This appears to be the sum total of my brain at the moment.

Here are some of the deep, clever and truly revolutionary ideas that I am pondering:

- Sleepy. Sooo sleepy… should I have a blankie or get under the duvet? Mmm.

- Tea. Must have tea.

- Look! Pretty French beans that I growed all by myself!

- Why do puppy paws smell like popcorn?

- I need to pay off my credit card and should do some– ooo look, a cricket!

- If I had elebenty million dollars would I live in St Ives, Cornwall, or Saltspring Island, BC? Or both?

- Molly, you’re squashing me.

- Oh, hello 2am, it’s you again.

- There was something I was supposed to do on t’internet. What was it again? Oh yeah, make some money.

- I want brownies. Not the chocolate kind, not even the kind at the door with cookies. The kind who clean your house while you sleep. They’d have plenty of time.

- Shiny, shiny, shiny, shiny, shiny… what was I doing again?

- When he’s swimming, does Pippin use his tail as a rudder or is it just wagging because he’s happy?

- Pillows! I luuuuurrrrve my pillows.

- Lalalalalalalalalalalala

- I’m pretty sure I should be doing Something Important. Yep. Pretty sure.

- Aw fuckit.

As you can see I’m making fabulous progress and have completely forgotten the Purpose of My Life.

So if anyone wants to remind me what I’m supposed to be doing and why, that’d be sooo cool.

PS. This post is dedicated to the divine Maryann Devine, without whom it never would have been seen in public. So you can blame her. And while you’re there you can admire how very shiny her new website is.

Gather round, O best beloveds, and hear a tale worth telling.

It’s the tale of a merry maid, moping mum, whose soul was sad and whose glance was glum, who sipped no sup but craved much crumb as she sighed for the lack of… something.*

A tale of too much to do, too tired to do it, and too numb to care.

A cautionary tale, and yet, a tale of redemption too.

Once upon a time, there was a woman. Let’s call her – well – Fi. Fi was smart. She was talented. She had gumption and guts galore. (And loved alliteration.) She was also occasionally bossy (no, not really, honest).

She would get down to work on something, and Get Stuff Done with a focus and determination that was impressive. People used to say, “Whoa. I don’t know how you do that. You impress and inspire me when you focus like that.”

Let’s say that when she was good, she was very, very good.

But when she was bad…

When she was bad, well, that’s when it all went horribly wrong.

To be fair, it’s not that she was bad so much, but that sometimes she just wasn’t so very well. Sometimes she was oh-so-tired, and had migraines and headaches, and felt like she existed behind a glass wall, observing the world but never actually participating in it.

Sometimes, she looked around at the mass of things she knew she should to do and felt physically crushed by them. Sometimes, she got so exhausted that even the smallest exertion, like a short walk, or and hour’s tidying, left her drained and aching and needing a nap. And sometimes, when she wasn’t so well, she felt like there was no point to even trying any more because it was All Too Much.

And when it got All Too Much, that’s when the goblins would show up. Not the sort-of-friendly, okay-I’m-really-here-to-help-you goblin called Mike, but the nasty ones. The ones with sharp claws and pointed teeth and strong, grasping fingers that pinched and poked and made her back and shoulders and stomach ache.

These goblins were called things like You’re-A-Failure and Dirty-Slummock-You-Live-In-A-Tip and Lazy-Cat-You-Shouldn’t-Sleep-So-Much-There’s-Nothing-Wrong-With-You and Why-Don’t-You-Just-Get-Off-Your-Arse-Already-Have-You-Seen-The-Size-Of-Your-Visa-Bill? .

The nasty goblins would surround her and pinch and poke and sneer and jeer until she ached all over and longed to do nothing more than sleep until they went away and she could see the way to the land of Feel Better.

But she didn’t – she couldn’t – just sleep because she knew that the Way to Feel Better was by doing. She knew you have to fight the goblins off, and you do that by Doing, not by lying around sleeping like a lazy cat or ignoring the mess like a dirty slummock or acknowledging the fatigue like someone with something actually wrong with them.

So she tried to fight the goblins. She tried to Do Things, and Get Stuff Done, and pretend that she was very, very good, when in fact, she was feeling horrid.

It didn’t work.

The goblins were strong, and crafty, and clever and they knew all the tricks to confuse her so she still couldn’t find the Way to Feel Better.

They said things like, “Yeah, so what? You did one little thing. Big deal. Look at the mess still there!”

And “It’s not enough. It’s never enough. You have to do more, faster, better. You’re losing ground, sliding backward, all the time.”

