da veha

www.chayaerez.blogspot.com

2007-12-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Oops. No not between chaya & erez.

End of an era

2007-12-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

This is my last post at daveha.
I have moved to chaya.erez.blogspot.com.

Productive weekend?

2007-12-02T16:43:00.001-08:00

Well it depends how you look at it.
Yesterday was Joy's Bat Mitzvah and it was a lovely service. A little unorthodox (pun if you are familiar with the various Jewish religious streams). I am not sure but I think it is a reform egalitarian synagogue. Very participatory. The rabbi and cantor both strummed guitars and sang throughout the service and the choir, of which Joy is, among other things, the conductor sang as well. And well!
The service was followed by a kiddush luncheon and unlike the Shabbat kiddush luncheon at one shul I have attended on several occasions, the congregation did not descend on the food like a swarm of locusts and the food was quite good!
I took Joy the gift I made her (since it was a reform shul with a very relaxed attitude) and I hope she liked it. I suppose I shall hear about at the office on Tuesday when she returns to work.
I came home from the affair all tuckered out. I haven't recovered from my cold/flu and it seems to be getting worse. And today I didn't much feel like doing anything. I spent about an hour in my studio and finished unpicking the quilting stitches on one of the challah covers. I didn't like the way they turned out. And then I unpicked the embroidered "lichvod Shabbat veYom Tov" which was wrong in scale to the piece. I think I will type in "Shabbat Shalom" in my Hebrew word, enlarge it at the office, wonder under the letters onto fabric pieces and then wonder under it onto the cover.
I'll see how that turns out.
I also made a paper coffee cup cuff (for insulation). It turned out nicely. I gave it away and am waiting for feedback to see if it fits Tim Horton cups. The template was from Second Cup...
Off to bed.

Previous post -- the photos

2007-11-30T15:24:00.000-08:00

This is my Pomegranate monochromatic challenge. It's 10" x10", obviously white, but using as many textures and embellishments as I could think of. You can't really see the depth from this photo. I now have to decide how to finish it. I have some lovely white ribbon and I think I'll give it a 3" border. The question is white or colourful?

This is the piece (14" x 14") I made for Joy's Bat-Mitzvah. Her parasha is "Vayeshev" (embroidered in the Hebrew lettering). For those who know the Torah portion, perhaps you can recognize allusions to Joseph's coat of many colours and his pre-slavery dreams. One of Joy's Jewish names means gold so I tried to use gold fabrics, trims, threads and embellishments. And Joy love singing hence the (barely visible at the top) golden bird and musical notes. I hope she likes it.

And this is the pot holder I made for Silka. I am hoping to make more like it. Perhaps not pieced. I thought of using Judaic fabrics (as yet I have none in my stash, but that can be remedied...) The back is pieced from scraps from Menachem's quilt and other scraps which I can't remember where they came from but the colours fit in

Countdown to the end of the year

2007-11-28T17:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged for a month. My excuse is a bad case of the flu. I'm still coughing my guts out, steroid puffer and all.
I also missed both of my guild meetings. I especially wanted to be at the Pomegranate Guild meeting to show my monochromatic 10" challenge piece and see what the others came up with. Oh well. (photo to follow).
I've also been sort of busy creatively. I made a small embellished quilted wallhanging for a friend's bat-mitzvah. (photo to follow)
I made a potholder, one piece two hands. (photo to follow)
I have been working on two challah covers. Neverending. Just can't seem to get them right. (photos to follow)
And I've been thinking. They say that a large part of creativity is in the thinking process.
I'm reviewing what I've done this past year and pondering what and how I want to create in the coming year.
Not ready to share yet but will get there before the year's end.
In preparation for the new year, I've made some changes.
I signed up for a new email account because I was discouraged with the amount of spam we were receiving and I wanted to keep my incoming emails (quilting/needlework lists, Shomernet, etc.) separate from the basketball, gadget, camp, jokes, etc. emails.
So far no spam and I'm trying to be selective what I send out and sign up for.
I registered on facebook. I'm not really sure why but I figured it couldn't hurt.
I opened an etsy account with the thought of actually selling something.
So I guess December should be a busy month if I'm planning to get everything I want to do before the year end done.

New sewing machine

2007-10-26T05:26:00.000-07:00

Just in case you were wondering why I'm not blogging in rapture over my new Brother, it was a lemon. I started sewing gingerly, afraid I'm hit the wrong buttons on the computer screen and somehow screw it up. So when the needle shaft when down into the fabric and I was only able to lift it with great difficulty, I was very upset with myself. I managed to dislodge it, do a little more sewing (and I really like the speed, ease, embroidery features) until it went down again and refused totally to come out. Menachem took it into the shop where they determined it was nothing I had done but a faulty part. They have ordered me a new machine which will hopefully arrive any day now. And I fully intend to check it out at the shop before I bring it home.

In the meantime, I pieced another challah cover from the scraps of my colourful quilt. And embroidered the centre panel with variegated green thread. On the previous challah cover, I embroidered the centre panel first and then attached the bottom, top and sides. On this one, I put it together and then embroidered the centre panel. Embroidering first is the better way to go.

I also "made" myself a light box -- I took 4 shadow boxes, stacked 2 high on either side and put my long long 6" wide omniruler on top of them with a strong table lamp lying on its side under it. I traced onto the white fabric with an air soluble pen. I got about half of the embroidery done yesterday morning. This morning, the markings for the second half had disappeared... So I marked again and finished embroidering. Now I just have to wait for my machine to quilt it.

Tomorrow, Inbal and I are going to the Creativ Festival to check out what's new in sewing/quilting and scrapbooking/collage. I usually enjoy the Festival -- I hope Inbal will too.

New Brother

2007-10-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

So I've been trying out sewing machines and went with Menachem to Newmarket to Evelyn's Sewing Centre in Newmarket to test drive the Brothers. I had been told that Babylock, which I liked, and Brother were the same machine. And indeed, they are identical. I tried the Brother 450X and liked it and it was on sale $500 less than the list price and $300 less than I had seen in Markham. Menachem kept saying "buy it, buy it!". I'm not so sure it wasn't because I was sitting beside a machine which was also on sale: $7000 marked down from $10,000.... lol
Anyways, the salesperson told us that the machine wasn't in stock and that it didn't include several of the feet (walking foot, freemotion foot, 1/4" foot) but that we could buy anything, including fabric and sewing machines accessories, for 15% off for the next year.
Friday we got the call that the machine had come in and yesterday we went to pick it up. And it did include the walking foot and free motion foot! So all I want now is a 1/4" foot which I'm hoping to pick up at the Creativ (needlework and sewing) Show this coming weekend.
The purchase includes free lessons but I want to get a basic understanding of the machine before I take the classes. And since I have an aversion to reading manuals, it should be interesting...
Right now, I am busy trying to reconfigure my sewing room to accommodate all of my stuff... I think I am going back to the previous configuration.
Inbal came on Thursday and is wedding occuppied until this afternoon. We drove her down to the Hyatt at Bloor and Avenue Road where the wedding took place yesterday afternoon/evening. She looked beautiful. She had this lovely emerald green dress with gold accents and gold shoes. Friday, she came to the office for lunch and bought a gold pashmina at Winners. On the way home, I bought some gold fabrics and trims and yesterday morning sewed her up a little gold purse. I hope she had a good time. Today she has a brunch so she stayed at my mother's last night (subway convenience) and will go down to the Hyatt for the brunch from there. We will probably pick her up this afternoon, after Menachem gets off work.
So I'm off to play with my new Brother...

Sold!

2007-10-13T06:30:00.001-07:00

So a while back, I wrote that I had sold a piece of my work which was exhibited at the Pomegranate Guild's 25th anniversary exhibit at both the Toronto JCC and Baycrest museum. Although the piece had verbally sold the day after the exhibit opened, I just got paid for it on Thursday evening. It's not the purchaser's fault that payment took so long. Rikki, who served as the intermediary between the buyer and me, was ready to write the cheque several times but whenever our paths crossed, either she was in a hurry or I was, and I knew (hoped) she was good for the payment. The exhibit ended at the Baycrest on September 30th and when I went to pick up my two pieces (the third, a shadowbox, is now going touring cross-Canada...), there was only one there. The "sold" item had been picked up by Rikki so I knew it was a done deal. Thursday evening, both Rikki and I attended the same lecture/event (an evening with tallit maker extraordinaire, Shirley Waxman) and I received the cheque.
And not a moment too soon. My trusty Singer is dying and I fear it is terminal -- the motor. The machine originally (18 year ago...) cost me under $200. To spend any money repairing it seems a waste. So I'm looking for a new machine, with more quilting/free motion capabilities. Thursday after work, I went down to a sewing machine store at Yonge and Eglinton to test drive some machines and figure out what I want. It was a waste of time. The woman selling (perhaps a new owner of the store?) wasn't terribly knowledgable and didn't go out of her way to show me the models in the store.
Yesterday after work, we went to another store in Markville Mall and saw a few machines. Here, the salesperson was certainly more knowledgable and it appeared they really wanted to sell.
Sewing machines with quilting capabilities can run up to $10,000. I don't want to spend anything near that much since it is still a hobby for me and I can't justify such an expense. I test drove a basic Pfaff with which I was not enamoured. Then I test drove a Babylock Decorator's Choice which I liked. As I said, the needlecraft and sewing festival is in two weeks and I will be able to test drive all the machines at the same time and hopefully make a more informed decision. And then see if there are sale deals, floor model promos, or if it's worth taking a trip to Buffalo...
At any rate, in the interim I am giving my machine a rest after ekeing (sp?) out the last drops of juice on Ezra's quilt. I am now binding it by hand.
Back to Shirley Waxman's trunk show/talk, although I don't think I'll be making any tallitot in the near future, I was inspired by her embroidery and it gave me some ideas for doing some handwork. The ideas are bubbling as I speak.
Today, Menachem is working and I am going to meet Devora downtown at the CBC building at 1:30 p.m. for lunch and to see a glass and pottery exhibit. Later this afternoon, I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing. Menachem finishes work at 3:00 p.m. Perhaps we'll hook up and do some visiting or something.
Inbal is coming for a visit this Thursday and I am so looking forward to it.

Blogging

2007-10-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging as religiously as I had hoped but I'm either tired, busy or lazy.
This past long weekend, I spent three days at Casa Loma as docent for "The Quilt" exhibit. In case you don't know what it is, please visit their website www.thequilt.com.
Some of the quilts were breathtaking, in particular "Circle of Caring" (can be seen on the website). It's a bargello in the round and I have an itch to try one of those... The quilts are all manner of design, some traditional, some modern, some playful, using so many techniques and colours.
And I had the chance to sit with women from other quilting guilds and pick their brains about sewing machines. (Still not totally edified, but on the way) In the meantime, my Singer has gotten a second wind and I'm hoping to at least finish quilting Ezra's baby quilt this week. I got the quilting gloves I ordered and boy, do they ever make a difference!
Menachem has started working at Longo's so we're going to have to do some creative scheduling in order to spend time together.
I'm hoping to stitch after work today so I'll keep you posted if I get the quilting finished on the baby quilt.

News?

2007-10-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

Not much really. It's 3:06 a.m. Insomnia.
Have I already mentioned that my sewing machine is on its last leg? Bummer because I have four or five quilts to quilt. The walking foot from my Singer is compatible with my no-name backup machine but the threads, bother upper and bobbin, keep taking turns breaking. So I'm pretty much machineless as far as free-motion quilting goes.
I have started researching new machines and am more confused the more I read. Also, I'm not sure I want to remortgage the house to finance a fancy shmancy machine for what I still consider to be a hobby. Maybe I should go the route of an industrial -- I understand they can be considerably less expensive and have much stronger motors.
At the end of the month, I will attend the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival, test drive their machines and try to make a decision.
I was hoping to take Menachem with me since he's much more technically inclined than me and I hope to get him hooked on the quilting part... but Menachem has landed a part time job at Longos, the local grocery store, doing front store customer service (can I help you put your groceries in the car? that's in aisle number 6, etc.). It's something to keep him busy from September to May until his summer camp job. His hours are, at the moment, unpredictable. This week he's working Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10-2. So if he works every weekend, I guess I'll be going to the Festival alone.
This week, the Pomegranate Guild exhibit at Baycrest ended so we went Monday to pick up my pieces. Actually only one because one was picked up by the purchaser's "agent". Yay me. First piece I've ever sold. My second piece is a gift for Yunkie. Maybe we'll find some time over the weekend to go there to give it to him.
So I guess I'll be doing handwork for the next while... I really must straighten up my studio -- it's a bit of a mess at the moment.

First quilt -- finished

2007-10-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

This is the first quilt I made which I just finished. The piecing of the top didn't take too long but I was afraid to ruin it by free-motioning it myself. My friend, Dee, graciously offered to do it and I just finished sewing on the binding. The back is done in the black and gold leaves fabric. The whole thing is IMHO stunning!!

Another week gone by

2007-09-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Shabbes yontif shabbes yontif. With all the holidays, it's hard to keep track. Especially since we don't have small children and aren't overly observant.
Stitch-wise, I've been busy. For the Pomegranate's 10" monochromatic challenge, I've done a white landscape -- quilted, embroidered, beaded and embellished. I am pleased with the result. I am making it into a small quilted wallhanging. In the meantime, my sewing machine has decided to slow down terribly so my attempts to free-motion have not gone well. I think I might try hand-quilting instead, the aim being more to get the stitches through the layers than small even stitches. If I can do both, great!! My border panels are white as well but I am planning to do the stitching in variegated rainbow coloured thread...
I am also working on the binding of Menachem's quilt. I took it to work yesterday but didn't get much done. I've done a little today, maybe some more this evening, a little tomorrow. It will be finished by the weekend.
I also want to finish Ezra'a quilt. I have to quilt the borders. Maybe I'll try that by hand too. But I'll probably do the binding by machine.
And now that there's a new addition to our extended family in Israel, I want to make a baby quilt for her.
And a scarf using 1" squares, solvy and variegated threads.
Hmmm, so many projects, so little time.
And tomorrow, we get our new car!!

Erev-erev continued

2007-09-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

So we got home from Perth Saturday evening. Sunday, I got an early start on quilting. I have quilted the middle of Ezra's quilt but have yet to successfully finish the borders (I've done them twice and unstitched them twice...they just don't sit the way I want).
Then we had to go to Cock-a-doodle quilts -- it seems I didn't have fabric for binding Menachem's quilt. I've cut the fabric and made the binding strip. Now I just have to find some uninterrupted time to sew it. Then at noon, Mintzy called and asked if I wanted to go with her and Silke and Al to St. Jacobs. I did, Menachem didn't. It was a lovely day so I went but I was exhausted when I returned.
Monday, Ruthie had a stopover in Toronto on her way back to Israel from Winnipeg. We picked up my mother, went to meet Ruthie at the airport and went out for lunch at the Pickle Barrel at Yorkdale. Also, a very pleasant few hours.
Tuesday, back to work. In the evening I had my first meeting at the York Heritage (Toronto) Quilters Guild. Meetings are held at Edwards Gardens. The speaker was Pamela Allen who does art quilts with an attitude. Very enjoyable.
Yesterday, Wednesday evening was the first Pomegranate Guild meeting of the season. The speaker talked about colour theory, in advance of our guild challenge for the November meeting. We have to make a 10" by 10" monochromatic block. It can be any textile media as long as it's one colour and the required size. I am thinking multiple techniques in white but haven't finalized my decision yet. I have to think on this one a little.
Today, no evening plans (thank goodness). Maybe a little sewing. Mel had his foot surgery today and hopefully it went well. Tomorrow is Erev and Saturday Yom Kippur. We may take our annual ride in the country...
Other than that, no news.
So for those who fast and observe, gmar chatima tova.

Erev erev Yom Kippur

2007-09-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

Since my last post was erev erev Rosh Hashana (shana tova to all) and we're now erev erev Yom Kippur (gmar chatima tova to all), it's time to post.
The chagim were very nice. We had two small gatherings. The first night, we had Mom, Bat & Sandy, Devora & Noam, and Shaked. As usual, Menachem outdid himself. Since carp was not to be found, we had mock chopped liver, chummus, baba ganoush and sweet and sour vegetarian "meat" balls instead. This in addition, of course, to soup with lokshen, honey chicken, my mother's veal roast, Devora's pasta prima vera, rice, salads and dessert of Menachem's honey cake and a fruit platter provided by Bat & Sandy. And Menachem baked a tasty and lovely round challah. So it was very nice.
The second night, the menu was the same, the guests different. Ethel came, as did Yunkie, Mindy, Alana, Jeremy & Michelle. Bat & Sandy were at Heather & Maurie's.
Also a very pleasant evening.
We return to camp each fall to paint the kitchen floor. When we told Dee that we were coming up, she invited us the the Brooke Valley Jewish community's Rosh Hashana potluck get-together on Friday night. So we packed up our leftovers and headed out to Perth. The get-together was lovely. They're such a nice group of people. Menachem's meatless balls went over big, especially since most of the participants are vegetarians.
Saturday morning, we painted the floor and then Dee invited us for lunch. After lunch, Menachem and David went to the marina to see a man about a boat. Dee and I stayed to stitch. Well actually Dee stitched, I watched. Except for tucking in a few threads and sewing on the binding, Menachem's quilt is finished. I hope to finish it this weekend.
Got to run to work. Will continue later.

Erev erev Rosh Hashana

2007-09-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

Boy, the past few days have been busy. Saturday, we went to Cock-a-doodle Quilts and bought some fabric, which I have already washed and will prepare for Inbal's quilts' backings.
I sandwiched the baby quilt and also sandwiched the swirly quilt. Now I just need courage to quilt them...
It is the day before erev Rosh Hashana and we're getting ready for two family gatherings -- the first tomorrow night with Mom, Bat & Sandy, Devora & Noam, and maybe Shaked. We invited Shloimeh and Zena but not sure they'll attend. They are religious and the walk from their house to ours may be a little too much for them.
Then Thursday night, we're having, Mom, Ethel, Yunkie & Mindy, Alana, Jeremy and Michelle.
Sunday we went shopping for fish (and quilting safety-pins). No carp to be found, neither at the supermarkets nor the fish stores. So our menu has changed.
We'll be starting with roasted vegetable soup with lokshen (noodles). Instead of gefilte fish, we'll be having chopped liver from mock (i.e eggplant), dips -- hummus and baba ganoush, corn salad, green and red pepper salad, and sweet potato salad. (All very very labour intensive).
For the main course, we're having veal roast (my mother's delicious specialty), honey chicken, maybe sweet and sour tofu balls, rice, bean salad, pasta salad and a green salad.
And for dessert, Bat-Sheva's bringing a fruit platter and Menachem's making a honey cake. And of course, Menachem is making round challahs in honour of Rosh Hashana.
We will be repeating menu 1 on night 2. Those who are coming both nights may have complaints but too bad.
Tomorrow, I will be speed cleaning the house.
Thursday and Friday, we will rest, or maybe take a ride in the country.
Saturday, we're going to camp to paint the kitchen floor. We have a car rental for three days so hopefully we'll have a nice weekend. Maybe visit with Dee to show her my quilting efforts. At any rate, I need to buy some quilting thread and am not sure what colour to go with so I'm hoping to confer with Dee and purchase the threads in Perth.
And Monday, Ruthie will be passing through Toronto on her way home from Winnipeg so we'll be going out to the airport to visit with her.
And that's all the news that's fit to print.
So if anyone is reading, have a happy and healthy Shana Tova.

Baby Quilt Top Finished

2007-09-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

This is the finished top. I had to ditch my idea to use the curly turquoise fabric -- it was too slippery to work with. So I bought a light green marbled fabric. There are two reasons I put the green squares in the corners a) I didn't like the way it looked when the fish prints met side by side and b) the top and bottom borders were each about 2 cm. short and I didn't want to have a seam where the fish may not line up between the two pieces.

I think it looks OK.

This morning, Shaked came over and we went to Cock-a-doodle Quilts to buy backing fabric for the two versions of Inbal's quilt. I bought two very different backings. We'll see what happens. I had previously bought backing for the swirly quilt and the baby quilt at Fabricland but just didn't see anything remotely suitable for backing Inbal's quilts.

We also popped into AM Studio, an Israeli glass studio which imports art glass items from the Galil. And also does some custom glass work. I thought Shaked, herself a ceramics sculptor, might enjoy it. And she did.

Baby quilt

2007-09-04T13:16:00.001-07:00

And this is the beginnings of the baby quilt made by sewing eight long strips, turning 90 degrees and cutting eight tubes, then rearranging. So easy!! I was going to make a border using the blue fuzzy fabric but it didn't handle well. So I'll just have to buy some yellow fabric for the inner border and then use the fishies for the outer border.

And I have other fabrics I thought might be fun piecing in this way. Of course I'll have to buy fabrics to match...

Inbal's Quilt - Photo finish

2007-09-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

Et voila! The pieced parts are identical in colour, even if the photos don't show it. See how different they look?

I am halfway through the quilt top for Ezra. I tried a new technique for making squares and it really does make the quilting go quickly.

New Quilt

2007-09-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is the little quilt that grew. The Israeli Quilter's Association, of which I am a member, is having a juried exhibition. The rules were small wall quilts, no side to exceed 22" and if pieced, no block to exceed 4" square. So I started making 4" squares. And enjoyed what I saw so I made some more. And I so liked what I saw that I said, forget the exhibit. I'm making a quilt! So I did. Now what I'll do with this quilt is another matter...

I actually have a four day weekend. We didn't have any closings on Friday so the office was closed. I worked on this quilt on Friday and finished it this morning.

Then I finished Version B of Inbal's quilt this evening. (Tomorrow I'll post pictures of both versions.)

Tomorrow, I want to start a quilt for Ezra, Mintzy's grandson. It won't be elaborate but it's with that nice flourescent fish fabric so it should be fun. Also the backing fabric is soft and cuddly. One of the fabrics is not that stable so I'm going to use interfacing before I cut it and hopefully that will help.

While I've been quilting, Menachem's been painting. We decided to finally paint the "new" door -- it's already four years old... So we chose some lovely colours -- an off-white for the trim, a tan colour for the side panel and for the door itself, a burgundy. Well, the burgundy isn't. It's more red than burgundy. And after three coats of paint, it's blotchy and awful. So this afternoon, Menachem put on a new coat of primer and we're going to paint the door tan as well.

Tomorrow, we're invited to Yunkie and Mindy's for lunch. And then Menachem has to pick up Itai and Inbal from the airport in the evening. And that's about it, other than painting and quilting.

Inbal's quilt top version A -- finished!!

2007-08-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

Dee, my quilt "guru" came to visit yesterday. Hannah had an anime convention in Toronto and Dee brought her in for the weekend. We had previously planned to quilt last week up at her place in Perth, but she was pooped from her busy schedule and Menachem was itching to come home, so we postponed to yesterday. She was only at my place for a few hours, but boy, did I learn in those few hours!!
I had made two identical pieced lap-size quilt tops, sans borders. I had purchased fabric in Perth for the borders. Dee wasn't crazy about my fabric choices. I brought the fabrics home, put fabrics up on the design wall -- on one side, Dee's preference, on the other, mine. The more I looked the more I liked mine. So I decided to do one of each. In Dee's version, the borders are a continuation of the centre -- very busy, dynamic. In mine, the borders are very subdued.
Dee showed me how to do the borders and explained that part of my "wonky" results are due to some of the fabrics I'm using (not stable), my sewing machine (the foot moves around producing an uneven seam), the way I sew (I apparently push with my left hand and pull with my right causing distortion). Nevertheless, she got me started on the borders and today I finished Version A.
Next weekend, perhaps I'll tackle version B.
I will try to post photos in due course.
In the meantime, tomorrow I return to work after a week of being off. I am looking forward to it because my routine will be returning to "normal". I will have a definite time of leaving the house, definite plans during the day, and will be able to plan activities, including my quilting/embroidering/etc. accordingly.
I don't know if I already mentioned this, but I had started making blocks for a miniature quilt for the Israeli Quilters Association exhibit, but like the results so much that I am going to make more blocks and make a lap size quilt for myself/donation/gift, or something. I will probably work on cutting and sewing the blocks this week. It's a project I can do in small increments.
Anyways, Menachem shampooed the car upholstery in anticipation of returning the car at the end of the lease and I'd better go close the windows.

Fast forward to the end of summer

2007-08-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time, yada yada. Camp is over. Big sigh of relief.
So we've been home two days now. Menachem is recuperating from a very tiring time, both physically and emotionally. We've still got stuff to put away but are procrastinating. Menachem is getting his fill of internet, without dialup!! and watching TV.
I have been quilting. My sewing room is such a mess and I'm usually quite anal about putting it in order before I start working but not this time.
I belong to the Israeli Quilters Association and they are having a juried exhibition of traditional miniatures and I started working on an entry. The rules are no side bigger than 24", no fusing, gluing, etc. and if pieced with squares, maximum square size 4". I wasn't sure if the "traditional" applied only to the method of piecing or also to the patterns. So I have made 4" squares based on one of the patterns in "Stack a New Deck". Only I made enough for two small quilts. And I like it so much that I may just forego the exhibit and make it into a baby quilt.
Also on my design wall Inbal's robe quilt. I bought two pieces of fabric which I thought would be great for borders but Dee thinks they don't make the quilt "pop". So I am going to audition other fabrics, reserving the right to go with my fabrics if she can't convince me her way is better. Dee will be coming into Toronto this weekend and she's going to come over so we can play.
OK. Now that we're home and have lightning internet, I will try to post more frequently. And add pictures if I get the chance.

Shomria Quilt -- continued

2007-07-11T02:48:00.000-07:00

So apparently, the kid in charge of arts and crafts is not as enamoured with the quilt idea as I am. I have spoken to her several times but she has yet to come to find out what she has to do. In the meantime, I have finished doing the preliminary embroidery on 9 of the 18 patched piece seams...
I really do not want to do this quilt project on my own which would be defeating the purpose. I will give it one more try this weekend when I'm up at camp. If they latch onto the idea fine. If not, also fine.
Dee is encouraging me to finish quilting my onion quilt by myself. She did all of the quilting except the border and it looks amazing!! The border shouldn't be that difficult to do. And then bind and finish. Two years, not too bad... So maybe we'll pop over to her place this weekend and pick it up.
And then I have all these other projects under way or in planning. My mother just returned from Israel with Marty's ties which Ruthie sent. There are several hundred of them. I will make a quilt for Ruthie from them. But I won't get started on them until the fall. I want to finish the quilts from Inbal's fabric.

Shomria quilt

2007-06-27T03:16:00.001-07:00

The Shomria quilt is on its way. This is supposed to be crazy quilt which for lack of time I will piece but all of the embroidery, embellishments, etc. will be done by the campers and staff. Fabricland had a sale last week so I bought six solid fabrics -- two blues, one green, one brown-gold and two yellows, and muslin. I am using the standard six-piece template I like to use. Yesterday evening, I ironed and cut the muslin squares. I will take the whole thing up with me on Friday and cut the coloured fabrics and do the piecing up there. I simply don't think I'll be able to finish it here on time but I need a better table for sewing up there. I'll have to figure something out.
To make the piece relevant, I am kind of thinking on a theme of peace.
So I've been giving some thought to embellishing. Each square has 5 seams so I'll need five styles of basic embroidery for them, which I have to teach. I thought feather-stitch, either single or double, chain stitch, on a wave, chevron stitch, herringbone, and one other -- better check the stitch dictionary. Then they can be further embellished with french knots, fly stitches, etc.
For the needle-challenged, I am going to be doing motifs in both stamping and stencilling. I thought of stamping doves and stencilling words (e.g. peace, shalom) in English and Hebrew and in different fonts. A few beads here, some buttons there and hopefully, it will all come together.
Then I'll just have to figure out how to sew the whole thing together (i.e. sashed or not, borders or not, central medallion or not.
I'm looking forward to the whole project.
In the meantime, I'm on a hectic schedule of taking the train Fridays at noon to camp and returning Sundays at midnight. (This weekend is a long weekend so I'll have one extra day of "serenity" ha ha in the idyllic surroundings of Shomria). Then I'm left with short weeks in which I work during the day, and spend my evenings doing the stuff that needs being done -- watering plants, mowing the law, gardening, shopping, visiting relatives, etc.
Off to decide which beads, threads, etc. to take up with me.

Old computers, slow internet, catch-up

2007-06-22T05:29:00.000-07:00

On June 1st, I went up to Camp Shomria (Perth) with DH, who is the site and operation manager there. We usually go up on June 1st so we'll have a full month to get the camp into shape before the campers arrive July 1st.
Fortunately, our aging buildings did not suffer damage from the harsh winter (i.e. no trees fell on buildings, nothing collapsed... But mice apparently had a difficult winter and moved into at least two buildings. So, including the raccoon family which finds a new point of entry into the Beit Tarbut (rec hall) each year, we had major cleanup after the mice. In the room next to ours (it's a duplex), they ruined one mattress beyond repair, ate a hole in the fridge wall, not to mention droppings and nests everywhere. Same goes for the office.
We'll have to be more diligent in closing up this year and close up any holes under doors, around windows, next to the plumbing pipes, etc. Not that they won't be able to get in, but at least not to make it easier for them. At least we didn't have vandalism.
So I was up there two weeks. Our days consisted of 6-8 hours of physical labour and then "relaxing" -- trips into town to Canadian Tire for repair stuff, trips to the garbage dump... We also got in a few nice meals in Perth and some down time. We signed up at the Perth library and I read 8!! books in the two weeks.
At camp, we're on dial-up internet. And have an older version computer. Boy, is that frustrating. To pick up email takes forever, when the system doesn't shut down. In the end, we just went to the Perth library to read our email.
I got a little stitching done. I took up my sewing machine and started on my art quilt. Not terribly happy yet but I shall persevere. I took up all kinds of cq stuff to work on but didn't get started on any of it.
The two weeks were over, I took the train back, a 3.5 train ride to Toronto, another half hour on the subway and then a taxi home, getting home at around 11:30 p.m.
And that's how I'm going to be spending my weekends for the next two months, train from Toronto to Smiths Falls at 12:20 p.m. Friday, train from Smiths Falls to Toronto at 7:01p.m. Sundays.
Just looked at my watch. Time to run.

About those daily postings...

2007-06-01T01:34:00.000-07:00

When I originally started blogging, I had hoped to use the blog as a daily journal. Ha! Now if I can blog weekly, I'm doing well.

This is a photo of Alana and Mindy taken just after Alana finished her Torah reading. She also led the services and did a wonderful job.

Alana is wearing the tallit I made her. It was a first effort. Overall, it was lovely. I could have made it a bit longer. I should have changed the placement of the stripes in proportion to the corners. But it was made with love and is quite pretty, especially with the outfit she wore that day.

I received many compliments and a few questions about whether I make tallitot for sale, the answer being hmmm. maybe.

The whole Bat Mitzvah was a lovely affair. It was a buffet luncheon at the shul. The food was good, there was background music (guitar and keyboard) which was background music. Except for the hora, the music was quiet and didn't interfere with conversation.

I think I already mentioned in a previous post how Yunkie and Mindy (i.e. Mindy) made other arrangements which were in keeping with the mitzvah part of Bat Mitzvah. The table centrepieces were mitvah "baskets" -- recyclable containers filled with products which after the simcha were donated to a woman's shelter. And the place cards were from Sick Kids Hospital where a donation was made in honour of the simcha.

And it was a busy week. Tuesday evening was an impromptu surprise birthday party for my mother's 86th at her place. My mother had for years talked about getting a roll-top desk and Charles found a small one which fits where the tea table used to stand. So he came in for dinner, Devora and Noam were there too. After dinner, Devora took Charles and Mom out for a walk and the rest of us showed up for dessert. It was very nice.

Wednesday, Mintzy invited us over for dinner and to "share" her grandson Noah. He is afraid of strangers (us). Rafi, Menachem and Noah played a game of indoor catch and Noah almost made it over to Menachem before he remembered that he was a stranger. It was quite comical.

Menachem has been busy all week making arrangements and picking stuff up for camp. We're going up today. So last night, we were busy doing laundry, packing, trying to concentrate all of the stuff in the front hall and hoping we don't forget anything. Perth is a big city and you can buy almost anything you need there but still there's stuff that we can bring from home.

I spent time organizing my sewing room so I could pack up stuff to take with including my new sewing machine. I'm hoping to get started on an art quilt while I'm up there during the next two weeks and something portable that I can work on while on the four hour train ride home.

Did I mention that Menachem put up a design wall for me? It's 1.5 inch styrofoam covered with quilting batting and industrial velcroed to the wall. I already tried out my robe quilts on it and am sure it will get much use over time. I am taking my robe quilts to Perth and am hoping that during the summer, Dee will help me problem-solve their wonkiness so I can finish them.

At camp, we have dial-up internet. And we won't have the phones connected until June 4th. So even if I wanted to post more frequently, I won't be able to. Fortunately, there appears (so far) to be less work than in previous years, so other than the immediate tasks of evicting a raccoon family from the rec hall and ridding the room next to us of mice and mice damage (they ate a hole in the plastic wall of the room's fridge) and some sorting of food donations in the pantry, hopefully we'll have a bit of a vacation. Ha ha.

Another week gone by

2007-05-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know where the week went. Well, actually I do but... I worked Monday then came home and stitched on Alana's kippa. I took one from her which fit her well but was torn, when I was over on Sunday, and took it apart so I could use the pieces to make a pattern. Sunday evening, I made the kippa from the mauve duppioni silk. I then embroidered and beaded the seams a la crazy quilt mode. I made a lining from the patterned fabric I used for the tallit bag. Tuesday after work, Mintzy came to pick me up and we went with her cousin, Silka, to see the Pom exhibit. Afterwards, we went for dinner at Me Va'me, and then I had a Pom executive meeting at the JCC. Wednesday evening was our regular Pom meeting. It was on knitting with beads. I don't knit so it really didn't do much for me but you never know when an idea will come in handy. Thursday after work, I went with Rafi and Mintzy to pay a shiva call for a friend from the tnua whose wife passed away. A few years older than me. When it's one of my friends' parents, it's sad but they're in their eighties or ninties. When it's someone may age or a little older, it's really sad. Friday afternoon, Menachem bought me a new sewing machine at Costco. It's a simple machine with several stitches, but a no-name type brand. I don't have great expectations. I really just wanted an extra machine so I can take it up to camp so I have one there and one at home. And then during the year, I will have two machines -- one to do piecing and the other to do free-motion quilting. I tried it out -- it seems fine. For $100 CDN, it's more than fine. We went out Friday night for dinner to a new restaurant up on Beaver Creek -- the Vegetarian Gourmet. The food was quite good and I didn't have to worry about which dishes may have meat. We ordered way too much food but that was OK too because we took it home and rewarmed it for lunch.
Saturday morning we went up to camp to clean and organize our room so it will be ready no matter how late we arrive on June 1st. And to make sure the hot water heater in our room is working! It didn't take too long and the weather was gorgeous. We finished early, walked around in Perth (they opened a new fabric/quilting/craft store on Gore. I was very good and other than fabric glitter paint/glue, didn't buy anything. But am waiting anxiously for the summer...
I never sleep well the first few nights at camp because the bed is unfamiliar, the cabin creaks as it contracts and expands, the outdoor noises of animals, etc. keep me awake. I fell asleep instantly and what woke me up in the middle of the night? Menachem's cell phone beeping that it's battery was low... Oy.
Anyways, we decided to come home early. On the way, we stopped in at the Wesport area studio tour. Saw an interesting exhibit of photgraphy on canvas. And some lovely collage which I am trying to figure out how to translate in fabric. I think I have it. I just have to buy some puzzle pieces...
And now, off to some neglected grooming in anticipation of wearing a skirt. Last time skirt was worn? Two years ago at Rafi's Bar Mitzvah. Nuff said.

Sunday's events

2007-05-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a lovely day. We went to Aleph Bet Judaica to buy the tzitziot (threads/strings) for Alana's Bat-Mitzvah. Then I went to the JCC for the Pomegranate Exhibit to do my docent stint. There was a constant stream of people which was good because I had failed to bring anything with me to do. At 3, Menachem picked me up and we went to Yunkie and Mindy's for a tzitzit tying ceremony. When we got there, one of Mindy's friends was there to help her make the centrepieces. I really like the shape the Bar-Mitzvah is taking. Instead of flowers, they're putting "mitzvah" baskets -- boxes filled with stuff which will later be donated to a shelter. The place cards are donation cards for Sick Kids Hospital where Alana started out her life. Their lifestyle isn't ostentatious and their Bat-Mitzvah won't be either.
Back to the "ceremony". Menachem did most of the tying but each of the kids and Mindy did at least a knot or two. Yunkie almost completed a whole corner himself but found it frustrating so Menachem finished it off for him. We came home after dinner.
I started working this morning on a kippa for Alana. I cut it out and sewed it together this morning from the mauve duppioni. Duppioni frays like mad so I zigzagged the edges. After work, I think I will embroider and embellish the seams. And sew in a lining. Maybe I'll print a little label in it to commemorate the occasion.
And then, on to other projects.

Tallit details and tallit bag (please read previous post first)

2007-05-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

If you click on the photo of the tallit, you can see the details up close of the flowers and beading. This is the bag. It's actually a quilted rectangle with snaps and the folded tallit is folded with the bag into thirds.

Anyways it's finished. We're off to the Judaica store to buy the tzitziot [strings]and this afternoon, after I finish my noon to 3 p.m. stint at the Pomegranate exhibit, we are going over to Alana's to have a tzitzit tying ceremony of sorts.

And now I can proceed to my next project which will hopefully turn into wedding gifts. Or not.

Tallit Finished!!

2007-05-13T06:24:00.000-07:00

I've been working against a deadline to finish Alana's tallit [prayer shawl]. Her Bat Mitzvah is next weekend and I didn't want to leave it until then. So after much angst about the pinot [corners] , Menachem reminded me that I had a buttonhole setting for my sewing machine and that made things easier. I, of course, see all the little defects but in the big picture, it turned out quite nicely. I will try to make a matching kippa [skullcap] this week. If it looks small, it's because Alana is quite petite.

Next post details and the tallit bag.

Gardening, beading, etc.

2007-05-07T05:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy weekend. The weather was beautiful and we tried to take advantage of it to get stuff done around the house and in the garden. Menachem is off to camp for three months come June 1st and whatever doesn't get done before then doesn't get done.
It's also free garbage day this week and we wanted to clean out the garage.
We started with the garage and it wasn't that bad. We had actually cleaned it up in the fall but during the winter we tend to throw stuff in there -- the metal shelving we took out of the bedroom closet, the boxes we bring the groceries home in, excess plastic bags, etc. So we moved the shelves to one side, broke down all the boxes for recycling day, and then took all of the plastic bags and styrofoam containers which don't go in the regular recycling box to the recycling depot. We also took some paints and a printer to the hazardous waste depot.
Then Menachem tackled the maple trees in the front yard. Some of the branches were brushing against the house and on a windy day they can cause real damage. So he cut those down. And then he had to cut them into smaller pieces and bundle them -- our garbage collection guys are quite particular. I did some raking of leaves, last years dead stems on the hostas and pulled the maple seedlings which had started sprouting.
Yesterday, we tackled the back yard. Menachem took down branches of a tree which was growing through our fence with the (not pleasant) neighbours. And cut them up -- the branches, not the neighbours... I continued to gather last year's dead plants and leaves...
Now all that's left to do is mow the lawn and some cutting back of overgrown shrubs.

On the creativity side, I did some beading on Alana's tallit. Yesterday afternoon was my turn as docent at the Pomegranate Guild's exhibit. I took two shifts -- 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and then 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There was a flurry of visitors from 3 to 4:30 and then no one until 9... But anticipating this, I took the tallit with me and got all of my embroidery stitching done. It wasn't so much embroidery stitching as it was using embroidery floss to tack down the lacey flowers I had wonder-undered and some weren't so wonderful... The stitches are added protection to make sure the flowers won't fall off. This morning I started beading between the flowers I stitched down and I hope to finish that this evening or in the next few days. I still need to sew the lining, attach the corner pieces, make the buttonholes for the tzitziot and then make the tallit roll (instead of a bag). It really is just a quilted rectangle with buttons and loops, so it shouldn't be that difficult.
Photos to follow, I promise.

Sold!

2007-05-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

For as long as I've been stitching, I've only ever made things for friends or for fundraisers.
Yesterday, I sold my first piece! It's one of the pieces I made (finished) for the Pomegranate Guild's 25th Anniversary Exhibit. Of course, it's the one piece I don't have a photo of yet...
I am on duty as docent on Sunday so I will photograph it them.

Excited by the prospects of fame and prosperity (cough cough), I went to check out my stash to see what else I could whip up. Now if only I can stay awake long enough to actually stitch. And I must finish Alana's tallit asap. I actually started the embroidery this morning. I'lll work on it at home on Sunday morning and then take it with me on Sunday afternoon, just in case there's a lull in visitors at the exhibit.

Yay me!!

Pomegranate Guild 25th Anniversary Exhibition

2007-05-01T05:33:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I was at the opening of the Guild's exhibition and if I was proud to be a member of the Guild before the exhibit, I was more so afterwards. To have so much creative energy concentrated in one location was amazing.
The large wallhanging is "Kohen Hagadol's Vestments", designed by our Guild member, Haya Nativ, based on references in the bible to the high priest's vestments.
The shadow boxes are some of the members' interpretation of the theme "Threads of Identity". It was difficult to photograph the entire exhibit as many people were milling around. We will try to return to do some more photography on a quieter day and will post more photos if successful.
I strongly recommend to anyone in the Toronto area who has a chance to see the exhibit to do so. The group wallhanging is truly breathtaking. The photos don't begin to show the piece's sparkle.

This week has gone by so quickly!

2007-04-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

Can't recall what I did all week except for working on Alana's tallit. It's finally got it's basic design and stitching done. This week I will do the embroidery and beading.
And finally sew on the lining.
Then I'm going to make a quilted tallit bag, except it's not going to be a bag but a roll-up (like a jewellry roll bag). I already have a nice piece of cotton fabric which matches the tallit in colours. Its pattern has lines which go from one side to the other so I'll use those lines as my quilting stitch guide.
Today is the opening of the Pomegranate Guild 25th Anniversary Exhibit and I am quite excited. I will be seeing many pieces the other members have made as well as the group quilt. I haven't seen it yet except for a glimpse in the Canadian Jewish News. I wasn't able to work on it because it was made at Tuesday afternoon workshops and I work during the week.
But I got a call last week to say that there was an empty wall in the exhibit hall and someone had suggested my family chuppah to fill the space. So in addition to my blue and white shadow box, my "brother-grandfather" piece and my "four sons" piece, my chuppah will also be on display. I am excited and proud of my textile accomplishments.
Anyways, off to the exhibit! I hope to post photos and commentary about it later.
P.S. Did I mention that I was at the Mississauga Quilter's Guild exhibit yesterday and saw a goregous black and white quilt with splashed of colour at the centre of each block. Menachem took photos. I will post later.

Tired but content

2007-04-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a long day. And today, my body aches.
I spent the day with Lola, a new quilting friend from Israel who is here visiting her daughter. We went over to pick her up and she brought me some booklets of quilts from Israel which I have perused and intend to revisit soon.
Menachem drove us to Newmarket to take in the York Region Quilter's Show and then he went down to watch the Raptors first playoff game.
I think Lola enjoyed herself. Most of the quilts were traditional, both in patterns and techniques. Not very much art quilt style. I almost always enjoy these shows because I now have a true appreciation of the amount of work invested in each quilt. There was also a vendors area but I was a good girl and only bought 3 fat quarters...
From there we walked at least 5 km. to the bus back to Toronto. (It was supposed to be a 2 km. walk but I didn't realize exactly where the bus stop was...) On the ride back, we both napped. Then we took the bus to the Creative Needlework and Sewing Festival out near the airport. The show was OK. Again I was a good girl and only bought some "Sulky" -- I've never tried sandwiching fabrics and fibres and thought it was high time I tried--and some lacey type lavender fabric which I may use for Alana's tallit.
Menachem came to pick us up and it's a good thing he did. I was so tired by the end of the day.
And now my back aches from all the shlepping and walking...
But I came home energized and finished cutting the glue and paper bits off the fabric samples.
I'm going to make my first art quilt. I'm not quite sure yet what colours and fabrics to combine but I'm planning to jump in and start cutting strips and hope for the best.
Anyways, Menachem has a camp meeting this afternoon and I think I'll go to Fabricland to see if I can find any lavender fabrics there and save myself a trip down to Queen Street.

Itchy fingers

2007-04-20T05:06:00.000-07:00

Wednesday evening I went to the Pomegranate Guild meeting. I was tired, as usual, and wasn't terribly able to assimilate the lecture about the history of Jews in the textile dyeing industry, although it was interesting.

The evening was not, however, a total write-off. One of our members brought in upholstery fabric sample books for people to take and some did. Whatever was left, I took. I brought them home, and dismantled the sample books. I will cull from them the samples I like and take the rest back to the next meeting.

I have been mulling over an idea for an art quilt -- I've never made one -- based on a mosaic pattern I saw. The samples should work wonderfully with other fabrics I already have. Yesterday, Menachem and I went to Perth to check out the winter damage at camp. There wasn't any visible damage except for the raccoons who apparently have moved into the Beit Tarbut (rec hall) again...
But on the 3.5 hour trip in each direction, I had time to think about the technical aspects of doing the art quilt and think I may have solved one of my dilemmas.

We also visited Dee, my quilting guru. She is quilting my first quilt and has finished it except for the borders. It looks quite striking. She is coming into Toronto next Friday evening for a camp board meeting and I wouldn't be surprised if she brings it with her. And then I will have to bind it. Et voila. It only took two years to finish...

Saturday, I am spending the day with Lola, a quilting friend from Israel who I haven't met personally yet. We had originally made plans to go to Cock-a-doodle Quilts and then down to Queen Street to the buttons/beads/fabrics/ribbon stores but while surfing, I found out that there's a quilt show in Newmarket and I think she may enjoy that more. The creative needlework and craft festival is also on this weekend so maybe we'll go there Sunday. It will take some creative scheduling because Menachem has his first Raptors playoff game on Saturday and a camp meeting on Sunday.

And I've received the go-ahead for Alana's tallit. I want to buy fabric and trims -- on the trip, I had several ideas about how to make it. I'm just waiting for Alana to tell me what kind of a design she wants and her colour choices. She had orginally chosen lavender but I'm not sure I'll be able to find it in duppioni. I actually thought of make stripes using duppioni, organza, lace and ribbons between them. I'll have to run it by her, although I think she's pretty easy in that respect.

Anyways, off to work.

Dry Spell

2007-04-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

I am going through a dry spell, creatively. Probably because I am not sleeping well and am just too tired in the morning and evenings, before and after work, to stitch.
Dee, my quilt guru, was in over the weekend for a Hashomer Hatzair board meeting which was held in the restaurant of the Novotel North York Hotel. I took my projects along and after the meeting ended, we laid out the wonky quilt on the restaurant floor for her critique. The concensus is that I will rip out the borders and this summer, when we get together, she will show me how to stabilize the quilt edges before adding the borders.
I have been pondering making fabric boxes. I downloaded three patterns for paper folded boxes and made the first one. I debated whether a box made from two layers of fabric sandwiching wonder-under would be sufficiently rigid. It isn't. So my next try will be with stiffer stuff -- Pellon or similar. I am still trying to figure out the mechanics but have an idea.
Anyways, I'm off to work shortly so will cut this post short.

For lo the winter is past

2007-04-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ha ha. It snowed yesterday and there's flurries today. And it is cold.
I have been sick for a few days with cold/flu symptoms and this weather is very conducive to staying indoors and catching up.

The sdarim are over and were both lovely. The first night was chez nous and we had 16 people: the usual suspects minus Alissa and family plus Roi and Nicole. Roi (one of my father's former pupils) and his wife, Nicole, came in from Pittsburgh and stayed with us so that was an additional pleasure.
The preparations were relaxed, the seder itself was relaxed and the clean-up was also not terribly daunting.

The second seder we went to Alissa's. Also very, very nice. It was just family -- Alissa and Mel, Sari and David, Johanna, Matty, Aunty Ethel, my mother, Devora and Noam, and Menachem and me. So we were able to carry on conversations without too much hoo ha.

I had been feeling lousy off and on since before Pesach, running nose, itchy eyes, headache, but it developed into fever and chills, so I stayed home Wednesday and yesterday and slept off and on during the daytime and even during the night (something I haven't been doing recently). Today I'm better insofar as fever goes but I think it may be developing into a sinus infection so I'm going to take it easy for the next few days.

This morning, feeling better, I went into my studio to stitch a little. I'm almost almost finished the Heschel piece. I just have to sew on the hanging sleeve, attach a label (still trying to decide what it should say) and perhaps a few bobble and beads at the bottom corners.

I have more or lest finished my UFOs and am now into my WIPs. I want to finish the challah cover, two more cq pink squares and a few other pieced pieces (another blue Auf Simchas trio, and two more pink/purple Auf Simchas trios. I have the Inbal quilt tops to finish, sandwich and quilt, and some other things floating around.

So, that said, I'm off to stitch. And because it is Good Friday and the Easter weekend, there is the most fabulous liturgical music on the radio. Relaxation at its best.

Gefilte fish and tsimmes

2007-04-01T10:56:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons I blog is to keep my children who live an ocean away up to date on what's going on in the parental unit's life.

It is erev erev Pesach and we are preparing for the Seder tomorrow evening which will be at our house. I actually started cleaning last week -- cleaning of the heavy-duty once a year variety. I continued yesterday and today.

This morning Menachem made gefilte fish, using his late mother's recipe. While he was "putchking" with the fish, I, as sous chef, peeled a ton of carrots for the tsimmes. So now the fish, tsimmes and vegetarian clear soup are ready, the dining table has been extended, the Pesach dishes have been washed, the list of things to do tomorrow is ready and we're relaxing, sort of, for the rest of the day. Menachem and Yunkie have a basketball game this evening.

Tomorrow, Menachem will make Pesach meringue cookies, chicken with prunes, baked potatoes and yams, roasted vegetables, and a fruit platter. (My mother is bringing her veal roast which, according to the family's carnivores, is delicious, Devora is bringing a salad, Mindy is bringing ratatouille, and Bat-Sheva is bring bits and bites for dessert. And my mother is bringing compote, the traditional anti-dote to matza overload...

We love having the family over but it's always a little sad for us because our kids are so far away...
We are having company, though. One of my father's pupils and his wife, Roi and Nicole, are coming for the Seder from Pittsburgh. Although Nicole has family in Toronto, they have cats and Roi is allergic. So they'll be staying with us. They should be coming this evening.

Anyways, I'm off to nap. I have a cold and it's making me tired.

Chag Sameach to whomever may be reading.
I haven't been in my studio for a while. I haven't been sleeping well so I have trouble getting up early to stitch in the morning and am too tired to stitch in the evening...
Oh well. Hopefully this too shall pass.

Free motion quilting

2007-03-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling with free-motion quilting the borders around a cq piece I made. I am not happy with the results and have already ripped out stitches twice. Thankfully, the fabric is forgiving and doesn't show needle marks.

I have been trying to do the fmq free-hand and it just doesn't work for me. I'm finally at a point where the top and bottom stitches are OK and stitch length OK but the pattern isn't.

I will give it one more try, using a pattern I print onto tissue paper which I will attach to the fabric. Either it works or it doesn't. I will not rip out stitches again (on this piece...)

Note to self: take a course in fmq and stop complaining.

Visuals from my last post

2007-03-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

These are the two projects I finished from my UFO's which I wrote about in my previous post.

This morning I finished the hanging sleeve on Sari's Auf Simchas and I will give it to Alissa when we visit there later today.

Yesterday afternoon we had a call from Mintzy. Steven (Stephen?) was supposed to come into town yesterday but couldn't. She had made too much food -- would we like to come for dinner? Never being one to turn down a free meal, we said yes and had a lovely evening. Mintzy's cousins, Silka and Al, were there and we laughed a lot. This is a good thing. We didn't get home until 10:30. Not terribly late by general standards, but I'm usually in bed by 8... And this was my third late night in a row.

Busy day today. I am off to my studio to decide which project to pick up next.

Time flies

2007-03-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

So, I finished the four brothers. I did simple straight quilting in lines around the perimeter of the centre piece. I did the felt applique several years ago. Since then, I have changed the way I do things. If I had done it more recently, it would have had a different background, been more creatively embellished. However, it turned out quite nicely.

I also finished off a crazy quilt block. This block is one which I should have abandonned after piecing. I wasn't happy with the colour combination. Then I wasn't overly happy with the embellishments because the colour combination limited the colours I could use to get a good contrast. I chose for the border a very colourful print which instead of setting off the centre makes the piece look like one big busy mess. But did I know when I had had enough and quit? No, I soldiered on to the bitter end. I free-motion quilted the borders and as much as I adjusted, the bottom stitches are not even and look awful, but they'll face the wall, right? I sewed on a binding from a fabric which was too thick. And I haven't quite got the binding business under control so there are place where the binding is wider than others.
I shall hang this piece in my studio as a reminder how not to do stuff and as incentive to do better!! BUT I did finish it.

Then I picked up my stalled challah cover. I strip-pieced it ages ago because I thought I would use it for my Pomegranate Guild project. I have had it sandwiched and ready to quilt for quite a while. I wanted to free motion quilt it but chickened out after the first row of stitches which I promptly ripped out. This week, I decided to try out my sewing machine's double needle. The top stitches looked great, the bottom, chalushes, so again I ripped. I think I will try again this weekend. Not sure yet how but I do want to finish it.

Is it obvious that I'm trying to finish my UFO's? Another few weeks and I'll be able to start in on new projects.

I was at the Toronto Art Show at the Metro Convention Centre last night. I saw some interesting fabric related work and other work which inspired me. I took home lots of cards but am not sure I remember which is which... I am writing down their info so that if I ever want to refer to it, I don't have to pull out a gazillion cards.

One artist does landscape painting with fabric snippets. From afar, it actually looks like an oil painting. Only when you get up close do you see the details of tiny pieces of fabric. I think it was Diane Stewart www.shafleyandstewart.com.

Adrianna Steele-Card uses a combination of fabric, fibres and home-made recycled papers to create whimsical collages. www.peaceofmindcreations.com. And she lives not far from Perth so I said I may drop in on her this summer.

Alice Vander Vennen does interesting collages with fabric, metal, found objects, etc. www.alicevandervennen.ca.

Nahid Mrandi does sculpted figures of silk on painted backgrounds. www.nahidart.com

Stephanie Ford Forrester does all hand sewn applique. I was impressed by her even stitches but I don't think they were the size "required" by hand quilters. Still, lots of colour and interesting design. www.stephaniefordforrester.ca

Of course, most of the art wasn't fabric art but afforded lots of ideas about colour and design. In fact, I saw a work in mosaic glass tiles that I am thinking about adapting into a quilted wall hanging. www.filippetti.ca

And stuff which there's no way (I think) I could adapt into my work but still unusual and inspiring such as aluminum bas-relief www.josettemorency.com , paper collage www.janeteglas.com , painting with wonderful colour and imagery www.kojour.ca and this one which I'm not sure her media but I liked the colours, shapes and forms www.monikaaebischer.com.

So that's what I did this week. This evening, we are going to dinner at Boujadi, our favourite Moroccan restaurant, with Joanne. Tomorrow, I'm not sure. I'd like to get over to Yunkie and Mindy's to give Jeremy his birthday present and speak to Alanna about a tallit if she still wants one. Sunday, we have an engagement open house for my friend, Nira's daughter and then we're meeting Alissa and Mel for coffee, either at their place or out somewhere if Mel is feeling up to it. And Sunday night there's classic Israeli folk dancing and I may just join Menachem.
And of course, a little stitching over the weekend never hurts.

Til the next time.

More stuff done

2007-03-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

So, I put the pieces of my second robe quilt together. I haven't done the borders. I am going to take out Terry's instructions and follow them to the letter. If they work (and they should), then I will concede defeat, rip out the borders of the first quilt and redo them.

In the meantime, I sandwiched and free-motion quilted another cq block. Now I just have to sew on the binding. Free-motion and I are not friends. I think I need to take a course. I've practiced but it just doesn't come out right. Oh it's OK because the stitch colour is mostly hidden in the background fabric. But I'm still not totally happy.

I also am making progress on the four brothers from the Hagaddah. I sewed borders around the felt piece. I printed from the Hagaddah onto fabric (well, I actually typed in Hebrew into word, enlarged to the desired size and printed onto fabric attached to freezer papter). I am not debating how to attach the printed fabric onto the top and bottom borders and whether to quilt the piece before or after I attach the printed fabric. I tend to think quilt first, attach second.

So I'm on a roll with finishing off stuff. I still have to sew a sleeve onto Sari and David's wedding cq.
I have to sandwich and quilt the piece I made for Heschel. And I have several cq embellishing projects in holding pattern.

And since Pesach is approaching, I am trying to do my spring cleaning and re-organizing/re-arranging.

I had a birthday last week and all three of my children phoned which was very nice. I didn't do anything special to celebrate. DH was all ready to take me out to dinner but I was pooped so we ordered pizza and stayed home. I had bought myself a tooth bonding procedure earlier in the week so that's my birthday present to myself...

Multi-tasking

2007-03-07T14:51:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make something for the Pomegranate Guild's 25th anniversary. The theme is "Threads of Identity". I also wanted to finish some UFOs. So I multi-tasked. I took an unfinished embellished felt applique piece I had made fixed a problem or two, and finished it with a quilted border.

The piece is based on a photo of my maternal grandfather and my brother at our family Pesach seder many years ago. I tried to make it even more "Pesachdik" by adding several Jewish elements: the "ke'ara" (Passover plate), a matza cover based on the one I use, which was made by my paternal grandmother, and a hagaddah with the passage "avadim hayinu" in Hebrew printed onto fabric. I also considered putting a wine stain on the tablecloth...

There is a very slight resemblance between my grandfather and my brother in the photo and the appliqued figures but I think it is more warm fuzzy memories at play.

What do you think?

Winter storm

2007-03-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had a winter storm. Well, actually it started Thursday afternoon. The drive home which usually takes 15-20 minutes took close to two hours. I get a lift to and from work from my sister and brother-in-law who live near me. We were about 2 minutes drive from my house, stopped at the lights and the traffic wasn't moving. In the end, I told them to drop me off there and turn back to their house. It took me less time to walk the rest of the way than it would have to be driven.

Friday morning at about 2 a.m., the power went off. Many trees fell in the storm and took the power lines with them. When I woke up, there was no power and it was snowing/sleeting/freezing raining/raining so we decided not to go into work. Which might have been great if the power had been on. Because when the power is off: a) no electrical appliances (kettle, microwave, toaster, tv, radio, I'm sure you get the picture) and b) the furnace doesn't work i.e. no heat and c) no sewing machine!!

Fortunately, we have a gas range so at least we could boil water for coffee and later made soup.

I do have a hand-cranked sewing machine but haven't used it for at least 30 years and was too lazy to open it, set it up, etc. So I decided to do hand sewing work. I used to do felt applique and had a piece based on a family photograph I had started but never knew how to finish it. Yesterday it came to me. I finished the hand detailing and when the power came back on at 2 p.m., I finished assembling and quilting the piece. Now I just have to sew on the binding. I will submit this piece for the Pomegranate Guild's 25th anniversary but I really haven't been keeping up so I don't know if they have all the pieces they need or are still open for more submissions.

And now off to ponder what my next project will be.

Quilting Friends

2007-02-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

Now that our computer has been rehabilitated, I can share photos of my IJQ quilting friends. On the left is my visit with Shulamit. She does lovely work and is now working on embellished crazy quilting. She also showed me some of her quilting projects. I was amazed when she told me that for many of the techniques she has done she simply followed instructions in magazines such as Quilting Arts. I am a very visual learner and usually have to have something demonstrated to me. I read instructions and blank.

This is a photo of my visit with Klara. She is an amazing artist and showed me some of her work and her studio. Earlier that day, I had been in Bustan Hagalil and seen some of her work which is on display in a museum/studio there.

This is a photo from my visit with Marlyn (to my left) and Sue and Terry in Terry's studio. The quilt in the background is one of Terry's.

From these visits, I came home inspired and set to work on Inbal's quilt whose top I have just completed. Please see the previous post for details.

I want to again thank my Israeli quilting friends for their encouragement and inspiration. They really made our trip most pleasurable.

Quilt Top Finished

2007-02-24T15:05:00.000-08:00

This is the finished quilt top. It came out a little wonky -- some of the fabrics I used were stretchy.

The story behind the quilt? There is one fabric here which is from a robe I bought on the occasion of my daughter Inbal's birth 35 years ago. The fabric is a white background with a black, brown and yellow design. I tried to choose fabrics which either matched in colour, or had an interesting texture. So the bright yellow and the white, black and yellow fabric are waffled, and the solid black is corduroy.

I have yet to figure out how to quilt it. I will machine quilt but what kind of a pattern, I don't know. Also, I think it's a little too big for a crib quilt and the colours would probably scare a baby, so it will be a lap quilt.

And I may yet cut the border into wavy shapes as well.

Any suggestions how to make a wonky quilt less wonky?

Breathtaking

2007-02-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

My quilt is breathtaking, if I do say so myself. I have finished piecing over half of the blocks and laid them out on the floor to see how it would look. I am so pleased. I think I will make two smaller quilts. I tried putting two blocks from the robe fabric in among the pieced blocks but they get swallowed up. Maybe if I give them a black border to set them off. Otherwise, I will leave them out. But I have used robe fabric in the piecing. And already have an idea to use the blocks in yet another quilt...

Our computer at home is sick with a virus and I'm not sure when (if) it will be well. In the meantime, I can't post photos but soon, I hope.

Inbal's quilt --started

2007-02-20T02:16:00.000-08:00

Actually, I got started on Sunday. I made the cut out templates on freezer paper, ironed them onto the fabrics in stacks of three and four and started. I have three "lots" of fabrics and each lot will be 14 squares. The quilt calls for 48 squares. I plan to use 3 or 4 squares of the robe fabric as squares themselves (not pieced) and another 2-3 squares of light coloured fabric appliqued with robe motifs to make up the difference.

I started the first lot and finished half of the squares on Sunday. I finished the other half yesterday morning. I now have to stitch before and/or after my regular work day. I left work early yesterday. I took some sinus medication and I think a took a little too much and it just made me so drowsy. So following the instructions not to operate heavy machinery (i.e. my sewing machine) while using the medication.... I waited until the evening when I was awake to sew a few blocksk of lot 2. It is now 5:30 a.m. and I am waiting for DH to wake up so I can sew a few more.

At this rate, it should take me at least a week to piece the blocks. Hopefully I'll finish early this weekend and start playing at arranging them. I am having thoughts about making the blocks into several smaller quilts instead of one large, but I'll have to see where I am once I finish the blocks.

I also have to get back to the cq-ing. My work room is now set up so I have a separate areas for sane quilting and crazy quilting. It's just a matter of getting back into a routine.

Off to stitch.

Organized

2007-02-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

I set myself a goal today of organizing my sewing room. Instead of having my three tables in a cluster in the centre of the room, I have arranged them against the walls. This gives me a feeling of more space and limits the surface space for mess.
I set up one table for cq-ing and another for fabric cutting. I have been using a folding wooden TV table for my sewing machine and I set up another one beside it to use as an ironing surface for when I'm assembling blocks, so I don't have to get up each time to iron after I sew a seam. We'll see how it works.

Although I had previously searched high and low for the strip scraps from my onion quilt, I hadn't searched high enough. I found them inside a box on top of my storage wall unit. I had an idea to make coasters. I may try that tomorrow. I want to shuffle and cut the pieces for my new quilt tomorrow also. Hopefully, the new and improved space will be conducive to creativity.

I am still jet-lagged but hoping to get back into a routine of stitching in the mornings and evenings.

I'm back

2007-02-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

We returned a week ago from Israel. I have been so jet-lagged that I fall asleep early each afternoon/evening and wake up at 2 or 3 a.m. Before going away, I was usually in bed by 8, asleep by 9, and sometimes up at 2 or 3 a.m., so you could ask what's the difference... Energy is the difference. So I decided to give myself a week before I hop into my old routines.

I came back without energy but with plans to reorganize my sewing room and jump into several projects, hopefully this weekend.

Our primary reason for visiting Israel was to see our children, family and old friends. Dynamics have changed and change is always challenging. Aside from the children, family and old friends, I used this trip to meet "new" friends, of the internet and quilting variety. And came back energized and inspired.

So I'm jumping in with both feet and starting on a new quilt. It's based on a pattern in Karla Alexander's "Stack a New Deck". And it's special because I am using fabric from a robe I bought on the occasion of Inbal's birth (she'll be 35 in May...) and fabrics I've been collecting over the past two years in Perth, Toronto and Israel.

I started cutting up the fabrics (22 different patterns) this morning. I'm sure the piecing won't take more than a week or so, an hour here, an hour there. I'm excited. And I intend to quilt this one myself -- que sera sera.

I purchased all kinds of findings, ribbons, threads, stamps, etc. in Israel, received all kinds of the same from my new friends and hope to use them on my cq.

I also want to do a piece for the Pomegranate 25th anniversary exhibit. So I've got to get busy!!

I'll post my progress.

Off to, hopefully, sunny Israel

2007-01-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

OK. So I'm squeezing in one final post before we go this evening.

Here are two more finished shadow boxes. The boxes were made by Menachem.

Yesterday I put together a six block naked blue and white quilt. This morning Menachem had to go the bank so he dropped me off on the way and I picked up a piece of velvet for the quilt borders. Then we went to the thread store for silk ribbons but the shop is closed Mondays. Bummer. I hope I can get silk ribbon in Israel. And we ordered the cab to take us to the airport.

This morning we packed and we're ready to go. A little confusion about what can go on the plane and what can't but hopefully there won't be any problems at the airport.

Off to stitch to kill time.

My posts are getting farther and farther apart

2007-01-21T13:52:00.001-08:00

I've just been too tired or busy to post daily.

We're going to Israel tomorrow so we've been busy getting ready (i.e. shopping for gifts and requests).
We finally finished most of the shopping yesterday and only had a few errands left for today.

Early this morning, I cut out and sewed six cq blocks, standard pattern, using blues and whites, royal blue and light blue duppioni silk left over from Dori's chuppah, navy blue a synthetic something from someone's shortened dress pants from a seamstress, and highly textured whites from Ruthie's wedding dress, Bat-Sheva's and mine.

Then we went to Mintzy's to borrow a suitcase. We usually travel with two suitcases each, filled with stuff for our kids and other people. This time, we have a little less to shlep and hopefully will be able to get away with two large suitcases. But we lent our suitcases to people who bought more than they had expected while here -- Ami in the summer and the kids when they visited. So I borrowed one from Mintzy. We usually return with at least one or two empty suitcases and this time shouldn't be any different.

Rotem had asked for some books which were only both available at Indigo Hwy & and Yonge. We picked those up and then went down to say goodbye to my mother.

Returned home and decided to sew this six cq blocks into a quilt. I don't have fabric yet to sew the borders -- I'll look for some in Israel, so I just zigzagged the edges in the meantime so the fabrics don't fray too much. Then I spent most of the afternoon arranging cq stuff to take with me to work on in Israel. I haven't finished that yet but am working on it.

I also am playing with the idea of making a cq wallhanging for the POM exhibition based on Shivat Haminim. I am still in the "thinking about it" stage but I sort of know what I want to do. I'll have to see if it can be done.

And I had some unfinished Pomegranate Guild business to take care of which I did.

So now it's 5 p.m. and my eyes are too tired to sew and I think I'm going to go watch mindless TV for a while...

I may post tomorrow, maybe even pictures, maybe not. Anyways, I will try to post with photos while I'm away but if not, at least I hope to take photos to post when I return.

Ciao.

My posts are getting farther and farther apart

2007-01-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

Fuschia & Hot Pink Shadow Box Series

2007-01-16T16:06:00.000-08:00

I am working on a series of six shadow boxes. Why six? Because I used the same pattern and "shuffled" the colours. The fabrics are family fabrics -- the whites are from family wedding dresses, the pink moire from a wedding dress and the fuschia and hot pink dupionni silk are leftovers from Sari's chuppah.
I have three finished shadowboxes (I will post more later) and one almost finished. I actually had it in the frame but decided one area needed a bit more... The remaining two blocks are seam embroidered and I'm working now on the motifs.

I signed up for TAST -- Take a Stitch Tuesday, organized by Sharon Boggon of www.inaminuteago.com but am having trouble keeping up. Each week, she demonstrates a particular stitch and the challenge is to work on it, in any medium -- sampler, postcard, cq block -- and post the results on our blogs, flickr accounts,etc.

I am amazed by the creativity of some of the challenge participants. I started using a postcard format but it is just too limiting. I think I will change to sampler format. I will do a few row of straightforward stitching and then "borrow" the ideas of others to complete the sampler. So far there have only been three stitches so I should be able to catch up.

We are going to Israel next week to visit the children. There have been many changes in their lives recently and these changes are going to be a challenge to all of us. I am hoping I can be a supportive parent.

I am going to try to make this a fabric related excursion, seeing as many textile exhibits as possible and discovering new fabric/textile/findings sources. And meeting some of my internet textile friends. I will try to post from there a travelogue of sorts.

Herringbone stitch

2007-01-08T20:59:00.000-08:00

The challenge was to use the herringbone stitch. This 4" X 6" format has four seams.
The top seam is done with a double herringbone stitch, couched over a piece of ribbon. The bottom row of stitches is gold coloured perle cotton (haven't learned the numbers yet) and the top is a velvet thread.

The bottom seam is burgundy DMC or similar thread, three strands and has a gold mesh type thread woven through the stitches.

The top and bottom stitches I prefer because they are very precise in their size and shape.

The right hand seam is done in a copper DMC -type thread. I tried to make the stitches random in their height and width.

The left hand seam is done in a ribbon like thead, don't know what it's called. I made these stitches short and very close together.

I went outside of my "box" on the left and right seams and I guess that is what the challenge is all about. I don't like the results.

However, from the results of the other participants, I saw some lovely ideas and may just give them a try.

So thanks to Sharon for getting us started and all whose ideas enrich my own stitch repertoire.

Just under the wire

2007-01-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post. So much for my New Year's resolution to blog daily...
But I had a good excuse -- Rotem and Efrat were here for nine action-packed days. We went to St. Jacob's (centre of Mennonite quilting in Ontario) and Niagara Falls, and did the rounds of family and friends. It was fun.

I did get a little stitching done but just remembered on Saturday that it was week one of Take a Stitch Tuesday -- TAST for short. So I quickly did a 4" X 6" piece which I can't seem to find the photo image of right now. I will post it and my comments a little later.

Fabric postcards

2006-12-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

This is my first attempt at postcards. It looks prettier "in person". I was under the impression that the stiff material used in the middle layer was supposed to adhere to the fabric when ironed. I assumed wrong. Don't know whether the stuff I bought was faulty or it's the way I ironed it but never mind. The machine stitching around the perimeter holds it together.

I may try another one using thin batting and see how that goes, especially since I don't intend to mail them as postcards. If I mail them at all, it will be in padded envelopes.

Back to stitching.

4 day weekend -- woohoo!!

2006-12-23T02:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy and stressful week so I'm really looking forward to the 4 day weekend. But more about that later.

Last weekend, I spent Saturday packing up my cq stuff for my presentation at the Guild on Wednesday evening.

Sunday was spent in preparation for the family Chanuka get-together at our place. It was a very nice evening. Menachem made delicous sufganiyot (jam filled fried yeast doughnuts) and latkes (fried potato pancakes) -- two kinds, regular and sweet potatoes. Add to that sour cream and Savta's homemade applesauce and that's a meal in itself. But Penina brought two salads and chumus, I put out a bean salad and some tomatoes and pickles. Yunkie and Mindy brought the drinks. And Sari and David brought cookies.

Who came? Savta and Ethel, Devora and Noam, Yunkie and Mindy and kids, Penina and Alain and boys, Alissa, Sari and David and Jojo. Shloimeh and Zena had a previous engagement. Mel is finally allowed back on his feet after having been off them since the wedding but was exhausted and feeling a little under the weather so stayed home. And Matty had just finished his third long shift in three days at the Hockey Hall of Fame so he also stayed home to recuperate.

So we had a lovely time, sitting around, talking and eating. I rarely use paper plates but I decided that since I was working the next day, I wanted to be able to finish the cleanup the same night.

This week was very stressful at work. A transaction which was supposed to close the previous Thursday kept getting extended and finally on Tuesday fell through. And we had another transaction which had been ongoing since the summer and kept getting extended and was scheduled for a final closing on Thursday. It entailed several mortgages and a ton of paperwork. So I stayed late Wednesday and Thursday and it finally closed yesterday at noon. And although the office officially closed at 3 p.m., we had a client who didn't come in until 3. I stayed until 5 because we went out to Boujadi with Joann last night and I figured that if I took the bus home, I wouldn't get home until I had to leave anyways. Menachem picked me up, we drove down Yonge -- it was totally not busy, picked up Joann and had a pleasant dinner at Boujadi. Then we went back to Joann's for coffee and dessert. Didn't stay too late though because I was falling asleep sitting up.

Wednesday evening was my presentation at the Pomegranate Guild. And either it went well or everyone lied to me... I had done a fair amount of preparation, making samples to show the methods I use, brought in my supplies to show how I lay out my stuff to choose from, and I brought in some finished pieces and works in progress. So I felt good afterwards and relieved that it was behind me!

Now everything is back in its place in my workroom and I can set about stitching again.

And that brings me back to the start of my post -- the 4 day weekend in which I plan to do very little other than stitch.

Now that I've finished the presentation, I can complete the fuschia, purple and pink blocks for shadow boxes. And I want to try my hand at making some cq postcards. And maybe even cq fridge magnets.

I have a few WIPs to work on and Gwen, my stair-climbing buddy, gave me an empty shadow box for Christmas -- I made her a cq tree ornament.

Sunday morning early Menachem leaves for winter camp for 5 days and I'm on my own. I'm invited for brunch at Shloimeh and Zena's on Sunday and then nothing for the rest of the weekend.

And Rotem and Efrat are coming on Thursday so we're really looking forward to that.

And now, I'm off to stitch.

Preparations

2006-12-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

This is the finished block for my how-to demo at the Pomegranate Guild. Not too bad, eh?

This weekend I will not get any stitching done because:

a) I am preparing for the guild presentation, and
b) We are having a family Chanuka party today and while Menachem is doing all of the cooking and frying (latkes and sufganiyot), I have to give the house the appearance of being clean...

I am thinking about dividing my blog into two, that is, making an additional blog which will deal with family news while da veha will be specifically for my textile endeavours. Or maybe I should do the opposite -- make the new blog for textiles and call it something which will put my name out there.

I spent yesterday polishing the script part of my presentation and packing my stuff away in the order I need to take it out of the suitcases during the presentation. I have two of those small rolling suitcases to house everything I need. I also prepared freezer paper templates and demo samples of how I do my srecq'ing (simcha related embellished crazy quilting). I hope the presentation goes well and no one dies of boredom.

Off to continue cleaning.

Let's try this again

2006-12-15T02:34:00.000-08:00

I tried posting these photos yesterday with no luck. I am currently working on a series of six blocks which are in various stages from naked to fully embellished. I'll be using them to demonstrate the cq techniques I use at the Pomegranate Guild meeting next week.

In my previous blog, I explained the source of the fabrics. These are two of the six blocks. You can see the difference between blocks made by rotating the position of the pieces within the block. And then the embellishing. I have finished one block but have yet to photograph it.

Once the presentation is finished, I will complete the other five blocks and frame them in shadowboxes and try to sell them.

In the meantime, I am working on a small (finished it will be 3" square) piece as a Christmas decoration for Gwen at my office. Gwen is the person who got me started on my stair-climbing. I find it really difficult to work on something so small -- the scale of stitches and motifs is way too limited for me. I should finish the ornament today or tomorrow and will post a picture.

Wind, snow, cq

2006-12-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

Last night was so windy. Branches were breaking off the trees in the front yard and you could hear the wind whistling loudly for a good part of the night. This morning we woke up to everything blanketed in snow. Granted a thin layer of snow which has since melted but still -- snow. The first snowfall is always lovely.

So, no real plans for the weekend. I started off this morning but cutting out fabric for six cq squares/blocks. I use a sane quilting cutting technique (freezer paper) but not stack and whack because I want to get as many pieces out of as little fabric as possible. But I made enough for six blocks using the same colours: burgundy, fuschia, pink and three whites. The burgundy, fuschia and one white are dupionni silk. The pink is moire from Penina's bridesmaids' dresses, one white is from Bat-Sheva's wedding gown and one white is from Ruthie's wedding gown. Although the colours are the same in each block and the six pieces of each block are identical, the colours rotate among the pieces so each of the six blocks is unique.

I sewed one block so I could take it with me to Needleart, the thread store. It's actually a needlepoint store but they have so many interesting kinds of other threads.

Menachem and I started our errands today at Needleart. When I came in, the owner said "Oh here's the cq lady" and then she raved to the other customers about the work I do. Gratification, validation. I am hoping at some point she will say to me "Would you like to give a workshop here?" I think I will ask her to display a shadow box or two once they're finished. So I bought some threads in the burgundy, fuschia, pinks to add to the stuff I already have at home.

From there we went to Lee Valley to buy some more watchmaker containers. It was busy with Xmas shoppers.

And then the field trip. We went to "By the pound". It's the Goodwill "outlet" store. It has the stuff which didn't sell at the regular Goodwill stores and you buy it at $2 a pound. I think it was probably the first and last time I go there. I don't particularly care for rummaging around in huge bins when the clothing is new, so used, I'm not enamoured with. But I did find some nice lace, some interesting fabric, a few nice button, sequins and beads.

We were going to go grocery shopping but I was starved so we came home. I ate a bagel, something I haven't done since I started WW. So it will take a little longer.

We are now home and I will shortly go into my work room to organize my stuff in the new watchmakers cases. Then I will continue to sew the individual blocks. And I may just do the same with the blue fabrics to make some more.

From there

2006-11-29T07:09:00.000-08:00

The colouring is weird on the yellow background square but it is the same block as the greener one. When the yellow was photographed, it was apparent that the cq part was swallowed by the border. So I added some lace and yarn to separate the block from the border. At any rate, I wasn't crazy about the block to start with and like it even less now. I will try to sell it so I don't have to look at it any more, lol. And from now on, I will only push the envelope in the direction I want to take it.

YHQG Show

2006-11-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a great day. The weather was so balmy that I didn't need a coat, just a sweatshirt cardigan.

We started off at the York Heritage (i.e. Toronto) Quilters Guild Show at the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre. Nice venue, plenty of room.

Most of the pieces were traditional style, most machine pieces, some hand quilted, some machine quilted. If we used to go the quilt shows, stand back and admire the patterns, now we go up close to examine the stitching techniques. And when I say "we", I mean both Menachem and I. I wouldn't be surprised if he does take up quilting. He certainly has the patience for it. And then he could use all the bright highly patterned fabrics he likes and I don't... Anyways, in the quilt show booklet there was an advert for the new quilting store which opened in Toronto. Cock-a-doodle Quilts. It's located at Castlefield and Dufferin which is near to my mother's so we decided to pop in to see what it's like. First of all, it's very spacious. They have a huge showroom and another large room in the back for classes. The class room has a gigantic cutting table, individual work stations, each with it's own ironing board. It's not quite finished but getting there. And because it is an industrial space, they have high ceilings so they have quilts on display which aren't obstructed by shelving.

I wasn't intending to purchase anything but I bought a pigma pen for writing indelibly on fabric for labels and three pieces of fabric which on second thought may be too loud for what I intend to do with it. Oh well. Something else for the stash.

Then we popped into California Sandwiches for lunch. They have a grilled vegetable sandwish with sauce on a Kaiser bun. The bun soaks up the sauce and is delicious. Those of you who know me well know that I don't like messy stuff -- I don't like working with clay or anything else with a liquid texture. I'll make an exception for the sandwich. BTW, the sauce comes in hot, medium or mild, they call the mild "sweet". People kept coming in and asking for what sounded to me like "the sweet deal". I kept looking for a sign indicating what the seet deal was. It was "sweet veal".

From there, we went to my mother's. She has a collection of coins, or rather my father had a collection of coins -- Canadian, British Mandate Palestine, French and other. My mother wants to divvy them up among the grandchildren for Chanuka as gelt but wants to be sure that we're not sitting on some rare coin. Yunkie and I had made arrangements to meet at my mother's to go through the coins, Yunkie had already gone through some of them and catalogued them in an Excel file. Yunkie has a cold and didn't want to bring it to my mother's so he didn't come. I ended up brining the coins home and hope to work on them later today.

After we came home yesterday, I was just too tired to stitch or do anything else. I ended up having a nap, a light supper and going to sleep early.

But not before I had done my round of blogs I read. Sharon of Inaminuteago discussed the concept of being recognized as artists. She basicly said that if we don't recognize ourselves as artists, we can't expect others to. She said that we have to treat our art as work, putting in the hours in our studios, whether we are inspired or not, the same way that a writer sits and writes for hours each day. If we treat our artistic endeavour as simply a hobby, our creativity will not be sufficiently stimulated.

This makes sense to me and I am going to do my best to consider myself an artist and act accordingly. I'm not quiting my day job just yet but wouldn't that be amazing if I could?

Sharon's blog was particularly apt because I am making cq pieces for sale and am debating what price I can charge for my work. My work is highly labour intensive. I don't want to price myself out of the market nor do I want to underprice myself. It's an interesting dilemma and one I hope to resolve shortly.

Anyways, I did spend about an hour in my studio this morning, working on a WISP (work in slow progress). Some of my internet acquaintances have set themselves a goal to finish up WIPs, WISPs, and UFO's (unfinished objects). I don't have that many of them, but I too shall strive to work on and finish them. I also have the stash of fabrics I purchased to make a quilt from my Inbal's birth housecoat. It's technically not yet a WISP, but I should get started on it and move on.

I have a translation to do. I've done a lot of it but the last bit is a transcript from teacher's college. The names of educational concepts are different from those used here so it's a bit time consuming. I hope to get back to it later today.

And I want to do finish cataloguing the coins and then do some more stitching. So I will leave blogging for now and get back to working.

Not enamoured but for all intents and purposes finished

2006-11-24T05:16:00.000-08:00

I've just about finished the block I started last week. Now that I've stepped back from it, I see how busy the borders are. And so to counteract the business, I am "framing" the cq square with white lace (machine sewn on already) and fuzzy light blue wool fibres (to be hand applied this afternoon). Hopefully it will create a division between the cq and the borders. Like I said, I am not enamoured of the project but it is done. I will post photos of the before and after later.

Now I have to prepare for my Guild presentation. This morning, I cut up some freezer paper squares and put them under a heavy book so they'll lie flat. I also cut up some muslin squares. In order to demo the cq block foundation, I am going to make six blocks, so I will be able to show the piecing, as each piece is added.

This weekend's plans? Did I mention that York Heritage Quilter's Guild is having a show? Hope to be there Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon I am going with Yunkie to Savta's to sort random coins for Chanuka gelt distribution. That's the definite stuff, so far.

And that's all for now. Maybe I'll get in a second post later on.

I have broken 150

2006-11-22T05:14:00.000-08:00

On the WW front, I weighed in this morning at 149. Now this may not seem all that important to others, but for me it's something. I plan to keep on the program and see where it takes me. BTW, I am not following the program fanatically and am, in fact, dipping into the Halloween chocolates and sugar cookies, but apparently in moderation. What I have cut back on is bread and bagels. And I miss those bagels...

On the CQ front, I am almost finished the cq'ing part of the block I started last weekend. I have embellished all of the pieces, except for one which I plan to needle-punch. Actually, needle-punching should be done first so that the fabric can be pulled taut over a small embroidery hoop. I will have to use a large hoop and keep adjusting the tension. Photos to follow.

Learned from this block: 1. Use only the colour combinations I like. Otherwise, stitching seems more like a chore than a pleasure.

Plans so far for the coming weekend: Visit Mom, prepare pieces for Guild demo, visit York Heritage Quilt Guild show, maybe visit Inbal and Itai to meet Noga, maybe get together will Joann for dinner.

Busier weekend than anticipated

2006-11-19T17:52:00.000-08:00

The only plans I had for the weekend were to see the Morrisseau exhibit and to stitch. Ha ha.

We had been talking for a while about fixing up the walk-in closet in our bedroom. When we bought the house, it had minimal shelving which consisted of a 15" x 15" shelf unit in one corner, a high up shelf on two walls and two rods under those shelves. It was "enhanced" by two flimsy metal shelving units we bought from Canadian Tire a gazillion years ago. Last week were were at Home Depot for something else and checked out their offerings. The units were high tech and high price and not our cup of tea. Menachem suggested buying plywood and building something. I suggested looking for book shelves which could serve as clothing shelving. We found something in the Ikea catalogue.

So our weekend plans changed. Saturday morning, I started out by piecing a cq block with a colour combination which is fairly foreign to my colour preferences. I was really experimenting with time to see how long it takes to actually do a piece from start to finish. It took me about an hour, to draw the pattern onto freezer paper, to cut the paper pieces, iron them onto the fabric, cut out the fabric, machine sew the pieces into a block and sew the borders. I sew the borders on before I start embellishing because I find it easier to finish the piece that way.
I think it should probably take me less than an hours but I had to change the foot on the sewing machine, the tension was wrong, I forgot to use a muslin foundations when I started sewing the pieces -- you get the idea.

Anyways, after I finished piecing it, we went to Ikea. Ended up buying the Expedit shelving 150cm X 150 cm in beech. I don't like Ikea for one reason -- in order to exit the store, you have to walk all the way through all of the departments. It insults my intelligence and annoys me.

Then we stopped off at the fancy thread store where I bought a few more fancy threads.

By the time we came home, it was time for Devora to come and we went to the McMichael Gallery in Kleinberg to see the Morrisseau exhibit. I enjoyed it. His colours are extremely vibrant and his depiction of native spirits and nature are truly original. We had just missed a vocal concert at the gallery. I found that walking slowly and stopping at each picture was physically difficult. Afterwards we walked around Kleinberg for a bit but there really isn't that much to see there in the fall.

We had overnight guests last night. Two HH shlichim from New York came to Toronto for a seminar. They were originally supposed to stay with Itai, the Toronto shaliach but his wife had a baby this week so they came to us. They didn't arrive until late so that threw me with my 8 p.m. bedtime out of synch. That and our next door neighbours whose teenage daughter had a noisy party. I can't complain about the music, I didn't hear any, but what I did hear from 9 p.m. on was the banging of the bass. Oy. And then at around midnight, the party spilled out onto the street and teenagers can be very noisy and inconsiderate of neighbours. I know I sound like an old lady. I don't care. When I don't get my sleep, I am cranky.

This morning, we sent off the shlichim, and set about putting the shelving unit together. It wasn't that hard and it looks quite nice in the closet. I spent a few hours stitching. Then Mintzy called and asked if we wanted to go see "Three Mothers", an Israeli film, at the Sheppard Centre at 4. In my opinion, it was a very good film. Afterwards we went to the Pickle Barrel for dinner and Menachem just left to go classic Israeli-folk dancing at the BJCC.
I will check my email and get into bed.

This 'n' That

2006-11-17T00:54:00.000-08:00

I finished the Heschel piece. I'm pleased with it and hope they will be too.
I haven't done much stitching otherwise. I've been fooling around with organizing my sequins, buttons, etc.
I like to clean up my work space between projects.

Wednesday night was the Pomegranate Guild meeting. I took in my shadow box for advice on how to close it in the back. I received some very encouraging comments. Now I have to prepare for the next meeting which I am presenting "Our Lives as Crazy Quilts". It will be a talk about how I approach crazy quilting to encompass family andJudaic meaning, and a sharing of my sources and techniques. I am a little anxious about the quality of my presentation, but only a little because I figure, what's the worst that can happen? They'll be sure never to ask me to speak again...

The weekend is fast approaching. Saturday afternoon, I am going with Devora to the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg. There's an exhibit of work by Morrisseau, a well known Native-Canadian artist. In the morning, I want to make up some cq blocks to work on to be used as demos in my presentation. And perhaps to visit the thread store to get some silk ribbon and threads in colours I don't have.

No plans for Sunday yet but I can always stitch.

I am starting to get excited about our trip to Israel in January-February. Our main focus is to visit the kids, relatives and friends. But I would like to do some textile related things, visit some galleries, meet my internet quilting friends. I also want to visit the studio of a woman who does micrography and figure out how to incorporate it into my cq.

And speaking of quilting, Dee emailed me yesterday that my quilt is about 70% quilted and looks great. So I am looking forward to getting it back. It's kind of like finding money you had hidden but had forgotten about until you found it.

It's 4 a.m. I should be sleeping but have been waking up every night at 3 a.m. for no apparent reason and am unable to fall back asleep. Bummer.

Two posts in one day, trying to catch up

2006-11-12T15:13:00.000-08:00

I finished needleweaving a flower on the Heschel piece but it looks more like a starfish so it's a starfish. Maybe I should also add some fish. Anyways, now that I understand the technique I have to fine-tune it to work for me.

I also tried the needlepunch. It's quite easy and produces a lovely texture. I can see the possibilites. But I don't think I'm going to use it on the Heschel piece because I want to get a better handle on the different needle sizes and thread sizes. Once I see the results and better understand how it works, off I'll go. Also, it has to be done on a taut fabric so I'll have to use a hoop and that means I'll have to needlepunch before I do any beading or really encrusted work because afterwards the hoop no longer fits...

I found a really good quote from Churchill "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." For me, it's tzdaka (charity) and tikkun olam (repairing the world) rolled into one quote.

I open my mouth...

2006-11-12T06:50:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday morning and I've been busy.
Wednesday night I was at a meeting of the Pomegranate Guild executive -- I'm on membership.

Some (no names to protect their identities) were lamenting the fact that no one wants to step up to the plate to volunteer to carry out tasks. I totally agree BUT I know myself and know that certain tasks are not for me. I cannot delegate, I don't want to be in charge. But ask me to help, I'm your woman. I'll even volunteer before I'm asked.

So, we were discussing the problem of last minute changes to programming. December's planned program was cancelled by the presenter due to other commitments. I have no quarrel with the canceller -- she is working major-time on the Guild's 25th anniversary celebration and main project. So what are we going to do for December's meeting. Here's where the "I open my mouth" comes in -- I volunteered to do "Our Lives as Crazy Quilts" -- a presentation about how I translate family and life cycle events into textile "scrapbooks". I will demo technique and philosophy. So now I'm thinking about how I can translate something I do on my lap to a frontal presentation. It's challenging but I'm excited about it.

I am almost finished the Heschel wall-hanging. I have two motifs to finish. I finally figured out how to do needleweaving flower petals (I searched on chloesplace.blogspot.com until I found a demo) and have even made a kind of device to keep the sides from caving in on themselves. So the needlewoven flower will be one motif. And I have to figure out how to use my needlepunch so that can be motif #2. I hope to get them done today.

Last night we went to hear Liel sing. It was a benefit for SACH, Save a Child's Heart, a non-profit organization which provides heart surgery to children of the third world and cardiac training to third world professionals. I hadn't heard of the organization before so I was quite impressed. A little less so by Liel. She has an amazing voice but I had a problem with the decibals.

Anyways, today, aside from stitching, we will go out to shop -- Home Outfitters -- to buy new pillows and otherwise spend out Aeroplan miles rewards.

Beads

2006-11-08T05:23:00.000-08:00

Haven't done any stitching but I have finished removing the beads from the fabric they were on. They are for the most part plain clear beads. But they were used to outline flowers painted on a silky type fabric so they took on the colour of the flower they were adjacent to. On their own, they're just plain clear beads. Gave me an idea of how to use them. I'm just sifting through them now to remove the threads which didn't fall out when I cut them off the fabric.
Yesterday evening I was at Weight Watchers so didn't get home til late and did not stitch.
This evening, I have a Pomegranate Guild executive meeting so again won't get any stitching done. Oh well, I'll just have to think about stitching instead.

Trip to Israel?

2006-11-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

This morning, we decided to see if we could find a cheap flight to Israel this month. I called the travel agent and there is a really cheap flight $599 CDN plus taxes BUT it's only for 9 days. I'm sorry, 9 days just doesn't do it for me. I need a few days to recover from jet lag. And even if we decided to do regular price $1199, the timing isn't all that great. They need me in back in the office by November 24th. So, as disappointed as I am, I think we will defer travel to the middle east until January-February.

In other exciting news, my needlepunch kit arrived today. I have yet to figure out how to use it and I hate reading instructions but at some point will bite the bullet and figure it out. This may just solve my signature problems.

I haven't stitched much today. I think I sewed on a button. Whoopee. But I started detaching beading from fabrics my mother collected for me from Edith's, the store where she bought her outfit for Yoni's bar mitzvah. They do alterations so there are hems and other bits and pieces for my cq work. It keeps my hands busy (without involving my mouth...) and in the creative mode, if only passively.

Just stitching...

2006-11-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I started on the SRE on the Heschel piece. Only had half a day to work because in the afternoon, I went with Mintzy and Rafi to see a matinee of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" at the Bluma Appel theatre. I was rather impressed by the set, rather minimalist but very inventive, including a water feature to replicate a stream. The acting was quite good for the most part. My only complaint, the seat, has more to do with me not being able to sit for long in one position, than the seat itself.
Afterwards, we went out for a bite to a vegetarian Indian restaurant at Bathurst and Dupont, more or less. The onion soup was delish and a baked potato and bean salad was just enough for me. Rafi and Mintzy continued on to Dori's to babysit and I took the subway home. So I didn't get home until close to 8 and didn't stitch at all last night. And I missed phone calls with both Inbal and Rotem. I'll call them on my own.
This morning we're up early and I've been stitching on the Heschel. It's coming together. I've just about finished the SRE, finished my final seam and now am going to do some embellishing with buttons, jewellry, etc. Listening to Mozart choral music on the radio with stitching. Does life get any better?
But now, after stitching, I'm having trouble focussing my eyes.
Anyways, not much else planned for today. Maybe a visit to Mom, maybe drop in on Alissa and Mel. Maybe stay home and do some more stitching.
Oh yeah, just before the Mozart, I heard Gordon Lightfoot singing a song and think I've found the words for my course piece in his lyrics.

Inching my way along

2006-11-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

I've been working on the smaller Auf Simchas quilts. The first one I'm making for a fundraiser for my nieces' and nephews' school. It has three cq blocks -- I've completed the seams on the first block and am now doing the seams on the second one. The first one turned out great so I hope the next two will meet the standard set.

Menachem stained the shadowbox blue. I like the colour but am not sure if it needs another coat. And whether it should be a little shinier. Decisions, decisions.

I washed all of the stuff Judith gave me. The first load was O.K., the second shrunk quite a bit and I still have to dry two loads and iron everything. But I'm excited about what to do with the stuff afterwards.

I am hoping to make it down to the Textile Museum on Saturday morning for their fall sale not so much for the fabrics as for embroidery threads. And then in the afternoon I am going to see a play.

I am hoping that once Bat & Sandy return, I will be leaving the office earlier and will be able to spend a little more time stitching in the late afternoon/evening. We shall see.

Quilting gone wrong

2006-10-31T09:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening, I added a few beads to the centrepiece of my challah cover. Then I started free-motion quilting. It did not go so well. I'm still picking out the stitches. Teeny weeny ones. I remembered to put the stitch length to zero. I think I forgot to put the tension to zero as well.
Oh well.

This morning, I started embroidering seams on the first of the two small wall hangings I'm doing. It looks nice so far.

We have a funeral today. A woman my age who has been battling breast cancer for at least 10 years. But it was still all too fast. A few weeks ago, the doctor told her she only had a few weeks. And that's all it took. It's awful, and it affects all of us.

WW today. Don't know how I did. Don't particularly care. I know I'm eating better so that's really all there is to it.

I was hoping to do some stitching this evening, but I may just park myself outside the shiva house to tell trick and treaters to skip this house.

The mother lode

2006-10-30T05:17:00.000-08:00

A while back I wrote about fabric I found at a garage sale. Well if I was pleased then, I'm thrilled now. But more about this later.

Yesterday was an errand day. We went to Penina's to drop off the gift. Ended staying for breakfast (that was our second breakfast because we're early risers).
From there we went to my friend, Judith's. Carmit forgot the charger for her camera when she left here and Judith is going to Israel today so we took it down to her.

Judith is a friend I met at university. She is very outgoing and while playing Jewish geography, we found out that her first cousin is married to someone I was with in the tnua (youth movement). So we hit it off right away and have been friends ever since. Judith loves shopping but not at stores -- garage sales, rummage sales, etc.
We often do this together but we haven't physically seen each other in almost half a year, if not longer. During the summer, I'm away weekends. During the week, we both work. And weekends since September, we've both been busy -- she with her grandchildren, me with my needlework and both of us with the holidays. So it was really nice to see her.

And then we popped in at my mother's for a short visit.

OK, now the story I referred to earlier. Judith bought some fabric for me at the Designer's Walk (google Toronto Designer's Walk) sidewalk sale several months ago. Books of fabric samples. In short, the mother lode. I spent the afternoon taking the books apart and sorting the fabrics. The only drawback is that some of the fabrics have glue on them. I washed one piece in the machine at high temperature to see if the glue was water soluble -- it wasn't. I guess I could have ironed the glue onto craft paper but I couldn't be bothered. So this morning, I trimmed off all of the glue-y bits and now I will wash all of it, see how it holds up to water (it's all cotton or synthetic, except for one book of "dry-clean only" which I have set aside in the meantime), then iron it and get started.

Yesterday, I also sewed the borders onto the two smaller Auf Simchas pieces. They're both ready to embroider/embellish.

I finished the challah cover centre piece. Now I just have to quilt it.

I also tried an experiment to engrave a small piece of metal with my initials and the date. It didn't turn out too badly but I'm not convinced yet. I'm also going to try printer printing on ribbon and see how that goes.

Anyways, off to work shortly.

Field Trip to Home Depot and Michael's

2006-10-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

So we went on a field trip this morning to Home Depot (hardware) and Michael's (craft store). Home Depot for the blue stain which they didn't have and would only tint for us if we bought a large quantity. So we didn't get the stain.

Since we were already in that shopping area, we went into Michael's. I had seen in their flyer advert that certain wools were on sale. I bought two balls (2 for $5), one navy and one royal or lighter blue. I swear that is all I was looking for. But I just happened to see another ball of dark blue/light blue which I've used before. It has a nice pattern as is (I will post a picture later when I've used it) and it also crochets up nicely. I picked it up, saw the price ($9), put it back, then picked it up again. I'll use it and I may not find it the next time I look. I also notice that they had stain but not the colour I want. I also noticed that they have a very nice notions section -- they had variegated cotton threads. So I don't have to shlep far to find them. And then just before we were leaving, I noticed a bin with ribbons so I found two widths of royal blue ribbon which looks like grosgain (I think that's how it's spelled).

Did I mention we "popped" into Costco on the way there? I had to replenish my supply of socks, some of which mysteriously disappeared while Carmit was here...

On the way home we hit Food Basics and stocked up on WW-type foods. I've cooked my soup and cut up celery sticks to go with the baby carrots and grape tomatoes and I'm all set for next week.

Now I'm busy auditioning trims for my challah cover. Once I get those sewn down, I can quilt the cover.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Blue stain on shadowbox

2006-10-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

I've decided to do blue stain on the shadowbox. The other option I was considering is just too complicated. I hope to buy the stain and get it done this weekend. I still have to sign and date the cq square which I find rather daunting. I'm not used to working in such small rounded stitches and will be unhappy if it doesn't work out the way I want.

Auf Simchas II is finished. I cut the sleeve this morning before work and stitched it on during work (slow day). I hope to give it to Penina this weekend. And then I may borrow it back to enter it into a competition.

Inbal is doing her charity bike ride starting Sunday. She is going up to Jerusalem tomorrow because that's where the ride starts. I am bursting with pride.

And that's all for today, folks.

Decorating the shadowbox itself

2006-10-26T13:21:00.001-07:00

I took a quick look at the Textile Museum of Canada website. There's an exhibit of shadowboxes which are up for silent auction. I didn't pay much attention to the content of the box yet, but more to the box itself. I saw two that interested me. The first was stained in blue so the wood patterns showed through. This is what I had originally thought of doing. But there was another one which continued the colours of the contents onto the box. For example, where in mine the upper left corner of the cq is dark blue, the shadowbox would be painted dark blue too. Light blue painted to correspond to the light blue cq piece. I kind of like that idea. But I'm not sure yet.

I didn't get any work done yesterday evening -- too tired. I didn't get anything done this morning -- too tired. And I doubt if I'll get anything done this evening either. I guess I'll just have to wait for the weekend.

Decorating the shadowbox itself

2006-10-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

Pomegranate shadowbox

2006-10-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

This is my shadowbox for the Pomegranate Guild 25th anniversary. The theme of the exhibit is "Threads of Identity". The outside perimeter of the box is approximately 10" by 10".

I chose to make my colour theme blue and white because of my strong ties to Israel.

The upper left hand corner is assorted family buttons -- my mother's, my sister's and my aunts'-- which have been beaded. Just below that are five chamsot. A chamsa is a good luck amulet.

Below that on the left is a piece of my cousin Ruthie's wedding dress. The flowers in silver were original to the dress. I outlined the flowers in blue to go with the blue and white theme.

The middle piece, is a tree on a white background. The white duppioni silk is from my sister's wedding gown. The tree trunk is from one of my father's ties. The tree top is a "sandwich" of two pieces of tulle filled with snippets from family fabrics -- my wedding dress, my mother's wedding gloves, a tablecloth my mother had embroidered, and again my father's tie. The three birds in the tree signify my three children. The sandwich technique was something I saw demonstrated at one of the Guild meetings.

The right hand light blue piece is embroidered with silk ribbon, a technique I also learned at one of the Guild's workshops.

The blue piece to its left has two Judaic and biblical symbols -- the dove and the pomegranate.
(The shadowbox picture was taken flat on a table--the pomegranate is suspended by beads and should hang vertically).

The final piece, the white wedge at the bottom is from my wedding dress. It is embroidered with the Hebrew word "shalom" and I doubt any explanation is required for it.

I still need to sign and date it.

And if anyone has any suggestions how to decorate the wooden box itself, please let me know.

Challah cover

2006-10-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

This is the challah cover I've started on. The centre will be cut away to accommodate a centre piece, most likely decorated but without writing. (I mean, if it's covering the challah, isn't it pretty obvious what it is?)
And today, while surfing at work, I came across Soduko quilts and thought that might be a neat idea for the back. I just have to do the math correctly.

Finished wallhanging

2006-10-24T21:26:00.000-07:00

Not hanging properly because I haven't done the sleeve yet, but this is the finished product.

Details

2006-10-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

Here are the Auf Simchas square details.

Auf Simchas II -- Finished, well almost

2006-10-24T07:10:00.000-07:00

So this morning I finished the binding on Auf Simchas, in time for Penina's birthday today. I still have to sew on a hanging sleeve and add a stitch or two to the mitered corners, but in general, I'm done. And it is a beauty if I do say so myself.

I think I will ask Penina to lend it to me. I may just enter it into a show if I gather up enough courage.

Now I'm thinking of backing for the challah cover I'm making. I may just use the some fabrics from the front but in a different configuration.

I will post photos later.

Pomegranate shadowbox stitching finished!

2006-10-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I put the final touches on my shadowbox cq square. On the white wedding dress fabric, I chain-stitched the word "Shalom", in Hebrew, and filled in the chain spaces with sparkly white and blue threads.

Now I have to decide what to do with the shadowbox itself. It is unfinished pine. Should I stain it blue? Paint it white? Cover it with quilting? I don't want to do anything which is going to detract from the stitching.

While I was mulling that over, I pinned the binding on Penina's piece. I actually am using a larger backing piece and folding it over for the binding. I was flustered with the corner mitering so I've left it for now.

And then yesterday afternoon, I had a spurt of energy and decided to make a challah cover from the blue and white cottons fabrics I had previously thought to use in my shadowbox project. I cut 2" and 3" strips, then cut them length-wise diagonally and arranged them radiating from the centre of a 20" square, alternating blue and white, and 2" and 3" pieces, so it's somewhat random looking but actually not at all. I started sewing yesterday and finished this morning. Now it's trimmed and waiting for the centre to be cut out and replaced with a centre piece. I don't think I will use lettering "Shabbat" or "Chag". I think the centre piece will be decorated with braiding, ribbons, or something similar to what I did for the twins. Not jewellery though because I want it to be washable.
Next project is to sew borders on the two cq hangings I'm making from the leftover squares from Penina's piece. And then embellish them.

You may have noticed that I'm procrastinating with respect to the homework from my course. I just can't get into it. I haven't found a theme or a saying yet. Once I have that, I should be able to catch up quickly.

We've been decluttering at home, mostly stuff that was downloaded from the internet for future reference. But by the time you go to check on it again, it is already redundant. I want to get the computer room set up so it can be used as a guest room.

CSNF report

2006-10-22T03:03:00.000-07:00

I was too tired to write yesterday evening after I came home from the Canadian Sewing and Needlecraft Exhibition. Hence this morning's post before I go into my studio to work.

Yesterday morning, I went into my studio, looked at the Pomegranate project and finally figured out what to do in the last square -- I wrote, in Hebrew, "Shalom" in script. Now I am embellishing it. And then I will be finished with the textile part. And start angsting over the frame...

At around ten, I left for the CSNF. Menachem took me to the Finch station and I took the subway down. (Yesterday was also the CN Tower climb in which Gwen, the friend from work who climbs stairs with me, participated. If I had known I may have gone earlier to cheer her on. Next year, I may just join her...)

Anyways, mixed reviews for the CSNF. There were fewer exhibitors and a lot of the same old stuff. I did find out that there's a quilt store in Stouffville on Main Street but I really don't need any more fabric until I use some of the stuff I have. I enoyed the quilts which were exhibited although I was horrified to see some of them hung with the bottom lying directly on the concrete floor. But no cq. I did buy some more blue beads, some blue and white variegated thread, and a pack of 4 fat quarters. I think I may have outgrown the experience. I can see (and purchase) new things on line and at the merchant malls at the local quilt guild shows.

Anyways, when I was finished, I was to meet Menachem at a board meeting at Davenport and Ossington. Having absolutely no knowledge of how to get anywhere downtown, I asked the TTC person at Union Station how to get there and he said there's a bus from Dupont Station. When I get to Dupont Station, the TTC person there says no bus. So I walked. In addition to the four hours I had walked at the show. So my feet still ache and I think I shall spend most of today sitting.

Off to work in my studio.

SRE

2006-10-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

SRE is silk ribbon embroider, just in case you were wondering.

So this morning, before work, I managed to get a little SRE done on the shadowbox project. Between this post and my Pomegranate Guild meeting tonight, I hope to add my French knots, beads and stitches.

That leaves me with one piece of my wedding dress mileage/kilometrage from it) which is as yet unembellished. For a mini dress, made from less than metre fabric remnant, I've sure gotten a lot of needlework/sewing mileage/kilometrage from it. I have used pieces on numerous projects and still have some left over.

So yesterday I broke down and went to weight watchers. I have been unable to lose the pounds I put on since my last (and first) successful weight loss. I feel that now that I've got the exercise part of the health equation going, I should try the weight part as well. I find that by tracking points, it does keep me more aware of what and when I'm eating. I don't like the idea of being preoccupied with food all day, but hopefully it will fall into second nature status after a while.

I took off early from work today. Yunkie picked me up and we went to my mother's because Lenny and Eyra Fritsch are visiting from Israel and my mother had them, Joe and Yvette Podemski, Yunkie, Penina and me for lunch. Menachem couldn't come -- he has a bad cold, is feeling miserable and didn't want to spread germs. It was a lovely afternoon.

