When she's not at lunch or at exercise class or getting her hair done, Evelyn Cleveland might be sitting in her half of her room at the Golden Living Center, embroidery hoop in one hand and needle and thread in the other.

Cleveland has made dozens of embroidered pillowcases over the years, and she's still going - and still winning blue ribbons at the Central States Fair.

Of course, she also might not be embroidering - she might be visiting with her daughters, or playing poker on her hand-held video game.

"I got a straight flush awhile back," she says.

"Oh Mom," her eldest daughter, Dixie Gill, said, "I hope I'm as perky as you when I'm 93."

Embroidery is an art Cleveland learned growing up in rural eastern South Dakota as one of six sisters, but it's a practical art, she says; the pillowcases aren't meant to be kept in a drawer, they're meant to be used. One of her grandsons took some with him to Laramie, Wyo., this year for his sophomore year at the university. Cleveland has one of her hummingbird pillowcases on her own bed.

Winning ribbons was neat when her daughters started entering her work 20 years ago, Cleveland said.

"At first, I couldn't believe it," she said.

Then she kept entering - and kept winning ribbons.

Her daughters framed the ribbons and hung the frames on the walls of her old apartment, until there were too many.

"We just couldn't frame them anymore," Gill said.

"You paid a lot of money to frame them," Cleveland said.

"Yes, but it was worth it," her daughter said.

This year, Cleveland earned a coveted judge's choice ribbon for a pillowcase of orange flowers with a green crocheted fringe.

Last Saturday, her family took her to the fair so she could see her pillowcases on display. Other people have noticed them too, like her hairdresser, Norma. "Even her husband was impressed," Cleveland said.

The art is one thing to fairgoers, but another to her family, who know the woman behind the stitches.

"I treasure them," Gill said, "and everybody who gets one treasures them."