And worst of all, “What’s the point anyway? Things will never be any different.”

And she believed them. Because the fighting was was hard and painful and she wasn’t getting anywhere, not really, and the goblins were laughing at her efforts.

But then, one day, when she was oh-so-tired and wondering if she was ever going to survive the battle, someone – someone very clever – said something. And what they said was this:

“You don’t have to fight the goblins, you know. If you’re tired, you can rest. If you need to sleep, then sleep. And if you can’t face the fight right now, walk away from it.”

Well! That was a new idea.

Not Doing? Was that even allowed? Wouldn’t that be giving up, or giving in, or just plain not trying? (On the other hand, she thought, it would certainly be less trying than the goblins.)

She was pretty sure that it was a con, and that the goblins would just be stronger than ever if she stopped fighting them. But by then she was even-more-than-oh-so-tired and feeling truly horrid.

So she stopped Doing.

She lay down in the middle of the goblins, with their sharp teeth and their poking fingers all around her and she let herself sleep. A lot. And for long periods.

When she woke up, she didn’t try to fight the goblins with Doing. Instead she read silly novels about sparkly vampires and buff werewolves and teenage angst and true love and refused to listen the goblins. And then, when she wanted a nap, she slept some more.

For over a week, she slept when she wanted to, and read embarrassing books, and did only what was necessary for survival. She even stayed offline for entire days at a time, risking the threat of the sky falling when she didn’t reply to email the very same day it was sent. She refused to listen to the goblins who said she was sleeping too much and would regret it.

Then one day, when she woke up, she looked around, and the goblins were gone.

And there, in front of her, was the Way to Feel Better. You still had to get there by Doing, but you didn’t have to fight goblins at the same time.

She wasn’t complacent. She knew the goblins would show up again some time, and that sometimes the Doing would be hard and she’d get tired and discouraged again. But she also knew now that she was allowed to stop fighting them, to rest, to read novels and watch movies if that’s what she needed.

So she packed up her potential and all she had learned, grabbed a cute pair of shoes, and took the first step on the Way to Feel Better.

*Bonus points and a free postcard to the first person commenting who gets the reference.

The Great Studio Clear-Out of 2010 continues apace.

I’ve added another 58 magazines to my thrown-out tally and have found at least three missing books I thought I’d lost.

Still haven’t got to the fabrics yet. I’m hoping that by the time I get through the easy stuff and on to the hard stuff, my throwing-out muscle will be positively bulging like a body-builder’s bicep.  You’ll see me casually toss the fabrics that seemed so great ten years ago and effortlessly let go the patterns I bought when I first found out that making quilts no longer meant just cutting out squares from old clothes with a pair of scissors.

That’s the theory anyhow. Wish me luck for putting it into practice.

Meantime, since I can’t actually work in the studio, I’ve not been able to do much actual creating, although the ideas continue to plague me. I’ve had to start a special notebook just to jot down creative ideas that I’m not yet ready to explore in a sketchbook. So I don’t forget them. A notebook to list the sketchbooks yet to be created. It’s true. I’m weird.

Since my work is usually comprehensively planned out, I’ve been feeling lately that I needed to give myself permission to just play around more and see what happens. To not worry about the finished result. To try things a little differently, maybe do a little sampling. (Sampling is Our Friend. But one I don’t hang out with very often, I’m afraid.)

So it was wonderful (as always) to get to my monthly machine embroidery workshop with Angie last week and just have a chance to play around in front of my machine. And this is the result:

"Rastafairyan": organza, 'angel wing' & cotton threads on hand-dyed cotton

I’m calling her “Rastafairyan” because she looks like she has dreadlocks. She’s also a bit punky, I think, and definitely with a bit of ‘tude. I didn’t plan for her to be like that; here’s the quick sketch I did before I started stitching:

Quick initial sketch

So, yeah, she was a bit of a Barbie doll before I started. (Do they make Barbies with dreads? Now that’s something I’d love to see.) But I do love her hair. I’ve used corded whipstitch for hair before, in the mermaids on Pearls of Wisdom, but the difference in scale give a completely different effect:

Corded whipstitch mermaid hair

I’m going to do a little more playing with Rastafairyan, I think, and add a bit of context around her. And maybe make her a few friends to hang out with. I like the idea of teenage rebellious faeries hanging out on corners complaining that there’s nothing to do in the Wild Wood.

Anyone got any ideas for the rest of her crew?

Friday I started a long-overdue clear-out in my studio.

If you know me at all, you know this is big news. If you don’t, let me tell you why.

Like many visually-creative people, I am a lover of Stuff. All sorts of Stuff: stuff that is beautiful to look at (a carved elephant, a magpie’s iridescent feather), Stuff that is interesting or unusual (a 1907 Singer treadle sewing machine), Stuff that represents a place or memory (a filigree birdcage from Tunisia, a UBC Varsity Rowing jacket), but most of all, Stuff That Might Be Useful For Making Things.

I like not only to have Stuff, but also to be able to see my Stuff. This makes me happy. There is always something interesting or beautiful or memorable on which to rest my eyes, and when I come to create something I can see all the options available to me and reach for the one that calls me most.

Of course, this means that our house is… , well, let’s just say that minimalists would have nightmares. Interior designers would shudder at the sheer randomness of it. The House Doctor would sniff and say, “Hmm,” in that horrified voice of hers. But Stuff-lovers – oh, Stuff-lovers like me think it’s great! “Oh,” they say, “You have such interesting things!” and “You can tell you’re creative from your house!” All this is fine and good and I’m not planning on going all Le Corbusier in this lifetime.

The downside of being a Stuff-lover (and of course, there’s always a downside), is that it gets harder and harder to be discerning about your Stuff. The longer you collect Stuff, the harder it becomes to distinguish what’s really beautiful, interesting, memorable or most importantly, useful for making things. Because, let’s face it: almost anything can be used to make something. So you keep collecting Useful Stuff for Making Things on the basis that yes, I could use that in this idea for that project I had the other day!

Before you know it, you have a “studio” that looks like this (squeamish viewers look away now):

Just try working in here!

And the problem with that is that you now have so much stuff that you haven’t actually got room to use any of it. Creative FAIL.

I’ve been struggling with this for literally years now, ever since I started branching out from just making quilts into dyeing, surface design, fabric painting and embroidery. Each new technique and potential direction needs new materials, new media, new references and new ways to store ideas. And each one has put additional strain on the small back bedroom I laughingly call my studio.

I don’t know what it was about Friday, but suddenly, there it was, the desire – no, actually, more like a need – to finally do something significant about it. Significant in this case equals Getting Rid of Stuff (crossing arms and waving garlic about in a panic). Aieeee!

For a Stuff-lover, this is akin to brutally crushing the sweet little puppies your beloved dog has just birthed while she watches you with the Eyes of Trusting Devotion. Oh, the pain! Oh, the betrayal of all that Useful Stuff!

You, O Minimalist-Lover-of-Simplicity, you think I’m exaggerating. I’m not.

Because for a Stuff-lover, we’re not just letting go of the stuff itself. We’re also letting go of the Things We Will Never Make With It. No matter that mostly we didn’t even know what they might’ve been. No matter that we can almost certainly get more stuff just like it should we ever need to. No, what matters is the loss of the potential in that stuff. The loss of what they might have been or meant or signified to us. And that loss hurts.

So spare a thought for us lovers of Stuff when we finally, at long last, after all your hinting, suggesting and nagging, decide to clear out some of our Stuff. It’s not easy. We’re grieving.

Here’s what I’m grieving right now:

• 354 quilting and needlework magazines (17 years, saved as ‘reference’ in case I ever took up teaching quilting)
• 1 broken quilting hoop (saved because ‘all it needs is a couple of wood staples’ even though I have another one)
• 24 various plastic bottles (saved for storing dyes when I considered going into production hand dyeing)

That was the easy Stuff. I still have the hard Stuff – fabric, materials, abandoned projects – to get to.

Hi! Over here… yeah, remember me? I know, I know, it’s been a while.

I guess you’ll be wondering where I’ve been all this time. After all, when I left you, I was standing around at a party in my underwear with my saggy bits on public display. I imagine you were expecting something quite spectacular as a follow up to that.

I would love to tell you all about how I have been rafting down the Amazon, painting at the foot of Kilimanjaro and learning how to make Inuit caribou skin boots in Resolute Bay. What a spectacular blog post that would make!

Alas, it’s all bollocks.

Much to my eternal chagrin, I am not at all spectacular in the normal run of things. Weird, odd, mad, kooky, gobby and bossy are words others have used at times to describe me, but spectacular never.

So naturally, I have been doing spectacularly ordinary things for the last while, including:

• nursing my disabled mum through a nasty bout of labyrinthitis
• trying to keep on top of the mess creative chaos that is my home and studio
• beginning a complete overhaul and renovation of my garden
• waffling over whether to enter the Festival of Quilts this year
• experimenting with materials and learning more about machine embroidery with Angie Hughes
• developing ideas for pieces and original gifts that aren’t five foot square and ridiculous to manage and hang
• processing – as they say in therapy circles – what I want, where I’m going and how I’m going to get there
• and building my online shop here on the website.

And here are the results, in order:

• she’s fine now, thanks
• it’s still in ‘creative chaos’
• in progress and looking good
• no
• exciting new ideas to pursue
• coming soon – small art works, covered note/sketch books, treasure boxes, and more
• still not sure but getting clearer
• it’s open! Hurrah!

Yes, just in case you missed that last one – my online shop is now open! It’s not a very big shop just yet, and as of today it is just selling stationery (notecards and postcards) featuring images of my work, but it is my shop and it’s a container for all the other cool things I’m working on now. So big yays for me for finally getting through the technical hitches and emotional stuck around selling my work. Does this mean I’m a Real Artist yet?

… work in progress, Pearls of Wisdom.

After my post yesterday, I had a couple of people ask where the exhibition was, and I realised that, stupidly, I never posted the details. (This is how distracted I was by my ultimately unsuccessful dash for the finish line.)

So, to rectify that, here are the details:

The exhibition is at The Bramble Patch near Northampton and runs from now until Saturday, 10 April 2010. It’s open 10 til 5 daily, except Sundays and Easter Monday. Entry is £2 with proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Care. There are refreshments available, and a place to sit and relax.

You can also get travel details from The Bramble Patch, which is one of the UK’s best quilt shops with a huge range of fabrics, accessories, books, and a full schedule of courses and workshops.

I know they’d love to have you visit.

Of course not. It’s only Saturday and it’s not due until Wednesday. Seriously, no need to get stressed about it just yet.

(Astute readers will have detected a hint of sarcasm. Only a hint, mind, but there nonetheless.)

You’ll be pleased to know, however, that the stitching part has actually commenced. I know, I know, you were wondering when this so-called stitched textile was actually getting down to brass tacks. Or needles. The answer is yesterday. (Polite applause would be appropriate at this point.)

Sorry, I don’t have time to take pictures of the work as it stands right now, but you see, I kind of have to get back to stitching it. This is a minor tea break to keep me going for the next stretch.

(At this juncture I’d also like to add that the Tea Fairy is doing an appalling job of supplying said beverage today. Normally supplies arrive like magic when I’m in last minute mode, but for some reason the Tea Fairy seems to have been kidnapped and replaced with a Computer Fairy without my approval. I must Have A Word.)

What I can do, though, is show some earlier progress pics, since I know you’re wasting away like hungry orphans without any gruel. I know, I know, I’m fabulous like that. So here we go.

First up is one of the rear mermaids, which has been painted directly onto the background fabric. That’s a new technique for me, and was a bit scary because of the lack of do-over potential. But she came out all right, and I do like the interaction of the paint with the fabric surface.

One of the background aliens, er, mermaids

And here’s testing the placement of the major appliqué elements, the two central mermaids and Miss Surprised. (Miss Surprised seems to have morphed into Miss Worried when she got painted. Ah well. I s’pose she could be worried about ending up in our fish supper.)

Testing the layout for the main aliens. No! Mermaids!

That’s it for now. I have much tangled hair and a couple of tails to stitch before bed!

(This is the post you write when you’re poorly and feeling oh-so-sorry for yourself. And yet, you’re aware that you’ve neglected your blog and its readers and you’re feeling very guilty about that. So you drag your sorry arse to the computer (oh, all right, yes it is a laptop) and write it anyway, because the readers – will no one think of the readers?!)

Today I have a cold. An icky, stuffy, snotty, head-full-of-cotton-wool cold. My head and neck are aching, but I can’t tell if that’s from sinuses and swollen glands, or from trying to sleep in an uncomfortable, propped up position in a vain attempt to make breathing non-optional. My nose is red and sore, and even the Two Bad Dogs don’t wish to get too close to me. (Sneezing alarms Pippin. I’m never sure if he thinks your head is going to explode or something, but he looks at you with a very worried expression and then hides in his cave under the blanket box.)

It is a day when a duvet and a non-taxing novel with plenty of tea seems like the best idea.

But you just know that’s not going to happen, right?

Let’s talk about what happens when your time is your own, and it’s up to you to Get Things Done in a way that meets the expectations of both you and others. Expectations that you might – oh I don’t know – get a large piece of artwork involving several mermaids completed in time for an exhibition you’ve committed to. It’s purely hypothetical, of course.

