Earth's Amazing Wonders series - Piece one - Kelly L Hendrickson

Can you believe it!!!  My first piece done and it isn't even the end of FEBRUARY (which is a short month even!)

Antelope Canyon - Arizona USA

The Navajo sandstone making up the walls of the canyon have colors that are almost jewel-toned.  I wanted to add a bit of sky to break up the bright colors. It is a sight to behold...even though I've only seen photos. The flow of the stone is accentuated by the quilting lines. At first I thought this would be mind-numbing but I went with a more organic feel and just let them flow at will.  It ended up being quite therapeutic! I have not quilted this much on a quilt in ages.

The binding on this one was a bear!! After cutting it to size (yes....before thinking about the binding....) I realized that every piece I auditioned for the binding was a distraction. I asked around and got a few ideas but none of them turned out like I wanted for this piece.  Well....there was no way of avoiding it.  I had to do a pieced binding to keep the flow of the lines and colors. I've done pieced bindings before but none quite as complicated with all the angles and everything.  Anyway, it took most of today but it is done and (if I do say so myself) I think it looks GREAT!!

So, my first in the series of Earth's Amazing Wonders for Voyage 2014.

ANTELOPE  CANYON - ARIZONA USA

Sorry about the less-than-clear photo. My good camera is in the shop and I had to take this one with my phone.  I miss my camera.........:-((((((

Morning Glory Pool, Yellowstone National Park

My first piece for 2014 is based on a photograph of Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming (see below). 

In keeping with this year's theme of "Earth", each of my quilts will represent a place on this earth that has made a significant impression on me.  Instead of trying to just copy the image of each place in fabric, I will try to capture the impression of each place.

I was born and raised in southeastern Idaho, just 60 miles south of Yellowstone Park and 60 miles west of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Spectacular scenery was an everyday occurrence for me.  I was fortunate to visit Yellowstone Park two or three times each year.  My favorite sites in Yellowstone Park are the geyser basins.  Morning Glory pool always fascinated me.  The water is crystal clear and incredibly hot.  It seems that you can see through the water right down to the center of the earth.  The colorful pool looks so inviting, but as you step closer the radiated heat from the water pushes you away.  One can only safely observe from a distance.  Beauty can sometimes be very dangerous.

The blue pool is made of my own hand-felted material and a wonderful sparkly blue fabric that I stumbled across one day in JoAnn's Fabric.  I used a piece of my hand-painted silk for the first border around the pool.  I overlaid the fabric in the yellow area with organza "bubbles" to enhance the idea of water.  I hand embroidered French knots on the white strip and added a few crystals for some sparkle and interest.  I chose the bright orange and yellow fabric because it reminded me of the molten lava that is so close to the surface in Yellowstone Park. The little patches of green represent the plants of the forest that cannot live in close proximity to the hot pools.

Here is the photo I used as inspiration for my quilt:

Frances

Saltmines

The creative juices are flowing in abundance :-). Don't get nervous if you have not yet made a quilt this year, I am on a roll here. This picture - an aerial photo made by George Steinmetz -:

inspired me in making my 3rd quilt. This is how it turned out:

 

Some time ago I had bought a textured black felt. Not knowing what to do with it at that time I put it into my stash. It was the perfect background for this piece. I applied bronze and gold paint to it to get it more in the color I wanted. To create depth in it, I glued two layers together. The holes were cut out in a random way. The bottom layer slipped a bit while cutting creating a kind of shadow line.  

There is a lot of fabric in my stash, but I was not able to find one to my liking to resemble the mines. So I decided to apply paint to batting. This way I could play a bit with the colors and the texture would be visible. Here is a detail picture which shows this: