Month: October 2011

Flying, Haiku, Photography, Poetry

Blogging From 30,000 Feet

Guila Greer

…So I’m sitting here in my window seat writing, staring at some particularly fluffy clouds only partially obscuring my vision of the land beneath.  Some of the cloud peaks are magnificent reminding me of  mountain peaks;  others of peaks  of whipped cream.  Still others  are spread out and breaking up like ice floes on a tranquil sea of sky blue.

I’m all  ear budded up with my iPod, listening to Pretty Hate Machine. I’ve settled into that unique cocoon that you can get into at 30,000 feet – where you can consider your world, your life with a decidedly dispassionate view – like you’re somehow apart from it all.

I was thinking about sketching some of those clouds but I’ve changed my mind. My muse is telling me to record what I’m seeing in words instead.

Sandy earth below

Streaky sun through the window

Climbing higher now

Velocity up

Acute anticipation

Tomorrow’s mys’try

Mountain peaks or clouds

Clear vision or optic trick

Beauty is constant

Ear buds snuggled in

Music easing heart and soul

Turbulence warning

Art Quilt, Hand Dyed Fabric

The Magic of Hand Dyeing Fabric

Guila Greer

I realize that the only way that I’m going to dig into my hand dyes and actually use them will be to create some more.  Now that the weather has eased up some I can move outdoors and set up there.  It can be done in the kitchen but gets a little (!) messy. 

So I went through my hand dye stash to get inspiration.

BUT WHAT ABOUT MY PRECIOUS GREENS????

😦  not much left after digging into these for a project.

This is something a little different that I did with green – It’s a sun print – I gathered some leaves for the sun images.

and finally a couple of “serendipity” fabrics that I created with leftover dyes.

So what do you think of Hand Dyed Fabric?

Photography, Video

Some of My Favorite Photos Set to Music – a Video

Guila Greer

Early this year I was looking on You Tube for Diana Krall singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams. There were a couple of club performances but not very good quality. So of course I decided to make my own. Turned out to be a great learning experience and a lot of fun. I selected suitable photographs from my own collection. This evening when I was considering adding some of these photos to my blog I thought “Why not just post the video?”  So here it is – Enjoy!

Art Quilt, Art Quilts, Fiber Art, Journal Size

Eat Your Veggies

Guila Greer
Most of the art quilts that I’ve been making have been fairly free form.  So I wanted to try my hand at a Still Life. I wanted it to be vibrant with color and simple in design.  The fabrics that I chose would be very important.

First, not knowing which veggies would make the final cut, I went to the refrigerator to see what was available.  I arranged various combinations on a cutting board and ended up with something that looked pleasing.  I photographed them as I went along to get various perspectives.  When I was satisfied I made a print in the size that I wanted to sew and prepared templates.  I adhered a clear piece of laminating film to the printed design and cut the shapes that I wanted to use.

For the first time I went to my little stash of hand dyes and selected the veggie fabrics.  Believe me when I say this was a really big deal.  This is my holy grail of fabric.
I found pieces amongst my commercial stash that would work for the background and the cutting board.
Eat Your Veggies
Once I had the composition in place I decided that some highlights were needed on the veggies.  I added these with Tsukineko Inks, chosen because of the ability to readily control the amount and depth of the color to be added.
I machine quilted to add texture and interest.

As I said earlier it’s quite different from what I usually do – do you like it?
Home Dec, Tutorials

Cloth Table Napkins – Tutorial

Guila Greer
These fabric table napkins are becoming very popular and make a great gift. Here’s a quick tutorial for them.

Cut your fabric the finished size of the napkin plus 1/2 inch. I think that I cut 16 1/2 inch squares for these – 2 squares for each napkin.

Note: You can easily get 4 single thickness or 2 double thickness napkins from a yard of fabric if it’s at least 36 in. wide. Most quilting weight cottons are between 40 and 42 in. wide.

I like to use 100% cotton rather than a poly blend for these; feels good and better absorption.
Consider the weight of the fabric when deciding whether to use single or double weight. Also consider whether you want double faced or single faced napkins.