Here’s how it works for you, I’m sure:

1. You make a plan, figuring out all the steps that have to be completed to achieve whatever it is.
2. You create a schedule, working backwards from the due date, fitting all the steps into the amount of time you estimate they’ll take, thus giving you a concrete list of timed steps, with helpful milestones along the way so you know you’re on target.
3. You remember to include plenty of contingency time, Just In Case.
4. You start on time, work consistently on each step, hit your milestones and complete your project with lots of time (the contingency you built in) left over.
5. You sit back and relax, basking in the knowledge that you are master of your own time and servant of no-one’s agenda.

That’s how it works for you, I’m sure. Don’t try to deny it.

Unfortunately for me (and luckily for you) I’m not you. I am, and always have been, Queen of Last Minute Panics.

Here’s how it works for me:

1. I think about making a plan, which seems like a good idea, but you know, I can always do that tomorrow. Or next week.
2. Eventually, after much reminding, I decide that a plan is a good idea and I scribble some notes on a piece of paper.
3. I lose the piece of paper.
4. A couple of weeks later, I do a plan again because This Time I Will Do It Right, dammit.
5. I try to estimate how long each step will take and come up with a total elapsed time of 3 years, 4 months, 12 days.
6. Since that seems somewhat excessive, I reduce each step’s time by a factor of 53 and come up with something more like 12 weeks.
7. I look at the calendar so I can plan backwards from the deadline and realise that I have, in fact, 14 weeks before it’s due.
8. I revel in the fact that I have loads of time and therefore do not need to panic just yet. Easy peasy!
9. I ignore the plan for the next six weeks, feeling quite relaxed about the whole process, because, you see, I Have a Plan.
10. Quite by chance I look at the calendar and realise that I am now four weeks behind shedule. Gah! How did that happen?
11. I immediately begin work and work like a demon for the next two weeks.
12. I look at what has been accomplished and think, “Wow! I’ve done loads! I’m practically back on schedule now!”
13. I relax again, feeling smug that I am doing so well this time. Why look! I’m almost half way done! I can take it a bit slower now.
14. Some time later, I look at the calender, thinking, “Hmm, better get moving on that; it’s due in about three weeks.”
15. At this point, I realise that “three weeks” is actually “ten days”. Mild panic and determination to REALLY GET ON WITH IT at last kicks in.
16. The last ten days pass in a blur of overstretched days and late nights as I flog myself into finishing on time.

So here I am, head full of cold, feeling oh-so-sorry for myself and I am, of course, at step 15. So, today I will really be getting on with it at last.

Right after I have a little nap.

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What is the correct collective for a group of mermaids? A school of mermaids? A clan of mermaids? A muddle of mermaids? How about a miracle of mermaids?

With the stress of getting these babies drawn up, it seems miraculous that they’re all actually done now and ready for their next step.  Here’s the full cast of characters for Pearls of Wisdom:

The star of our show, Miss Surprised, who appears at the bottom right of the piece:

Her wise and experienced grandmother, centre left:

Supporting actress, Miss O-Grandma-I-Have-A-Question, who’ll be pretty much in the middle:

The beautiful cousin swimming in from the top right:

The annoying sister at the top left:

(She’s annoying because she was a bitch to draw and I’m still not happy with either her hands or her face. Expect this one to change significantly once she’s on fabric and painted.)

All of them will have their hair added separately with couched threads and/or stitching; that’s why it’s very sketchy and they look pretty bald. Once again, my dears, mermaids do not look like eggs in the usual scheme of things.  Tails will also be significantly improved with stitch and metallics.

Oh, and Miss Surprised needs gills on her neck as well; the others got them but I forgot hers and currently she’d not be able to breathe underwater, which would pretty much suck for a mermaid. (In my Humpty Dumpty “A word means what I want when I use it” rationale, a mermaid uses her gills for breathing underwater and her nose for breathing when she’s sunning herself on a rock, singing her siren songs. So there.)

So what’s next?

Well, next step is to project these images onto stretched fabric so I can enlarge them up from the A3 drawings to the sizes they’ll actually be, which range from about 18 inches for the rear couple to four feet for the mature mermaid. (Oh, what was I thinking when I planned this piece so large?)

Then I’ll trace the images onto the fabric and start painting. Painting! Probably my favourite part! At last.

I’m also chuffed to bits to report that I’ve been doing something towards this piece pretty much every day for the last week or more. Woo-hoo! Look at me go! More pictures when I have more progress to share.

Oh, and what do you call a group of mermaids? Answers on a postcard… or in the comments please!