Brain Flotsam V2.007

More from the Quilt Show:


( photos )

International Quilt Festival, Day 1:

Totally awesome!
I blew half my festival budget on amber jewelry, but the highlight of the show was still the quilts.

This one is pieced, not painted - I swear.  It's huge, taller than I am, and gorgeous in person. "Medea Escaping". 
My flickr set for the show includes the card for this one, and some detail shots.

Ok, so I noted that I haven't updated here with anything of substance in over two weeks, which we all know is the internet equivalent of ten million years.
I'm still living in what I like to call cardboard chic, a house full of piles and boxes and no real organization.
True to prediction, though, I am spending a lot less time at home. Dinner and/or coffee with friends, meetings, meet-ups, a con, family events, and evening classes have all conspired to keep me far from home.
And I'm going out of town for a week starting next Tuesday. I'll be in the New York metro area, attending the Tarot Reader's Studio as well as hanging out with my beloved friends in the vicinity (and some coming in to town from afar, including Australia! Wow!).
That said, I expect to be spending more time at home in May. I have quilts to make and paintings to paint, for one thing. Plus a lot of tarot cards and still some fan exchanges to finish.  Plus the three Big Bangs I decided to sign up for. Mmm, fun. I also have books to unpack and an apartment to arrange. I also plan to acquire an actual TV. No, really! I'm going to set it up and watch it and everything. Probably.

That plus the whole Summer of Cons (ApolloCon, Azkatraz, Anticipation - I sense a theme here.)  should keep me busy.

Happy Pi Day!

Last night I went to see Jonathan Coulton with Paul & Storm, of whom I had never really heard before last summer, nor ever seen perform, whether on youtube or live.  It was a really fantastic performance with lots of humor and audience interaction. Paul and Storm's opening show had me falling over laughing. Jonathan broke a string on his guitar in the first song, then later discovered his mouth harp was in the frame backwards. It being Friday the 13th, he joked, of course things went a bit awry. But none of that really interfered with the show, or the music. I could have done without the hair-flinging, loud-singing guy sitting one row down from me, but every concert-goer has crosses to bear, and as concerts go a hair-flinging, loud-singing obnoxious dude is better than drunken groping or being fallen on.
At one point near the end the entire balcony was doing Thriller-type zombie gesturing from their seats while shouting "All we want to do is eat your brains." Yeah. Nerds in groups. I should have taken photos. (The few I did take will be posted later, mostly of House of Blues itself.)
I went out with a party of six folks from the Houston SFF community, all active con-goers or organizers. We had dinner first with a few of them, then met at House of Blues downtown, where there were a bunch of other local nerds that folks in my party knew.  We ended up with seating right near each other in the balcony, oddly enough.
After the concert, we all went to a diner/coffeehouse on Westheimer and had food and drink and conversation until after midnight.  I did not get back to my car (I'd been ridesharing to avoid the downtown/midtown parking crunch) until 1:30 am. 
I haven't had a night out like that in quite some time, so it was pretty awesome.

Today I woke up at an ungodly hour to take care of my unruly stomach (it's pretty much a clockwork alarm all on its own - 6:25 am it wakes me without fail, just before my alarm.  I nibbled on a rice cracker and some orange juice and chatted with mom for a few minutes, then crashed again. I got up for real at about 11, and looked soberly at the packing I should be doing...  and turned away.
Instead, I cut some batting and the backing fabric for the quilt in progress, pinned it all together and trimmed it, and now I'm working on attaching the border pieces to the front before getting in there with the machine quilting.
Ideally I would like to have this finished in time to take it to New York at the end of April and present it to the recipients in person. I may not finish it before I move, but I'll definitely try to get as much done as possible before then, and keep the pieces in a separate box so I can find them pronto in the new place.

I just finished giving the kitchen floor a sweep and clean and mop, so I'm taking a sit-down break in front of a fan to type this up. My only minor angst today is that I really wanted to watch Ghostbusters while I did my sewing but I couldn't find the DVD.  I am pretty sure that I actually bought my own copy, but I could be mistaken. (Sorting out my stuff from the family stuff will be such fun!)  I put on The Last Unicorn  with Real Genius in the bullpen instead. 

Ok, and Dad just told me a joke he heard on Prairie Home Companion and I didn't know enough about music to get the pun in the punchline without clarification. FAIL.  :P   He needs to tell it to Peter.

Good: finished the quilt top, except for the photos, which can be put in later on top of the quilting.
Bad: couldn't print the photos because my printer is borked and full of blots, and the parental printer is out of color ink.  D'oh.

But it was a good day for progress.
Had a mediocre weekend health-wise, with some downs and some okays, and even this afternoon when things were really good.
Did not go to the art museum, but will hopefully get that in soon. 
I need to start making some lists in anticipation of my move, whenever that ends up being.

Haven't finished my art for Wednesday yet. Coming up on a series of deadlines now, plus I'm now signed up for THREE Big Bangs in a row this summer.  Geez. Not only is it con season, but I've signed up to illustrate novellas in two fandoms.  Fun times, indeed. ;)  At least there isn't any active overlap in production time, nor any crucial overlap with my travel times.

