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.

It took me awhile, but my "matinee" quilt is finished. I had the idea nearly right from the start. My junior HS friend & I would go to the matinees at the local theater quite often. One week we saw "Le Mans" starring Steve McQueen & was hooked on auto racing. Specifically, IndyCar racing with a little bit of F1 thrown in. I've had 7 yards of this IndyCar fabric for a long time, not knowing what I would use it for (it's hard to find anything but stock cars). Ah Steve, gone too soon.

A Bad Movie

This is my matinee quilt gone bad. I had planned to hand stitch "film" on it, but my hands have been hurting a lot lately. Soooo...like a dope, I used the sewing machine - my nemesis! - and I will just deal with it later. So, for now, this is it! The End!

Matinee

My first thought of the word Matinee was the marquee outside the theaters of my childhood.

There were several theaters with the name of the theater in large letters that would light up at night.

I pondered how fancy to get with the building as well as the scaffolding that held up the sign and which angle. I concluded that simpler is usually better and 

I decided I wanted the sign to look like I was standing on the street looking up just before participating in one of my favorite activities with my Mom and Sister.

Matinee

Matinee had me scratching my head. Do I go literal? So I took my inspiration from "One Blue Tulip" after I realized that my private matinee had been the nest building, egg laying and hatching of robins in my backyard evergreen tree. Every morning, every afternoon, I checked on them. I was anxious when it snowed in SLC so late in May but they all hatched and went their merry way. The quilt was from a class I took at Quilt Fest a couple years ago by Jeanna Kimball. I love the English method of applique and hope to use it more. What is this bird, who knows. But I got to practice free motion quilting, some embroidery with the machine and was very glad to have something for this word.

Matinee

My husband has always wanted me to make a pineapple quilt.

I can’t decide what color family he would like – we don’t agree on color. But I like black and white anything. I hate it when people feel the need to ‘put a touch of red’ in a black and white quilt – to liven it up. Ick. Anyway, I remembered seeing an old Fons & Porter show about a simple, no-paper-piecing method of making pineapple blocks. I thought this would be a good opportunity to experiment with this method because I think a single pineapple block looks like a big old movie reel or those old test patterns from the ‘50s and ‘60s on TV screens in the middle of the night. Again, I have tons of black and white fabric; the Fons & Porters method was fun, but I messed up measurements at some point, because it didn’t end up being symmetrical. No matter; it’s just a test. It’s fine for this purpose. I found the little Guatemalan dolls from an old broken pin, and figured they would make an appropriate embellishment. But they needed a red curtain for their stage.

Ta dah!

A Matinee with a Manatee

I have to admit, this one was a little tricky. I looked up the definition hoping to find a new angle, but there was none.

This is hand dyed fabric appliqued, then machine quilted. I forgot how much I suck at applique, but like I promised--it was real sewing this time :) I used gel medium to transfer a picture of a manatee.

Is Praire supposed to be any easier??? Maybe I'd better go back and do some of the words I thought were hard to do...they've now become not so hard!