Batter Up!

BASEBALL has been the toughest of all the words that I have had to so so far in this 12 x 12 challenge.  When I heard the word, nothing came to mind, so I searched the internet.  Thank goodness for Google, saved yet again.  I  copied the picture, enlarged it, and then picked fabrics for the circles, which are sheer, and the background, which is my hand painted.  I enlarged each of the baseball players, making them appear as shadows of the first player.  Quilting and zig zaging the edges finished this little quilt.

Tenacity

What a GREAT word tenacity is. When I was still in high school my father used the word tenacity all the time when he was talking to me. He told me to persevere and to stick to my commitments, get the job done, and stop procrastinating all the time. Complete the task you start, and follow through because the job won't get any easier if you wait. I have generally followed this advice throughout my adult life. I decided to take the word and break it apart and illustrate each part of the word. Therefore, you have the number 10, in a cart, being pulled by a donkey, or ass, standing in front of the city. I cut the pieces out of wool and used my needle felting machine to adhere each piece to the background. I then machine, as well as hand quilting to complete the piece. Tenacity, "stick-to'a-ness" is what I did.

Slick Rock Thunderstorm

The word ROAD is represented in this little quilt that makes me think of heavy rains over the red rocks of Southern Utah. The lighting flashes and the thunder rolls and the clouds part letting the rain spill across the landscape of slick rock country, leaving a glistening glow on everything the rain touches. Last summer when it was warm and dry, I dyed multiple colors of fusible web. If you have never tried it, do so; it's a blast. I then decided to build a picture out of the painted fusible. It comes off the paper backing easily, and you can tear it into any shape that you desire. I placed it on my hand dyed background and started building layer upon layer until the picture emerged. The more I layered the more fun it was. The only thing you need to remember is to use a teflon pressing sheet to protect your ironing surfaces. When the word ROAD was chosen for November, I decided to make the road going into the desert landscape in my picture. Again, I used fusible and added organza for the road. Machine quilting completes the Slickrock Thunder Storm vista.

Gulf Oil Spill

Do you remember those Matinees that we all attended as children on a nice Saturday afternoon? The headlines were boldly placed on the movie screen as they declared the state of our world in a bigger than life manner. This is what I thought of when I heard the word Matinee. The Gulf Oil Spill is bigger than life news, and the pictures of the Pelicans sitting in the vast oil spill is enough to tug at your heart strings. To watch the story unfold every night on the 6 P.M. news made my soul cry. I just could picture those words flashing across the movie screen declaring the state of our world on that fateful day, April 20, 2010. When, are we as a people going to learn that the world is vulnerable and we are stewards of it? It is up to us to care for that which the Lord gave us.

I did a photo transfer and then machine quilted it in grey threads. Using Setacolor paints I highlighted the eye of the Pelican and some on the wings. I hope the solomeness of the picture will speak to our hearts.

In the Likeness of Green

I took a class from Libby Liehman this spring, and discovered the circle atttachment for the Bernina machine. I decided that I would use it to make my "Green" quilt. After piecing the background in different green fabrics, I used multiple green threads to make different size circles.

Prairie Grass

The images of the prairie with the grasses swaying in the wind is what I wanted to capture in this little quilt. I selected a piece of my hand dyed fabric, and placed grasses from my yard in a pleasing manner, and used dried corn silk at the base. I put some bird feathers to replicate a pea hen in hiding. Over the top of this I used tulle, and machine quilted the entire quilt. I thought the grasses would fall apart when quilted, but so far it hasn't. I used sissel twine for the edge treatment. I achieved what I was trying to do, and am happy with the results. This entire quilt reminds me of my trip last summer to the Badlands and South Dakota.

One Blue Tulip

The tulip applique was given to me by my friend Robyn several years ago. After just returning from Asilomar and taking a wonderful class with Libby Lehman, I decided to take this one applique block and give it a home, using the circles that I learned in the class. Thanks Robyn and Libby for making this quilt a reality.

Chaos- Is Our Nation Unraveling?