And now, snack time then bed, with fanfic. Yay fanfic.

A Joyous Imbolc to all - may good things grow from here.

I fail at weekend productivity, mostly.  Although with the assistance of Fabric-Stash Enabler Mom, I did acquire some smokin' awesome additions to my stash (and the things I actually needed for my current project) during a trek through Houston's southeastern neighborhood fabric stores.  We should learn that in most cases, we will find fun novelty fabrics at the chains, but for quality color/value cottons, going directly to The Painted Pony would save some time and money.  ;)
The only thing we didn't find was the Hoffman Challenge fabric. It's on some of the online retailers, but not yet in stores around here. We'll wait a bit and check back.

We also went to the uber-awesome catfish joint and scored a party platter overflowing with hushpuppies. WIN.

I did not actually get the fabric washed, although that's probably good as now it has bonus cat hair to wash off, too. Apparently my quilting table is Zephyr's new favorite nap spot.

Suffered through the Sunday blahs and Sunday night insomnia, which really made for a grand morning today.  Ugh.  Did manage to get my iTunes playlists transferred to Sofia at last, and got rid of most of the repetitive entries in the Library. Also acquired hotel accomodations for both ApolloCon and WorldCon. w00t!

Did some art, including laying in colors for the commission portrait for llnm. Finally. It'll take several more color layers to get it done, and I'm not sure that I'm happy with the chosen palette, but the nice thing about digital is that I have a great amount of control over individual colors. Did not do any writing.  Did a lot of reading, both of the fanfic and regular variety. I finished Skulduggery Pleasant (hey! It has a sequel!) and have gotten firmly addicted to The Stepsister Scheme.

Lalala. I think that was it. I got the feeling there was some kind of nation-wide sports event going on, but it never really got onto my radar. I will probably catch up on the cool movie trailers over the course of the next few days.

January is a crunch time at work, and I have been home only a couple of hours (awake anyhow) for the last few days. Next week looks like more of the same. It's CRAZY busy at the office and I have tons of club meetings and an evening art class and I just haven't had a space to breathe since I got back from Philadelphia.

I am thinking that there are fests signing up that I am missing...
And I could do a Year in Art post...
And I think reveals have gone up that I missed... (will have to catch up this weekend for thank-yous and such)

The only thing I've managed to do fandom-wise is my clunky Happy Birthday sketch for Snape, which I will post when I get back to Ginevra, I hope. Sofia is a mighty little machine, but she doesn't keep any art.

What am I forgetting? 
Don't you hate that feeling?
And seriously, I have this Godzilla quilt practically designed in my head, but I haven't had the chance to get out my fabric yet. It's all in a basket on my desk! Curses! Where is my Time-Turner?

Ok, lunch is over. Time to be crunched by the Jaws of Industry.
I hope this settles down by February.

Look what my friend Keet made for me!
He's keeping Luna company on my office desk now.

:D

She has an Etsy store full of these (not Snape, but cute little dolls) over here.

Mom and I have some last-minute errands to run before I skip town tomorrow.  (I scheduled another crack-of-dawn flight. Egads.)
We're going to the art supply. Yay!  I will be there more often soon.  One of my Yule gifts to myself was a Watercolor class at the Art League.  w00t! 
I am so excited. It starts my first week back in town. I am really looking forward to getting into more media on paper, and perhaps combining the watercolors with the pencils.  I had great success with watercolor pencils on my travels during high school.  My Poland journal is full of great art. I need to get back to that.

This afternoon the kids promised they'd be around to play games, so yay. Hopefully we can get in some railroad-building, some gloomy family wrangling, and some volcano sacrificing.  w00t! Mom and I have played a few games in the course of our holiday celebrations (which included reading the comics, doing the crossword, baking cookies, and reading aloud to each other from The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation and The Quotable Atheist, which I gave to Mom for Christmas. Yes, irony, I know.) but we haven't had everybody together yet.

Then I have three pieces of digital art to finish and send before I leave town, and I must pack. I am bringing some art with me to work on, already in progress, and will have to decide about the rest of it. I am going to freeze my butt off!  Where did I leave my tights? And my boots? At least I have a new scarf.

Ok, must run. Happy Boxing Day/First Day of Christmas, people!

Things I have done that are fun:

- went to see The Day the Earth Stood Still with my dad. We snarked. And enjoyed ourselves. And snarked. It was good.
- played two rounds of The Downfall of Pompeii with my mom. w00t! Sacrifice them to the volcano! Muahahahaha!
- made cinnamon pecans, watched Donna bake while entertaining the little one, played with Lando, danced Lando around the kitchen, introduced Lando to Sandra Boynton's brilliant Hippos Go Berserk! counting board book, and ate yummy festive holiday pound cake (which isn't fruitcake. really).
- watched A Muppet Family Christmas  and A Muppet Christmas Carol with Donna and Lando and, later, Jon.

also done:
- laundry. lots of it.
- moved furniture, re-arranged my room, sorted books, sorted more books, including antiques, moved boxes of toys, and helped mom hook up her computer to the network printer.

coming soon:
- baking cookies! (maybe.)
- playing more games with the family.
- big extended family Christmas meal and game playing.
- making art.
- sewing.
- moving all the boxes to make space for the new craft table.
- packing for Philadelphia (what do you mean it might snow in December? Where did I put my boots?)