For Double Thickness Napkins:

Pair 2 squares together RIGHT sides facing and sew around the edges with a 1/4 inch seam. Leave a 2 to 3 inch gap for turning. Turn to the right side – poke out the corners (a chop stick works nicely) and hand stitch the remaining opening.

Press.

At this point you have the option of top stitching around the perimeter – and doing a couple of straight stitch lines across the napkin to better hold the front and back together.

I bundled them together using a leftover scrap of the fabric.

Single Thickness Napkins:

Method 2 – if you have a fabric with enough ‘body’. (look in the home decorating section)

Cut 1 16 to 18 inch square for each napkin.

(I actually used regular cotton for the Thanksgiving napkins. They are pretty but a little flimsy feeling.)

Use a serger to do a rolled hem around all edges.

Art, Art Quilts, Fiber Art, Mixed Media, Quilts

In Her Element

Guila Greer

This was such a fun quilt to make. It contains so many different techniques and required so many design decisions that I thought it would be a good one to blog on.

I started this quilt in a workshop about using Lutradur. We did several kinds of painting on Lutradur and incorporated some stamping. I had a piece that I painted in shades of blue Lumiere – thinking ahead to using the finished product in an art quilt with an underwater theme.

I was in MY element being able to conjure up a variety of embellishments to use on this piece.

My favorite is the kelp. I used a pipe cleaner (aka fuzzy wuzzy wire) as the base and wound some yarn from my knitting leftover bag around it. Then I was able to bend the piece the way I wanted it and couched it to the background.

The dark purple fish was made ‘offline’ with some underfabric, netting and a lot of thread painting, then attached to give a slightly 3D look.

The coral was a lot of fun to make. First I painted some lutradur and created the coral shapes with a heat tool. I just burned away to get the shapes that I wanted then stitched them down.

A variety of threads were used in the quilting including my favorite bling thread – #30 Madeira .

 

 

 

 

All the beading was done by hand.

I finished the quilt with a traditional hand stitched binding.

Indispensable Tools, Tutorials

Studio Space and Design Walls

Guila Greer

Until just recently my sewing/art/studio shared space with our guest room. A lot of you  know the drill:  Company’s coming, start wheeling out the portable carts, last minute putting away of supplies (that you can’t find for weeks after your company goes home) and no access to your machine for a week.  So along with my decision to go on “hiatus” from real estate I decided to convert my home office to a dedicated art studio. Number one requirement – a design wall – so sorely needed. Current design wall being the sliding doors of the guest room closet or a sheet on the floor for larger projects.  The futon had to go and the ideal spot for it was my husband’s study.  Of course he didn’t know anything about that but it didn’t take long to convince him that it was a wonderful idea :-).  So I helped clear space for the futon and we proceeded to take it apart.

And that’s when the fun began.

Picture this – a queen size mattress – a relatively narrow door – 2 height challenged people

So we each have an end of the mattress – John’s pulling I’m pushing and he starts doing some deep cleansing “labor” type breathing – saying “now push” breathe – Well I lost it – rolling on the floor lost it.

Shortly thereafter, with the mattress out of the room I left John to tackle the job of dismantling the frame. I couldn’t watch.  It was like watching a scary movie.

Next step was to turn that now beautifully empty wall into my dream design wall.  I had purchased some fiber board and proceeded to put it up using double sided tape to adhere it to the wall.

Measure your space carefully before you buy the fiber board.  It comes in a variety of sizes and I decided on the 30″ by 20″ size, easier to handle and more versatile so far as filling the space. You can get it in one of the chain crafts stores.  I was lucky to find it on sale.       You also want to note where your electrical outlets are so that you don’t cover them up.  I started at the top because I didn’t want to run out of wall space with leftover fiber board to trim if possible. I figured that I would use the space at the top more readily than near the floor anyway.

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My other purchase was a length of white cotton flannel yardage. I calculated the width of the board and multiplied by 2. Then I cut the yardage in half so that I ended up with 2 lengths the width of the design board.  I used a staple gun to attach the flannel to the fiber board being careful to keep it taut and straight.

The last touch was to add a sturdy curtain rod across the top.  This will be used to hang quilts for photographing.  This design wall is now in constant use and I have found the hanging rod to be a necessary tool as well.

If you have any questions about how I did this please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to provide an answer.