is not really a waste of time. I just don't feel like it.

Here's a cool picture...

On Tour

2006-06-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Last year's Husqvarna MasterPieces quilt, Lost, is traveling. Check for a show near you. Email me a picture of you and my quilt, and I'll post it. You'll be FAMOUS! Yeah.

Lyon, France, Patchwork & Quilt Expo X, Palais des Congres de Lyon
June 22nd - June 25th 2006

Birmingham, Great Britain, Festival of Quilts, NEC
Aug 17th - 20th 2006

Åhus, Denmark
Aug 28th - Sep 18th 2006

Tirol, Austria
Oct 26th - Oct 29th 2006

Australia (don't know where!)
Jan - Feb 2007

Hjörring, Denmark, Vendsyssel Historiske Museum
April - May 2007

It travels way more than I do.

Here's the Katrina picture that Blogger wouldn't post on the last one.

Piles

2006-06-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading a couple of posts yesterday about piles of stuff enabling you to actually be more efficient about making stuff. My mom collects patterns and fabric, and then puts them all in a Rubbermaid box or in some sort of zip-up bag, and I suspect many of them will still be carefully packed up this way in 2050, when she finally passes on to the great quiltshop in the sky. My piles are not so clear cut, not so organized. I pity the child who inherits my piles.

For instance, a pile of background fabric for quilts, some in progress, some not, and one unfinished quilt that I'm not even sure what it is, but I'm scared to look, because I might have to add it to the list of things to finish this summer. Notice how my bra finally got put away. OK, it didn't get put away...I'm wearing it at the moment. But that's inherently better than storing it on a pile of quilt backgrounds.

And here's a piles of applique quilt blocks that may never become a quilt, because I am too impatient to finish it, plus an unfinished quilt that was a foreshadowing to my divorce, and I don't really like it. Maybe when I'm 50...

A pile of stuff that needs to be combed through and either put away or ebayed. Some of it has been in there since I moved from the last house. I'm frightened of what's at the bottom.

I will never get all my fabric put away. There is a shelf there, I swear. I haven't seen it in 5 plus years.

More random fabric piles. I don't even know why stuff ends up in piles like this. Another unfinished quilt. Sigh.

And some relief from the pile issue. I'm fascinated (as are many) by zebra stripes. But I've seen enough well-done, very competent zebra quilts, that I don't really feel a need to make one. I do want to try to use the idea of the stripes on something else, though. That's an idea for a drawing.

Yesterday, I saw the Al Gore movie, An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming. A good movie, though depressing. But the image of Hurricane Katrina showed up in this morning's drawing, as I'm sure it has in many people's artwork in the last year.

I Think

2006-06-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

I think that it is silly for me to try to make significant art during the last 2 weeks of school. I'm way too stressed out and tired to be able to think straight. I need a glass of wine to relax, and that will just put me to sleep. In fact, the only thing keeping me awake right now, honestly? Sheesh. No idea. The feeling that it's too early to go to sleep. Because I have two drawings knocking around in my brain, and I might be able to get one on paper. But I'm not relaxed enough yet. I'm exhausted, but tense. Not a good place.

I don't think I ever put this piece on the web in its entirety. It's called So Deep, So Wide after a Peter Gabriel song, Walking on the Water. It was finished this year, I think. I consider it a post-divorce quilt...it has a calmer feel to it. Although, it's amazing. I talked to a woman today who is where I was about 4 years ago, and it's like PTSD. The stuff she was saying, the inability to understand her husband's behavior. It all comes back to you...at a distance, but still there. Like an ache from an old surgery. It's disturbing. I feel for her. There are too many broken up pieces of people who are remnants of other people's bad relationship decisions. I don't know what causes that...I'd like to stop my children from behaving that way. I don't know if I can.

Yeah, a glass of wine. And early to bed.

A Small Success

2006-06-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

Silly me. I forgot. I did get into a show, the Santa Cruz Art League's 2nd Annual Fiber Art Exhibit. Man, that's a long title. It's at 526 Broadway in Santa Cruz, California, from July 1 through July 30. The reception is Saturday, July 8, from 3-5 PM. The hours of the art league are normally Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 5 and Sunday from noon to 4.

Still Life with Bloody Head got in. Um. So I should finish the hand sewing on the binding, eh? Yeah. Shh. You didn't hear that. Woo.

I am unfortunately previewing AIDS videos for my students, and they are all HORRIBLE. I'm watching Linda Ellerbee (remember her? Not sure I got the name right) and Magic Johnson talk to a bunch of little kids about putting a condom on. Yikes. 1992 was an awfully long time ago.

Drawing in My Head

2006-06-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

I've found a shortcut in my artmaking. Instead of actually drawing the art out, making patterns, cutting the fabric, ironing, and then quilting the final product, I'll just imagine the pictures in my head, do all the work up there, in between nerve cells, and that'll be it. I mean, I don't have time to actually MAKE the art, let alone spare money to finish the pieces or send them out to shows. I can't say I don't have enough fabric to make them...I do. Probably could make 20 or 30 before it got to be a desperate issue, but I wouldn't have enough big pieces for backgrounds or backings or bindings, and I'd run out of batting pretty quickly. Sigh. Yes, it's been a stellar week for artmaking here.

I have, however, managed to get my pool to THIS color, a shade much closer to blue (and swimability) than previously seen in such blogs as "Ducks Having Sex" and "Two Mallards in a Brokeback Moment". Of this, I am proud. It might have been easier (and even cheaper) to hire a pool guy, though.

I spend time reading other people's blogs, and even in the art quilt world, many people are blogging pictures of their beautiful gardens, blooming flowers, wondrous lawns, etc this time of year. As you can clearly see, I have done nothing to enhance the beauty of the overgrown jungle that is my yard. I did not choose that fountain, by the way. And some of the plant issues are from a tree that fell over in a wind storm...my neighbor's tree. A wind storm about 3 years ago. Sigh.

The upper yard is currently harboring a coyote, which I've seen twice and heard about a million times (see previous posts on "An Elephant Tromping by My Window"). I suspect a chainsaw will be needed to clear this out. There is a path...really.

I have been adding animals to the household. These will go to school for the last three weeks. They are busy little worker...um...ants. Very industrious. Makes me tired just to watch them continuously building new tunnels and destroying old ones. Reminds me of doing laundry and dishes, or cleaning floors. What's the freakin' point???

Another new addition...the Beetle That Scared My Sister. Not MY sister. I ain't got no stinkin' sister. But my son brought this home from his dad's house...and now I need to know what to feed it...besides his sister.

And last, a pizzly or a grolar bear. Half polar bear, half grizzly, all dead. Thanks to the hunters, we can't do much but DNA analysis on this hybrid. Freaky. Thanks to National Geographic for the weirdest pictures I've seen all year.

Am I going to make art tonight? I doubt it. Am I going to make art this week? Sigh. I don't even want to think about it. It's too depressing.

The Age of AIDS

2006-05-31T21:12:00.000-07:00

I'll be teaching kids about AIDS in the next couple of weeks (along with some other reproductive stuff). I found myself getting angry at a parent who wanted their child spared from any images of homosexuals with regard to AIDS, because I had mentioned sexual transmission in the letter home. Just to clarify...I didn't get angry TO her...but just angry at the thought of her issues. I kept my feelings quiet...until I got home, that is. The video I am hoping to use in class is of an 11-year-old boy who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Now I will have to preview it for any imagery of homosexuals and call her to make sure she is OK with whatever I discover. And if she doesn't want him to see a homosexual (um, does she want to know that we have homosexual students?), then I will have to (1) find a special home for him in another class for a day and (2) provide him with something relevant and useful to do for that hour that does not mention homosexuality.

I wonder why Americans are so obsessed with labeling AIDS...STILL...a homosexual disease. I've been watching Frontline's 4-hour special The Age of AIDS, which is really good. It does a nice job of focusing on all the different pieces of who got sick and how, and how we've dealt with it politically and scientifically. I wish I could force the kids to sit through all 4 hours, although they'd tune it out. I'm just disturbed by this parent. Ignorance.

I think you'll be able to watch The Age of AIDS online Friday at 5 PM ET, if you're interested.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/

A picture of the AIDS quilt, to make this quilt-related.

My Life in Pictures

2006-05-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

I don't know what month it is. And I'll only have 2 days of staring at the picture for May before I have to switch to June...although I'll probably just forget to switch it until sometime in July.

Found my purple bra. Next to the purple background fabric I used for my last quilt and on top of the blue background fabric I'm using for the one that's all cut out and lost somewhere in my studio, waiting to be ironed together. Why is my bra here? I do not know. I think it got tired of being with the other underthings and decided to make friends with the creative fabrics in the house.

This poor creature is lying dead in my hallway. I'm not sure what to do with her.

If I traveled more (with other people driving), I might get more quilts done. This is about 150 pieces of the next big quilt. I couldn't cut out all the little tiny rock pieces...the freeway is just too damn bumpy. All those uneven bits. What are my tax dollars paying for again?

Mom. Don't defrost meat on the counter. My tummy is wiggy 3 hours after dinner, and it wasn't the milk, the corn, or the strawberries. That leaves the chicken. Mom, I love you, but the Centers for Disease Control have deemed your meat defrosting method as deadly. The US Food and Drug Administration is apparently also concerned with meat defrostation. Read this...it's short and to the point: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qa-fdb11.html.

Obsessed

2006-05-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

Nineteen days of school left. Don't write me and tell me you're done next week. I'll commit murder. Nineteen days though. Nineteen days until I can wake up later and stay up fondling fabric into the wee hours and SEW and make quilts and and and. Sigh. I should do some of that tonight. (not the stay up late part, but the fabric part).

Do you ever get an urge, an almost painful urge, to buy fabric? I hate being this money-challenged. It's been almost four years, and it sucks. I want to go splurge on some new bright piece for my stash, some new funky batik that's perfect for the new quilt in progress, some wonderful black and whites.
Oh yeah, like some of THIS...and THIS...and THIS. oooooh.

Fabric orgasm.

Sleepy Cranky Unproductive

2006-05-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

But I'm NOT unproductive. That's what's scary. I draw (speaking of scary...I'd show you the rest, but a cat is sleeping on the sketchbook)...

And progress is made on the bird turd block, which SUCKS. Not because I think it will look bad in the end, but because it has a lot of teeny tiny fingerlike-projection pieces that make me want to pull my hair out, and I'm appliqueing navy blue onto other navy blue and I can't see it at all. Right now, it looks like NOTHING!

But this is how I feel...

I'm Trying to Draw

2006-05-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

Matt Groening...bless you, man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Hell. There is a http://www.mattgroening.com/, but don't even go there.

I told you. But you didn't want to believe me. Again. What a disappointment. Maybe Matt has too much stress in his life too. Maybe the dust bunnies are taking over his living room and he can't get into the right mood to design a webpage.

It's been a crappy week. Too much work. Too much stress at work. Didn't feel well all week. Fought a migraine. Sinus pressure. GOT NO ART DONE AT ALL. And that sucked. So tonight, even though I'm not caught up on work stuff, even though I have a mountain of housecleaning to do, even though the world will probably end if I don't do something besides art (isn't that the truth?), I'm drawing. No really. I am.

Not that. That's old. It was in the way of my camera. Did I say my blood sugar is too high too? Stress. Causes it. I need to exercise more. I need to stress less. I need more time. It's tentatively called Celery Girl. No, I don't know what it means. Don't even ask.

Do you have donuts? I want donuts.

Oh baby.

Ode to Teachers on Open House

2006-05-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

If you are a parent going to a school Open House sometime in the next few weeks, pat the teacher on the arm and thank them. Because they stayed late yesterday for a staff meeting from hell, and they were at school this morning at 6:45 AM. Then they taught all day, which included supervising an assembly where no blood was spilled and no one was permanently injured. They cleaned their room, because even though the nice janitor lady cleaned last night, 120+ kids wandered through today and left footprints and pencil shavings and other trash. They put up your kids' stuff on bulletin boards and cleaned off their desk, which at this time of year is not an easy task. They ate their dinner at their desk, as the headache got bigger. They took some Motrin and drank a cup of tea. They did some grading. And then kids and parents started to file through, and they tried to recognize parents they hadn't seen since December or September in some cases. They smiled and shook hands and made small talk about your child's accomplishments, even if they had done absolutely nothing all year. After being at school over 12 hours, they drove home, exhausted, and went to school again the next day.

I think I'll bring my kids' teachers flowers (oh wait, I can't afford flowers). Sigh.

It's never to late to mutate. Ray Troll. Check it out.

Another Fabric Artist

2006-05-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Chris Roberts-Antieau (pronounce that last name five times fast...I dare you).

This is called Whale with Swallowed Woman.

My SIL saw this woman's art somewhere in Seattle, and she had me google her while we were on the phone...so we're both trolling the website while on the phone (http://chrisroberts-antieau.com/000_home.html), as small and medium-sized children screech and whine in our respective backgrounds (mothers' day, my ass). I like her stuff. My SIL says I should be able to do this, but although Chris is definitely a woman after my own heart, I don't have that folk art touch. My stuff's a little less whimsical. Sarcasm abounds. But I DO think y'all should check out her stuff and buy it. I'd buy it if I weren't poor.

This one reminds me of my SIL and her dog. It's called Bad Dog. She would probably prefer that I call Lucy my brother's dog.

OK, I'm off to glue the moccasins. Don't ask. It's better that you don't know.

Instead of Flowers

2006-05-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, I still want flowers. I guess I should say that up front. I didn't get any, and at first, that upset me. But I got something really cool instead. My daughter gave me some handmade cards and a sweet note about how I'm always nice (I am not!). My son made me some small yarn things (he has a yarn fetish) that all look like cat toys, but he also wrote me a poem. An amazing poem. His teacher told the kids to come up with 12 ideas about their mom, and then to start with the idea of "The Important Thing About a Mom..." and go with that. What a kid.

The important thing
About a mom is that
She has limitless hugs

She may have kisses
She might teach or
Stay up late

She will scold
You, but
She loves you just the same

She will die eventually
But go on in your heart
Until you die

But then you will go on
In your children's hearts
And she will reside with you

But the important thing
About a mom is that
She has limitless hugs

Understand that this kid hugs me lots, all the time, every day. He can't tell me he loves me (you're warm, mommy, is his version of I love you), his hugs border on body slams, and he's almost as tall as I am right now, but he wrote me a poem. Cool.

On Mother's Day, I Clean

2006-05-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

It's Mother's Day. Happy Day to all. I made my own breakfast. I'm spending the morning cleaning house, litter trays, the pool (if I can get the damn ducks to leave). My kids will come later and maybe I will feel less left out of the mothering process. Even Dogpile.com (my start page) had a Mother's Day dog on it. Trying to drag me down??? Where are my damn flowers? I've been wanting flowers around the house for weeks, but can't justify the cost. Better to let the ex pay for them.

So I've been tiptoeing around the backyard, not wanting to disturb the ducks as I clean cat litter trays. Am I nuts? It's my yard, my pool, and there are no ducklings. I hope they are in someone else's yard. Mom duck jumped out of the pool the first two times I went into the backyard, but by the third time, she had decided I was not a threat and she just quacked at me.

I did trace about 180 pieces on Wonder Under for the Earth Mother (tentative name) quilt. Only 450 to go :-). HA! I'm nuts. This Wonder Under is blessed. It is not releasing from the paper AT ALL. I am in bliss. Glee. Chortling happiness. OK, not really.

My son won two third places in the county science field day yesterday. He was happy. Goofy too.

Fabric Sketch

2006-05-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

Some time later. It needs to hang up and with me for a while before I decide what it is and how it will continue.

I don't usually cut freehand, but on nights like tonight, when my brain is in need of some sort of release, of a place to go, then it works. I think I'll work on some other more "responsible" things for a while, and then I'll play with some more fabric.

My uterus leans to one side for real. A large animal is tromping outside my window (think elephant). Like wow...Ganesha!

Day Full

2006-05-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

of kids who cut themselves
of kids who fight and hit and generally act like siblings
of discussions of training bras
of discussions of suicide (not me nor mine)
of dirt
of kids who can't follow directions

What it really needs now, at the end, is calm, quiet, a peaceful walk, a nice glass of wine, making art, sleeping in the next morning.

I might get the quiet, after kids go to bed. I have the glass of wine. My goal is to get to the art (because I didn't on Wednesday, when I said I would). The rest is not happening.

And I'm upset about the kids who cut themselves. I guess I should put that in the art too. It makes sense there.

Peace out...hope your Friday nights are full of more good thoughts than bad.

Fallen. An older one, started in a Wasilowski workshop. I think. Yeah. I don't do workshops any more. Can't afford them.

Bird Turd Block

2006-05-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

I've been calling this the bird turd block, but now that I've finished all the white parts and photographed it, I guess they really do look like clouds. Damn. I liked the bird turd concept. An entire quilt, Baltimore Album style, of bird turds.

I put things on quilts in progress to keep cats off them. Unfortunately, the things on quilts are not always large enough to cover the whole quilt, so cat butts deposit fur upon quilts. I have heavily invested in large rolls of tape for removing cat butt fur, luckily.

Tonight I will find a way NOT to waste the entire evening spacing out and/or working. Art will be a part of my life tonight. After dinner. After scouts. After dropping $50 on gas to fill the tank. After buying chocolate syrup for tomorrow's ice cream party (which I won't be attending). After making tomorrow's lunch. After washing all the dishes and putting the other dishes away. After emptying the litter tray and feeding the cats. Yikes. I swear, if ANYONE says to me that they have nothing to do this evening, I will kill them.

Take the Rulers Away

2006-05-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

After watching myself teaching on video for about 3 hours, I have one thing to say to future or new teachers. DO NOT LET 7TH GRADERS HAVE RULERS. This is science. They don't need to measure most of the time. When they do, give them paper rulers. Otherwise, you have sword fights and drumming and hitting and poking and a class management disaster. NO RULERS. NONE.

You think I'm kidding. I'm not. NO RULERS.

Brain Not Functioning Normally

2006-05-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

Hey, these two pictures were why I was originally going to post today. Proof that my brain is currently on another planet...the theme is green. Green fabric from a friend of mine who is downsizing some stuff to me, because I am as good a cause at the moment as Goodwill.

And green shoes that I wear to school once a week to freak my students out. And because I LIKE them. That's why.

Sleep

2006-05-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

I seem to need more of it. I'm getting nothing of note done artistically. A little applique here, a little shipping of quilts there. That's all. We're doing state testing, so I guess the change in routine and trying to keep track of what class is doing what is confusing my poor little brain. I have a bunch of ideas that I'd like to work on, but can't seem to find the time or energy to do so. Maybe when we finish testing, I will go back to normal. Whatever that is.

Until then, enjoy these pictures...from my more traditional days...someday maybe I'll finish Row 4. And put the whole thing together. And quilt it. Yeah. That's it. Sorry for the blurriness. These pictures really suck.

Dowel Robbery

2006-05-01T22:52:00.000-07:00

Every time I go to Home Depot, I buy dowels on which to hang my quilts. I really only need them when I ship them, because I just switch dowels on the quilts hanging in the house as I rotate them. Despite my constant dowel purchasing, I currently have no dowel for the quilt that needs to ship this week. Why? It's not because I didn't buy them. It's because my kids steal them from me and mark them up and turn them into staffs and wands and swords and magical devices. This one is painted especially for the magic that it does. So I guess that means I can't cut it up and ship it off with a quilt, eh? Sigh.

And this? This is an exercise ball. This WAS an exercise ball. Guess why it looks like this? Those little robber barons must have claws too. Double sigh.

I Shouldn't Be Wasting Time Online

2006-04-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

But I've been a good worker bunny. A bunch of pictures, although none of my son. I just did the quick haircut on him, 10 minutes flat. He says he wants hair that's halfway between a girl and a boy, so now he looks like a young Vulcan. Of course, I had to explain what a Vulcan was, so he decided he's an elf. I'm OK with that.

OK, so last weekend, I was walking in Hillcrest and saw this electric/traffic box. They've had local artists paint most of them in the area. I love the practice, and keep meaning to photograph this one, because I like it. I'm still trying to figure out how to locate the artists, but this one is on Robinson near 5th. Yes, it's sideways. So what. Deal. Do not irritate the cranky woman.

I haven't been ignoring the fabric world. This is the photograph for the next Southwest block. The photo was intimidating, translating it effectively into fabric.

I still don't know if my fabric choices will BE effective, but there's the pile of pieces, finally cut out and ready to go. I did that Friday night.

But before that, I did this landscape quilt as a donation for my niece and nephew's school auction. It's not quite finished. It's from a pattern from Susan Brittingham's miniature landscape class on www.quilt university.com.

I need to put a label on this one and ship it off this week to Pennsylvania. I hope I have a box or a tube that will work.

Over the weekend, I went to ArtWalk in San Diego, in Little Italy. I don't like ArtWalk as much now, as a street fair, as I did when it was visiting the artists' studios. I used to exhibit then, but I don't now. But I did bring home cards from two artists I like. The first, Daniela Ovtcharova, I can't afford, but her paintings are truly gorgeous, with a beautiful light to them. Her website is http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/d/daniela. This is Three Graces. It's sold, but other stuff isn't. Buy it!

The second one I might be able to afford, maybe, deep breaths, sometime soon. I have an obsession with printmaking, being a former (and hopefully future) printmaker. She also likes birds in her art. I wish I could buy like five of these...and they're cheap! But I'm really strapped for cash at the moment. Anyway, her name is Kirsten Francis and she's local. Her website is http://www.kirstenfrancis.com. This is Nesting. Please go buy stuff from her so she can keep making these.

Bound

2006-04-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's not that I'm not doing anything artistic (or apparently anything at all). There's just nothing exciting about sewing on bindings. I'm getting a hole in my finger from doing it (woo!), but it's no fun to do or to watch. I've finished two and am working on two more. One of them is for a quilt I'm donating to my niece's school for an auction, so I'll post a picture of it when I'm done. I would like to be making art, but my sewing machine is still dead in the water. The store is tired of my harassing them about it. My mom is apparently harassing them too (they've finally made the connection between the two of us). Yes, I'm nuts for preferring to sew on a 30+-year-old machine. But I broke three needles on Mom's super fancy Viking SE or whatever it is, and then came home and broke a needle on her other super fancy Brother. I don't think I've broken a needle on my old Viking in years. I'm sewing it into the ground, but I've got that whole tension thing mostly under control. I don't WANT to learn a new machine. I don't want to waste any of my precious free time fussing with a new system. Even learning to THREAD a new machine is hell...

Rant over. For now. This whole job, making money, paying bills thing sucks. I am incredibly envious of all those artists who are just doing that...I don't know how old I'll be when I retire, but it'll be close to dead.

With that cheery thought in mind, here is a picture of an Easter mole. Because that's what I'm teaching right now...

Sorry...EasterNNNN mole...duh.

Still Life with Bloody Head (no fruit)

2006-04-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

Still lives should have fruit in them. This one doesn't.

This piece has taken forever to finish. The quilt top was assembled in 2003, I think. I couldn't deal with quilting the back for the longest time, and then when I did finally find the right thread and the right headspace, the thread was a bitch. But it's done. I like parts of it, but I don't know if I like it as a whole (hole, as my students would write).

I do like the details.

I took it to my quilt group and they wanted me to explain it. Eh. Not gonna happen. Sorry.

I've posted this detail before, but it's my favorite. The bloody head...

Actually, I like it in these photos. Maybe I've been too close to it. Maybe I need to hang it on the wall and live with it for a while...but I can't. I'd have to explain it to the kids. Sigh.

Weighted and Statements

2006-04-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

I posted this unfinished earlier this year. It's now officially done. It's called Weighted. It has a binding. (don't tell...but the binding is not sewn down yet, but I don't do that until it gets into a show because I HATE doing it.) That's my official notice that a quilt is done...I've bound it...Anyway...I don't know if I like it or not...and I don't know what it means either :-). No, that's not true.

Here's a detail...

A couple of people asked me for a statement or more info on the symbols in Portrait of an Ex. My first impulse when people say, but what does it all MEEEEAAAAN is...well...what does it mean to YOU? I guess I look at what I do as communicating with the viewer, and that doesn't mean that what I was thinking when I made it is particularly relevant to the viewer. That said, I do write statements (5 or 6 sentences max) for many of my quilts, but only because those damn shows WANT them. And my recent dilemma was trying to write a statement for a quilt I had finished a year ago, from a drawing I had done 3 years ago, and even I didn't remember what I was thinking when I did it, so I thought about what I was thinking about it now and wrote it from there. I'm trying to be better about keeping a weekly journal of art-related blabbiness (what did I do THIS week). It helps me keep track of what I am (and am not) doing and I have seen progress because of that effort. I guess what the art is...it's a changeable moveable adjustable thing. My ex would see something in this piece. My mom would see something. If you have been through a bad divorce, you would see something. If you haven't, you would see something. None of those are wrong...they are just different (and that may be my philosophy of life right there).

Portrait of an Ex does not yet have a statement, and sitting here staring at it, I'm not sure what I'd write if someone required one. I'm divorced. It was a rough haul. I have two kids. My ex is Welsh (that is the Welsh flag with the dragon on it). That's it. This is one of the divorce quilts. It is one of the quilts that I have not shown to my children...I have been very careful to only work on it when they were in bed, and to photograph it after they went to sleep. They can see it when they're old enough to understand. And I don't know if that's when they're 15 or 50. We'll just have to see.

I do have another couple of quilts I finished this week. One I can't post yet in case it gets into a show. The other one I will post later this week. No really. I will.

I Just Stole My Mother's Brother

2006-04-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Uncle Fred, age 60-something. Actually, my very reliable (but very old) Viking just died again. It died in August too, I think, and I borrowed my mom's Brother (her sewing machine, not some old guy) and promptly sewed through my finger for the first time in my life. I'm in the middle of being on a roll of really bombing along quilting the background of this monster purple beast, and my machine starts to get that not-good burning smell, and now the wheel's not turning without major force. Damn. I'll take it in tomorrow, but for tonight, I'm going to burn rubber on the Brother.

Here's that silly cat, fascinated with all the moving parts on the Viking. These parts are no longer moving.

There is no end to the frustration this week. It will change...there's probably some weird astrological crap going on this week. Or my magnets are misaligned. Or the gods are frowning at my depiction of mitosis. Who knows...

Bad Wonder Under

2006-04-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

My car is still at the dealer. They have been unable to locate what the body shop did to destroy my lights and clock. I am getting an ulcer worrying about it, because if they decide that it was a random occurrence that would have broken down no matter what due to the age (FOUR?) of my car, I will have to pay for it. And money is very tight.

Hence, I have not finished quilting the behemoth. I had hoped to have it quilted and bound by tonight, so I could photograph it and stop worrying about it. I was wrong. Thread breaks. Back hurts. Foot pedal heats up. This is a closeup picture of the back of the front before I sandwiched it for quilting. It was kind of cool-looking, and now that it's sandwiched, no one will ever see that view of it again. Kind of weird.

So, back to the bad Wonder Under. Melody Johnson (http://fibermania.blogspot.com/) has been blogging about her escapades with bad Wonder Under for a while now, but I hadn't had the same results. The webbing would lift off the paper, but I was using it differently than she was, so I had different problems with it. But when I started trying to pull the paper off, I started to see the same problems she was having, where the paper was pulling some of the webbing off. And when I was ironing pieces together onto the applique sheet, some of the fusible was coming off onto the sheet, which never happens. I did manage to get the whole piece ironed, but now the damn stuff is clogging my needle, which it also has never done. I have one more quilt with trimmed pieces where I'll have to deal with this bad batch. I tossed the rest in the trash. I had been to both my local Jo-Anns looking for good Wonder Under (I'm at the point that I can tell whether it's bad or good just by looking at it), and they both had the bad stuff. So when I was at the conference in Anaheim, I went to the Jo-Anns in Orange, and they had the good stuff! It was wonderful to behold and I am a very happy owner of a mere 12 yards of it. I don't buy it by the bolt like Melody does, because I use a lot less of it than she does. But I'm glad to see it's not just me having problems with it. I should probably go back to those Jo-Anns stores and tell them to send it back...and maybe I will. I'm not sure they'll listen, though.

OK, the whiny twins are squawling. I have to dye Easter eggs now...not fabric, just eggs.

One of Those Weeks

2006-04-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, moany whiny blah irritation (by the way, adding to that, my interior lights are also not working). Today, I get the envelope I've been waiting for, and it feels like it's full of my slides. Sigh. Another rejection. Silly girl...Portrait of an Ex got into Crafts National 40, which will hang in the Zoller Gallery at Penn State University (University Park) from June 6 through July 21. There are catalogs! I love catalogs. So I should stop whining.

Last night I finished ironing the entire top of the piece I'm trying to finish by May 1, which would be a totally attainable goal if Spring Break wasn't over this week. So I'm going to be doing that balancing act where I try to act like an artist, a mom, and a teacher, and things like clean houses and thank-you notes sent out on time fall by the wayside. I apologize to the world for that, but it seems to make sense to me at the time. I've petitioned for a waiver for a 30-hour day because the 24-hour days aren't cutting it, but I haven't heard back yet. And I just spent THREE HOURS cutting my lawn. It's rained every Saturday that I've been home in the last 2 months. I don't know how you people in permanently wet areas do this...I'd have grass up to the roof.

To summarize:
Yesterday: sucked big time
Today: Achievement is mine

Stay tuned.

Frustrations of the Day

2006-04-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

A book by...

1. I picked my car up after 2 weeks with the body shop. The in-dash clock and trip-meter reset every time I turn the car off. The body shop says they did nothing electrical. They sent me to the dealer. The dealer made me an appointment. I called the insurance company, who says that because my car is 4 years old, it is possible that the clock was going to die ANYWAY at this time, and it may be purely coincidence that it occurred while some body shop was taking my car completely apart. RIIIGHT. I buy that. I'll let the dealer look at it, but won't fix it if they determine it was a fluke. Can't afford it.

2. I got the police report on the accident my car was in. It was parked. A silver car that was recovered by the police hit a 2nd car, careened off it, hit a 3rd car, and the 3rd car hit mine. I was not there at the time. There is no mention of the silver car's license or owner, so I had to pay the deductible. I think it might be a city councilmember's son or mistress, so this is a massive coverup to keep me in a financial hole.

The pictures are now labeled. I am about to seam the background so I can put a whole quilt top together. Whee. Or I am going grocery shopping so my kids don't starve. I'm still very frustrated about numbers 1 and 2 above. I may never leave my driveway again...then no one can run into, take apart, or otherwise damage my car again...except my kids.

Words Later...I Swear

2006-04-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

Or maybe I'll just make YOU figure out how all of these pictures are connected! No really...I'll add words later...

