Guila's Art & Other Assorted Joys
Let's make the world more beautiful…together…
Going Around in All The Best CirclesOriginal Design based on the traditional Drunkard’s Path Block. This quilt was juried into the Pacific International Quilt Festival in 2008.
Just about the time we got the Haiku prompt word for September I was itching to do another fiber/ribbon collage quilt. The perfect opportunity arose when we were presented with the word “Rhapsody”.
I always think it’s kinda interesting to look at thought processes and how we end up where we end up so I hope you do too. I immediately discarded the obvious (to me at least that was Rhapsody in Blue) and considered “what have I been rhapsodizing about lately?” Peaches!! I had brought home some from Costco and every time I had one I was oohing and aahing about how delicious and perfect it was.
AND, just a few days before I had been in the local quilt shop looking at orange and PEACH fabric and carrying on about how gorgeous it was.
Tada!……………….. Peach Rhapsody
And here’s the Haiku
late summer harvest
fruit heavy branches bow low
ripe juicy peaches
The rest of the title should be…And catching up with Haiku Art. I am woefully behind BUT I have excuses. The dog ate my quilt?
Let’s see, the November word just was announced – it is Gnarled. I mean the word is “gnarled”. October was Canopy (I’m working on the art – at least in my mind) and September was Rhapsody.
Finally Rhapsody is well on its way.
Here is the Background that I’m so excited about…
It is collaged ribbons and fibers on tulle. I just washed out all the stabilizer and it’s dry and ready for the next step.
Stay tuned!
These are some fun ornaments 
and accessories that I’ve done in prior years. I’m trying to decide on a couple of favorites to concentrate on this year. I will keep some for our own decorating and gift or sell the others.
This snowman was a lot of fun to do. It is free standing lace sewn with a digitized pattern. The snowflakes and bookmarks are all pretty much done using the same method.
The sewing is done directly on a hooped piece of water soluble stabilizer. After I sew the piece I rinse out the stabilizer and allow it to dry. I don’t wash ALL the stabilizer out; I leave some in to give the ornament added body. Then the real fun begins – to make each ornament unique and add some bling. I do this in a variety of ways; add ornament hangers using ribbons or decorative cords; add sparkle with Swarovski heat set crystals. On occasion I might even add some painted decoration.
I just learned that my quilt Fragments of Time was accepted to be shown at the Prospect Park Lefferts Historic House Show to be followed by the Prospect Park Audubon Society Show. VERY excited!!
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.
😦 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?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.
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.
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.
Journal Page Background Techniques.
This is a terrific video from Joggles.com
Guila's Art & Other Assorted Joys 