Even in Kyoto

I can never seem to get the timing right on great gift ideas or on New Years' Resolutions.

So I have a Resolution right now, although it probably won't reach fruition until the new year, because reasons.

I am going to start doing ceramics again.

Somehow, in every spare second while working to grade student papers, all that my subconscious wants to do is think about all of the creative projects I'd like to be working on instead. I think it's that contrast between doing very abstract work but desiring more concrete outcomes in my life. Hence the ceramics resolution. There are actually about 5 different reasons for the ceramics resolution, though, which will start to become more clear as I get going with it.

One other project at the forefront of my mind right now is a cat bed test quilt piece that's going to get finished a little too late for its intended recipient. I'm going to finish it anyway. I'm glad I made it, because it made it very clear to me that there's no way I'm ever going to manage to hand-quilt an entire quilt. I haven't even managed to finish hand-quilting the test quilt! But I did finally get around to learning more about free-motion quilting, and ordered a new foot for my sewing machine, so I think I may have finally found a way to move forward with that project, at long last. The last time I seriously worked on the quilt was in Texas, which feels like forever ago.

I've done a great job over the years of acquiring tools and supplies for various hobbies/crafts, but by now I'm feeling the collective weight of everything I've acquired and the burden of too many unfinished objects. So now I want to figure out a strategy for finishing things or moving them along. One item at a time.

I can't believe I only just recently thought to try disassembling my craft punches. Since I use them to punch through very thick reflective material with a strong adhesive backing, they get gummed up quickly and become difficult to use. Disassembling not only allows for much better cleaning, it also allows for much better punching. Behold:





Hooray for better leverage!

On the other hand, I'm not so sure about the skull-and-crossbones punch yet:



(also the ceramic otter in the photos is sytharin's work).

I had one of those moments yesterday where I just stared at all of the things on my desk and felt overwhelmed by my list of personal projects. In spite of the feeling, I'm actually making progress on things - progress is just slow at times. It just doesn't always feel like progress.

The biggest current project on the agenda is the twin-size quilt sandwich that I need to quilt. Prior to that, I am practicing by quilting a cat bed. I thought it would be straightforward to just draw out a quilting template, trace it onto the fabric with quilting pencils, and then get stitching.

It turns out that quilting pencils are terrible, so I had to cast about and come up with a different plan. Fortunately, in this day and age, hordes of people blog about their quilting adventures, so I soon learned that such pencils are disparaged and fabric markers are generally thought to be better.

And so, hup ho, time to expedition over to the quilt store in town. In contrast to Texas, the quilt store here is open even on Sundays. After I wrapped up the midday cricket injections and cricket processing, I set sail for the Calico House, and managed to get there a good hour before closing.

Not only did they have fabric markers, they also had sheets of plastic template-making material, the exact sort of stuff I wanted but had been scratching my head over because I'd had no idea how to verbally articulate what I was looking for. Sometimes showing up in person makes all the difference.

They did not, however, have any nylon thread, or leather punches, which didn't really surprise me, as neither item is a quilting supply. The nylon thread isn't an urgent item (it's eventually for sock-making), and they recommended checking Ben Franklin for the leather/metal punch (I want to try using one to punch holes in the lids of eppendorf tubes).

I also learned that a common way of transferring quilting patterns onto fabric is to use a chalk-filled "pounce pad," which is brushed across the surface of the stencil, causing chalk to filter down through the holes of the stencil and onto the fabric.

This whole notion has caused further head-scratching. Just how old is this quilting technology? I have no intentions of becoming a long-term quilter, so I don't want to continue buying up a whole bunch of expensive specialty supplies that I'll only use once. With a bit more digging, I turned up some information on how to create a homemade pounce pad, which looks more suitable for my purposes.

When walking out of the quilt store, I had to avert my gaze away from a pile of pink fabric with bicycles on it. I am grateful that independent quilting stores still exist, but struggle with how quilting has been turned into an expensive craft-hobby for many people.

Upon returning home, I successfully used the marker to trace out the first bits of my pattern for the practice quilt. Someone commented somewhere that tracing out the quilting pattern is an often-overlooked huge timesink, which also made me feel better about my slow progress. I'm getting close, however, to finally starting to quilt, and as my PhD advisor used to say, moving forward slowly is NOT moving backwards.

I'm feeling a trifle busy these days. This past week, there was a two-day intensive workshop on an area of biological theory that's complex yet fascinating: several brilliant biologists flew in from out of town to converse on the subject (multilevel selection theory), and I felt like I was able to make many connections between different ideas. A lot of the connections are still on an intuitive level, so I can't quite explain them without doing a lot of back-explaining. And I don't really have time for that right now. Heh.

Along with the workshop, one of "my" undergrads has started her second series of intensive behavioral observations of leafcutter ant colonies: five days of ten hours of observations per day. Everyone in the lab is pitching in to help out, and this morning I'll take a five-hour shift so L gets a bit of a break.

I took yesterday off so that instead I could ride my bike to the Downtown Phoenix Public Market with some friends. Among other things, I bought two small tomato plants and a beautiful bunch of rainbow beets, but the award for most awesome purchase goes to sblat for the purchase of a goose egg. They don't make goose-egg cartons, though: they gave her the egg in a styrofoam cup. We'd brought the trailer for ease of plant transport, so we were able to snuggle the egg into a cushy spot to ensure its survival. We also enjoyed a most delicious breakfast at Matt's Big Breakfast--one of the best breakfasts I've ever eaten, perhaps THE best.

In the afternoon, I hosted a backyard Crafternoon so I could get at least one of my myriad projects done (a long-overdue wedding gift) AND spend time with my friends. It was a perfect day to be crafty in the back yard, and everyone had a great time working on some incredibly creative projects. While crafting, I also twice-roasted some beets (mmmmm) and baked a chocolate cake in my giant cupcake cake pan. That cake pan produces an extremely adorable cake, if I may say so myself. If I remember to bring my camera home, I'll even take a picture of it.

And then there are the dinner parties: on Friday night, my ceramics instructor hosted a party at her house, where we enjoyed some utterly delicious foods (the brie and roasted figs were a definite winner, though it was hard to choose). Last night, a newlywed graduate student couple held an informal wedding party, which was also quite lovely up until I couldn't handle being around other people anymore. I enjoy solitude.

So. This morning I'll watch ants, and then I'll meet up with a high school friend who I haven't seen since graduation. I seem to be having a lot of reunions with old friends recently. If I'm lucky, I'll then have time to go to the grocery store. I can only hope.