Well, I'm at the close of my last day of work this year, and it's time to prepare for an art weekend. (And a cleaning weekend, and a purging weekend, and a haircut weekend, etc.) 
I have some deadline stuff that I must get done before I cut out for Philly after Christmas, so I have to buckle down now. I was getting some done as well as reading/commenting at fests and writing/drawing Advent Drabbles earlier, but then I got a cold and then I had some unexpected (but very useful) meetings and now I just can't keep up.  I'm tired of feeling like I'm running late. So, I must now actually stop reading/drawbling and start producing the real stuff.  I'll hopefully be able to do some reading and commenting later next week, or in the New Year.

This comes, of course, right as I also really need to be working on original creations, both written and artistic.  Although there is the Azkatraz Art Show to consider, I suppose. I may investigate printing ideas for my tarot cards for that.

I'll probably write the beginning set of Dark Season Greeting Cards before Solstice hits, and then start mailing them shortly after Christmas.
I'll have to ponder what to do for Longest Night this year. I have many many candles, and actually several wands, although a few of those should be restricted to costuming use only. One thing I would really like to achieve during this time of cleaning and re-arranging is finding a place to put up a semi-permanent altar. I would feel so much better if my ritual stuff weren't tucked into odd corners or still packed in bins.

I have a new illo in the works - not a drawble, but an actual illustration. currently trying to decide if I should render it digitally or with colored pencils once the line-work is done. (I'm doing that digitally until I have an image I like. Too much erasing, otherwise.)
The muses (and the snupin chat) finally coalesced a Steampunk HP idea.  Not related to the steampunky snupin_santa story, but gushing about that in chat did help the ideas process.
In other news, advent drawbles are going well, although I am having so many ideas for side-stories or previously unseen moments in the Far Away as Moonshine universe that I may switch back to drabbles for a few.  Seriously, I sat in traffic this morning (there was a truck on fire at the last interchange before I get off for work. Everything was going so swimmingly until I hit that snarl, sigh) and got two new ideas for bits in that world. Include one featuring Alice Augusta Longbottom and her friends at Hogwarts.
I should make Moonshine-verse stuff my reward for finishing a new scene of the original novel that I should really be doing more work on.

Also, this weekend there must be some sewing. I have some millinery to finish and a quilt to design. Plus I have to go buy fruit pierogi from the Polish Deli on the other side of town. The office party this year is themed "Food Around the World" and we're supposed to bring a traditional ethnic dish. Well, when I was in Poland the only pierogi I was ever served in the dormitory were desserts.

So, er, yeah. I'm still here, still doing stuff, getting behind on the writing but all caught up on the art at last. Looking forward to traveling at the end of the month although I will need to stock up on Airborne for the trip. Egads, it looks cold up there.
Thanksgiving was a festival of drinking, eating, movies, games, cleaning, sorting, drawing, reading, and lazing about. There was also some unfortunate GI distress, which has prompted me to make an appointment to discuss the pharmaceutical option with my doctor. Ever since he ran down the typical symptoms, I've been noticing ones that I hadn't really connected with IBS before. Plus I can't eat anything, it seems, without a lot of discomfort.
We're doing the Food Plan again so we didn't actually make Thanksgiving foods at home, and partook of them sparingly at my aunt's. I am trying to be more diligent about the food diary. With sickness came the inevitable holiday depression, although thankfully that didn't last too long. Somehow I have in my head that achieving a certain level of crafty productivity will mean I never feel depressed again. But experience shows that no matter how many works of art I produce, I will still occasionally be sad. Such is life.
Mom and I watched her favorite reality TV program yesterday: Smart People Doing Real Stuff. The NASA Channel had live radio and video feeds from Mission Control and the cockpit as the shuttle landed. It was pretty cool.
Now that all of my anonymous exchange art is turned in for the next month and a half, I hope to do some work that I can post free and clear, as well as participate in various December writing games, and of course I have a quilt to make. Need to print the photos for that. And find the final important design element to print and applique. It's something very specific, but that has many variations, so I will probably be scouring various sources for a good one. (And I'm hoping that part of it, at least, will be a surprise, as it is a gift.)
And here, since it's December: a meme about Christmas.
Hey, I can start playing my Holiday Playlist now! w00t!

( Christmas meme )

Excited? Me? Never.

See you all tonight!

I finished this a little while ago, and drachenmina just got it in the mail, so here are the photos.
The center piece is an illustration from Mina's fic "A Most Impractical Cat" and there are some choice quotes from the piece free-motion quilted into it.





You can see the whole process at my Craft Projects Flickr Set

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