When the word chaos appeared, I knew exactly what I wanted to create. Using my son's help, we generated a picture of the Capitol and words using Microsoft Publisher. After printing the picture and text onto fabric, I then used some of my painted fusible for laying over the top of the picture.
Big stitch hand quilting was randomly added in the blank spaces. I wanted to add thread work, to make it appear that the unraveling of our Nation is happening in front of our very eyes.

I love our Country and feel that in the preceding year chaos had overtaken our government. When this will all end I have no idea. I crave what is lost, and pray that those principals our Nation was founded upon will not perish.

Coldflake

When the word was pulled for this month and I heard "Cold", I immediately knew that I wanted to make a snowflake from that word. Knowing that I am still computer challenged, I had my wonderful son, Jer, bail me out again. He took the word, reversed it, rotated it, mirror imaged it, and whatever else he had to do to get it to look like this. We then copied it onto freezer paper, ironed the letters onto white wool felt, and cut them out, and machine appliqued them onto the blue background. The polar bear completes the image I had invisioned. I hand beaded the background with small seed beads, gave it a binding and labeled it. It meets my expectations, and thanks again Jeremy.

Frans Frog

I thought a little humor was needed when I created this frog quilt. The "self portrait" is inspriation from Yvonne Porcella. The quilt is fused, machine quilted and embelishments added.

Symbolic Peace

This project started as a turquoise piece of fabric that turned into a symbol of religion that was totally unexpected. It took on a life of its own as I started assembling it. Each part has a specific meaning to me. The color represents peace, the universal symbol of Christianity is the fish represented in thread. The double crossed lines in raw silk threads symbolizing the cross. I made the background (top and bottom) to be the Sea of Galilee while the dotted strip is the calming of the sea by Jesus. I chose to use the three long beads as the 3 members of the Godhead. The silver beads is Jesus as the light of the world. I then decided to place the beads around the border as the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus was in the wilderness. I decided to place the heavily beaded bottom as the Seed of Abraham as Numerous as sands on the the shore. The cream back ground silk is the Shroud of Jesus placed around him after his crucifixion. Netting found on the quilt is to symbolize Jesus telling the apostles to be "fishers of men," with the 12 beads hanging in a row as the 12 disciples of Christ. Finally, I made this quilt in 6 days and on the 7th day I rested (with mild celebration). The quilt is machine quilted and all embellishments have been completed by hand. As I said, I did not intend for this to take on the life it did, but it means a lot to me as a symbol of my faith.

Sandstone-Delicate Arch

Sandstone....what images this word evolks. Southern Utah with all its beauty. Delicate Arch, Landscape Arch, Zions, Bryce, and all the red rock elegance. This quilt is a pattern by Carol Johnson from Nibley, Utah. The top was given to me by Martha Dickey. I decided to finish it by adding the borders, and quilting it. What memories I have from the many trips I took to Arches National Park with my husband and two children. Now in cloth I can perserve one of them.

Kaye Evans

Comfort-Jer's Bucket

COMFORT-JER AND HIS BUCKET
Kaye Evans-2009
This quilt represents what was going on in my life Jan and Feb of 2009. My son, Jeremy, was remodeling my kitchen, and watching 5 children, while his wife worked because he was caught in that economic lay-off that so many are experiencing at this time. He would come up and work at my house, bring along with him his bucket of tools, which contained screwdrivers, hammers, pliers etc. It was the typical remodeling story, sheetrock dust, sawdust, and stuff everywhere. I attended during that same time a class at Asilomar from Sue Benner, which was fantastic. She teaches collage. When, after a week I returned home, to the unfinished kitchen, my wonderful son and his bucket of tools, I decided to do this collage representative of that period in my life. Jeremy and I have always had a joke about his bucket of tools, every time he does some remodeling for me. Last summer it was the downstairs bathroom. When he leaves it at my house I know he will be back shortly, thus comfort, if he takes it with him it will be several days before he comes back. The top part of the collage represents the disarray in my kitchen, the bottom part is order restored when Jer is there with his bucket of tools. By the way, my kitchen is finished, and Jer did a beautiful job. I will miss Jeremy and his bucket of tools. Let’s see…what is my next project?