This is a picture of a device made by two middle-school teachers (one science and one language arts) to simulate blood splatter, so kids could see what blood splatter from a hammer might look like. Don't even ask about how this guy went on about cast-off splatter. It's easier to take that stuff on TV or from a detective, but this teacher was having way too much fun. And you should hear him talk about maggots...I know now how to attract flies to lay eggs and about all the different stages of maggots and their resulting buggy bits. Yikes.

This is mitosis. In fabric. With pieces the size of...maggots? No, much smaller. I'm weird. This rectangle is part of a much larger piece...this part is about 4x6".

This would have been much cooler if it weren't blurry. This was at the NSTA (National Science Teacher's Association) conference in Anaheim. It was awesome. I did ask permission to take the picture. I wish I had had time to take more, less blurry pictures.

I did mitosis. Now I do DNA. I am woman. Hear me roar.

I Have Not Packed Yet (Countdown to Departure...)

2006-04-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

Instead of packing, I cut out my next quilt. Actually, I ironed my next quilt. It's called Walking Time Bomb. Here are the fabrics I used today.

It took about 4 hours, but not nonstop. I drink caffeine, so yes, I have to pee a lot. And then I ate a few times. And I read the comics. I need lots of distractions some days.

And here is the box-o-fabrics (no cat this time...she's napping elsewhere...too much frantic fabric ironing going on in this room for a cat's comfort). Packing them up for Anaheim.

I'm feeling like I'm actually accomplishing things this Spring Break. Knock on wood...

Should Be Packing...Again

2006-04-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

I got home from Arizona yesterday afternoon (see inspiring picture of weird geological formations below, as opposed to weird photo of truck above...insert whatever word you like at the end of the truck...).

I'm leaving for Anaheim (WOOO!) tonight. Hopefully the rain will have stopped by then and maybe my car will have been fixed too so I don't have to drive my dad's convertible. A girl can dream. I will not be going to Disneyland. If I went to Disneyland without my kids, they would probably kill me. Plus I'm supposed to be doing official science-teacher stuff...whatever that is.

In Arizona, I cut out most of the 543 pieces of Wonder-Undered fabric. Arizona roads, in general, are less bumpy than California roads. It was easier to cut out small fussy pieces in Arizona than in California. Last night, I sorted all the pieces out by number into boxes so I could come home Saturday and iron the sucker together. I also cut out all the Wonder Under for the next piece. I'm considering trying to pick those fabrics today before I leave for Anaheim. There are no cool pictures of this process, because it is significantly boring to view at this stage. Next week will be much more interesting.

I was going to do yardwork today, but it is pouring rain and doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon, so I can justify not mowing the lawn. The lawn is under water. Seriously. This is Southern California and we've had about an inch and a half of rain in last last 17 hours. That's flooding for us dry folks.

Duck Update: See picture of two males and one female. Can you see all the ducks? The last picture is triumphant daddy duck, after he scared off the interloper. Mom has a nest...it's in my bushes. Damn. Guess I can't clean the pool aggressively any time soon. They let me walk right up to them to take the pictures...unfortunately, I couldn't get them to really hold still for a family photo.

Countdown to Vacation

2006-03-31T18:38:00.000-08:00

In 23 minutes, I leave for Arizona and caves and who-knows-what, but I've got both cameras with brand-new batteries, my sketchbooks, and a bunch of fabric to cut out (see white box below, but imagine it full to the brim of 543 various-sized Wonder-Undered pieces of fabric). When I get home, I have 24 hours before I leave again for Anaheim and the National Science Teachers' Convention...WHOOOO. No really. It probably will be cool. I'm hoping to bring back a bunch of photos and new drawings and all the pieces cut out, and ideally a well-rested and much calmer and more-centered me. It is Spring Break, and when you're as old as I am (um, OK, I'm not really THAT old except to my students and my own kids), you don't party like you used to. OK, I never partied like that anyway. Give me a nice glass of wine and some fabric, and I'm perfectly happy. Sad but true.

Duck Update: Mom duck is gone (probably nesting) and now the two boys are sharing the pool with a minimum of pecking. Maybe they like each other.

Bored? Crazy? Both? Must be time for Spring Break

2006-03-30T14:23:00.000-08:00

You are Jack the Ripper

You are completely insane. You do things spontaneously and always live in the moment. You are unconventional and strange, but you can act otherwise to fool people into believing that you are normal. You also may or may not be angry with prostitutes for giving you Syphilis.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

The Fat Cat Sat on the Quilt

2006-03-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

Look at today's earlier post about the quilt I'm working on. All the ironed-on Wonder Under fabric pieces are in that white plastic box on the ironing board. It looks like this:

This is what it looks like with a fat cat in the box, on the quilt pieces.