Anyways, off to stitch.

Snippets, continued

2006-10-17T02:59:00.000-07:00

I had zigzagged the snippetted circle in dark blue (same colour as tie) and it didn't look good. Also, proportionwise, it was too big for the area it was intended for. So I cut a smaller circle out of it, finishing the edge in white and then added a white boucle yarn to the perimeter. It's smaller size allowed me to put it on a white dupionni silk background where it's definitely a tree top and I used another piece from my father's tie for the tree trunk. I then put 3 birds in the tree top and a few sparkly beads from a beaded bag my children gave me for one of my birthdays. I only used the bag once and decided it should go to better use. In the meantime, I have used the beads on several projects, including the family chuppah.

I had to take the subway/bus home from work yesterday and since the subway station is at Empress Walk, I popped into the Fabricland store looking for variegated blue and white thread (which they didn't have -- I will get some, I hope, at the Canadian Sewing and Needlecraft Show this weekend). They were having a sale -- aren't they always? I bought some trims, not in colours that I can particularly see myself using any time soon but they were made from tiny shiny square sequins. And one blue wispy thing that isn't really a match to what I'm doing. Oh well.

Snippits

2006-10-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

So I'm excited. I'm in the midst of trying out a new technique for the Pomegranate shadow box.
I took snips of fabrics from family stuff: my father's tie, my mother's wedding gloves, my, Bat's and Devora's wedding dresses and made a sandwich of them between two layers of blue tulle. I arranged them in a circle which will now become either a tree top or a flower. It's not as polished looking as I would like but it still is interesting, unique and meaningful. And blue and white.
I like the tree top idea because I can then put 3 silver birds in it, one for each of my children. And embellish with beads from Penina's wedding and other beads. I just have to figure out how to make the edges which are now just zig-zagged more polished looking. Perhaps blanket stitch?

A little creativity every day, somedays very little

2006-10-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

So it's the weekend and that's the time I get most of my needlecraft done.
Yesterday, we went to my mother's in the morning because someone came to appraise some flutes. Then we came home and went to Mintzy's to remove a small desk attached to the wall in her kitchen so she can put in a new piece with three double drawers in where it stood. It took all of 15-20 minutes to remove it. The wall behind it was damaged so Menachem did a 10 minute plaster repair which requires 24 hours to dry. Mintzy and Rafi went up to Dori's mother-in-law's in Orillia and we decided to put together the Ikea piece. Those things are complicated. No wonder people pay to have them assembled. (We're putting it together as a symbol of our friendship).
I did get a little stitching done -- in particular a button cluster on the Pomegranate Guild piece.
This morning, I took out stitches on the centre of the same piece. I didn't like the way it looked. I am now trying to figure out how to incorporate fabrics from my father, mother and siblings without straying from the blue and white colour scheme. And also, I want to sew them together some how using my grandmother's hand cranked sewing machine. (The theme is Threads of Identity).
I also bit the bullet and am in the midst of my online course homework. I finally chose two fabrics that I don't particularly care for their colours and decided to go for it using embroidery threads that I have but will never use because I don't like their colours. Perhaps my embroidered motto should be something to do with negativity -- and I usually am very up and positive.
I also would like to put the backing on my blue Auf Simchas and finish it in time for Penina's birthday (the inspiration for the piece was the trims from her sons' bar mitzvahs.
So instead of going on and on here, I will go back to my drawing, or rather, sewing board.

Short post -- not much to say

2006-10-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

I started couching down a lovely white thread/wool using a contrasting blue thread to couch it but I didn't like the way it looked nor the "wave" for lack of a better word at the moment to describe the pattern. I am too pooped to stitch tonight but maybe tomorrow morning, I'll get in a stitch or two.
I'm off to watch Coronation Street and then make some phone calls for the Pomegranate membership committee.

Blue period

2006-10-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

It looks like I'm having a blue period. The wallhanging is not finished yet. The center cq is. I am still debating what backing to put on it and whether I should free-motion quilt the borders before I bind it. And what colour (i.e. shade of blue) the binding should be.
The other photo is of the materials I have gathered for the Pomegranate shadow box. The cq square is not terribly visible but it is sort of in the middle, surrounded by the various threads, findings, beads and other stuff I will use for embellishing.
I actually got started on it this morning and embroidered several of the seams. I'm on a roll...

Not too bad for a Monday

2006-10-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that I started blogging a year ago, more or less. I should try to keep up with it more regularly.

So, since the plan for this weekend was to sew the borders on Auf Simchas II, and I didn't do it yesterday or the day before, I am pleased to announce that I got up early today, bit the bullet and voila -- borders. I always procrastinate when I'm not confident that I will succeed to sew straight lines... It looks quite impressive and once the digital camera is juiced up, I will post a photo.

I also pieced the Pomegranate cq piece. I will perhaps also post the naked square and some of the threads I purchased on Saturday. I'm not sure if I'm using ribbon trim on this one. That's what I like about cq. I let it dictate to me what needs to be done.

Tomorrow is lesson 2 of the online course. I usually do the homework immediately upon receipt of the lesson. I'm stalling on this one. First of all, I'm not sure where we're going with it and that will probably influence my fabric colour choice. Secondly, I'm not sure I want to make a full three piece sandwich. I may make an "open faced" sandwich because I have a problem with the messy back showing.
We have to come up with ideas for sayings or designs. I came across some Jewish Haiku. "Lacking fins and tails, the gefilte fish swims with great difficulty". Or perhaps just a phrase in Yiddish. I'll see.

Anyways, pictures later and if anything else blog-worthy happens, I shall write again.

Show and Tell

2006-10-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is what I've been doing so far this weekend. Saturday, I purchased all of the fabrics for $4 (Canadian!) at a garage sale. I have now washed and ironed them. The bluish fabric on the right is actually a lovely white batiste. I'm not sure what I'll do with the zig-zag fabrics but cheap is cheap.
This morning, Joy came over with her mother-in-law's costume jewellry. The colours, especially of the beads, don't show too well but there are some interesting and challenging pieces. And the price was right... So I'm happy.
Tomorrow I will tackle the Auf Simchas II and maybe start on some other cq squares. I have already sane pieced them but I want to gather threads, and bits and pieces so I can take them to work and work on them, time permitting.

Long weekend

2006-10-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

So in Canada this is a long weekend -- Monday is Thanksgiving. So that's a short work week to look forward to.
Yesterday evening was Erev Sukkot. Menachem picked up my mother and we had a quiet dinner together. My mother is having dental work done (root canal, new crown, etc.) and is limited in what she can eat (chew). Menachem made lentil and rice soup, garlic mashed potatoes, and sole almondine. He also made a gorgeous "soccer ball" challah substituting silan for honey. It was delish, as usual. And my mother took home leftovers...
The Thanksgiving weekend we usually go up to Perth to do some maintenance work at camp and then do the Autumn Studio Tour. This year, Menachem went up last week so there was no point going all that way (3.5 hour drive) just for the tour. And since Carmit went home and we don't really feel like doing much, we decided to have a low-key weekend at home.
This morning, we woke up late (8 a.m.), Menachem surfed, etc. I fondled my fabrics.
We had plans to go down to my mother's place to try to fix the lights in her basement. On the way, well really out of the way but not far from our house, we went to the needlepoint store which sells all kinds of embroidery threads, silk ribbons, etc. I wanted to show them Penina's Auf Simchas hanging because I had purchased some threads there. I received some very encouraging comments. There's nothing like being validated by people who know how much effort goes into making these pieces of art.
I stocked up on threads for the Pomegranate Guild shadowbox. I am calling it Kachol v'lavan (blue and white). My starting point is two pieces of blue dupionni silk left over from Dori's chuppah. I'm not sure yet which whites I'll use but I'm getting ahead of myself. More about kvl in another post.
We went down to my mother's and Menachem fixed the lights.
From there, since we were already halfway downtown, we thought we'd drop in to visit Judith (she wasn't home) or Corinne (she was home but was busy). So we headed north to visit Mintzy and Rafi who were entertaining/being entertained by grandson Noah.
On the way, I asked Menachem if he was hungry and we decided to stop in at home first and have a bowl of soup and some challah. (The last sentence is only relevant to explain how our hunger resulted in me increasing my fabric stash.) As we turned onto Snowshoe, we saw that there was a garage sale. We stopped and it turned out there was a suitcase full of fabrics at 25 cents a "piece", a piece being either a meter or more, or several pieces attached together (factory samples). I bought eight pieces. Then at home I reconsidered -- for that price, I should pick up any others that looked half decent. So we went back for seconds... So now I have a whole basket full of fabric which I will launder, iron, fondle and get ready for use (and post photos I hope).
And now we are back home and vegging.
Tomorrow morning, one of the ladies from my office is coming over with her mother-in-law's jewellery box. She saw my first Auf Simchas piece and offered me the stuff. She was thrilled that someone can put it to good use. I can't wait to see what goodies there are!
Monday afternoon, I am meeting with the Pomegranate Guild president to go over the membership lists. I am the official keeper of the list because I know how to update it in Excel and I can get Menachem to print labels. Since she lives near Alissa and Mel, we may pop over there for a visit too.
OK. So my plan for this weekend is to finish sewing the borders on the Auf Simchas and maybe quilting it, and to start/continue some other cq projects.
And did I mention the weather is fabulous? A little chilly but sunny.
Off to take a nap.

More plodding

2006-09-30T21:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for a while. I come home from work exhausted. I stitch for an hour or so each evening and an hour or less each morning before leaving for work.
So my current project is coming along nicely, but nothing so exciting that I feel compelled to write daily. It's six sane crazy squares (i.e. pieced sane, embellished crazy) inspired by my nephews' bar-mitzvah invitations. I am just about finished with the embellishing and perhaps tomorrow will have time to go to Fabricland to buy the border and backing materials.
I was at Fabricland this week to buy fabrics for the Pomegranate Guild's 25 anniversary project. The theme is threads of identity and I have decided to do a strip quilt in blues and whites and then embellish and/or quilt. Since I prefer to work on small pieces in general and the guild project is an 8" (or is it 6"?) shadow box, I really didn't need a lot of fabric. I only bought 25 cm. of each of five patterned blues and 3 patterned whites. But now that I have the cotton fabrics, I'm wondering if I should perhaps stick with the "fancies" I have: royal blue and powder blue dupionni silk and a whole bevy of white fabrics from various family wedding gowns and sources. The fancies would be better suited to embellishing with fancy threads. Don't know. I will finish embellishing project "a" before starting on project "b".
Last week, Menachem and I went up to Newmarket to Evelyn's to look for the blue and white fabrics and avail myself of on sale really price slashed fabrics. I bought a bunch, none of which coordinated with each other nor with most of the fabrics I have at home. But good quality cotton at $1.99 or $2.99 Canadian a metre was just too good to pass up.
I really must stop buying fabric and start using what I have.
I got my supply list for the Fiber Collage online course from Joggles. I must say that the supply list really doesn't give much idea of what we will be doing. So I will wait to assemble the supplies until after the first lesson is posted. Hopefully it will give me a clue as to what fabric I should use for the base. I may just use a natural colour muslin or white linen.
Yesterday actually marked the end of nine months that I have been stair climbing. Someone told me that they can see a difference. I can't. True, I have muscles that I never had before. And muscle weighs. Especially since I've added in a morning walk of 20-25 minutes. But would it hurt the scale to pay me a compliment?

Where does the time go?

2006-09-17T07:36:00.000-07:00

A week has gone by since my last post. Since then:
a) Carmit, middle child, arrived for a three week visit on Monday
b) Had lunch with Carmit on Tuesday and started catching up a little on what's happening in her life
c) Wednesday evening was the Pomegranate Guild's first meeting for this year
d) Planned for Rosh Hashana and invited guests (the kind who wait for an invitation because our policy is "kol haba, baruch haba" (whoever comes is welcome). So far, we're expecting 16.
e) yesterday spent the day with Menachem, Carmit and my mother at Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake

Niagara Falls is only about an hour and a half from our house. No matter how often we go, summer or winter, we never fail to be amazed by it. Yesterday, unfortunately, although "promised" nice weather, it wasn't very nice. There was little to no sun, it was windy so the mist from the Falls was almost like rain and we couldn't really see the Horseshoe Falls because of the mist. And although I wouldn't have minded standing longer in the rain, Carmit hadn't dressed appropriately for the weather and I didn't think my 85 year old mother should stand outside in that weather very long.
The ride to Niagara-on-the-Lake was nice but the main strip was disappointing. There were no bookstores and most of the other shops were very touristy. And no quilt or fabric stores that I could see...

Today, Sunday, we have the following planned:
Menachem is at Chaim L's for a meeting about camp expenditures made this summer, then in the early afternoon we're going to Yunkie and Mindy's. Yunkie, Carmit and I will pop over to Roselawn Cemetery to "visit", as is the custom before major holidays. Then we'll shmooze at their place.
I had wanted to get to the Evelyn's (quilt shop) in Newmarket this weekend and perhaps Needlearts (embroidery threads) but both are closed on Sundays. Bummer.

I am plodding along on Auf Simchas II. It has six cq blocks, two of which are pretty much finished -- for the first pass.
I wanted to get fabric for the borders to be quilted.

I also wanted to get fabric for my the Pomegranate 25th Anniversary members' shadow box project. The theme is "threads of identity". Our meeting was about decorating the shadowbox frame itself (i.e. gilding, painting, staining, etc.) and it struck me that I could do something like the diagonal bat-mitzvah wallhanging in blues and whites with touches of silver (for the 25th) but with embroidered and embellished seams (instead of machine quilted). I need to make the "naked" project before I can start tinkering. Don't know when I'll make it to a fabric store now. Maybe I should try online shopping.

Anyways, I'm off to try some "Word" manipulation that I can use on fabric, maybe even some word clouds, so that's all for now.

Bat-Mitzvah wallhangings

2006-09-10T02:55:00.000-07:00

So I (i.e DH) changed photos from img to jpg so I could post the photos of the wallhangins I made for the Bat Mitvahs. They look very orange in the photos -- they're more brown, rust, and gold.
I (i.e. DH) also hooked up my new cheap ($30 CDN) colour printer and started printing out the class lessons from Sharon B's Encrusted Crazy Quilt course. (If you don't know about cq and would like to learn, or if you know and would like to learn more, I highly recommend the course.) Mid lesson 3, the black ink from the colour cartridge ran out. Have to buy another so we can continue printing.

Did I mention that Inbal and I registered for "Fibre Collage",another online course at Joggles.com? I have taken university courses with Carmit but we were both in the same city at that time. Here we'll be taking the same course but on different continents. I find that pretty amazing.

I am also making progress on a second Auf Simchas wallhanging, inspired by the lavish ribbons and tassles on my nephew's Bar Mitzvah invitation. It is actually an encrusted embellished sane quilt. I also found in my hang onto that trim it may come in handy some day drawer ribbon and a tassle from her older son's Bar Mitzvah.

If she likes it, I'll give it to her. If not, I will donate it to my brother's kids' school (Heschel) for their annual fundraiser. And I have material left over to do another one. I will try to post a photo soon. I have to buy fabric for the border, backing and binding. We will probably travel to the quilting store in Newmarket to look for some because I'm looking for something blue, gold and silver and doubt if I'll find it locally. The Newmarket quilt shop has an amazing array of fabric.

Today is garage cleanout day because Wednesday is no tag garbage day. So that should take care of all the stuff we have been putting in the garage until we decide what to do with it for the past two years...

Has it been that long?

2006-09-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it's been so long since my last post.
My summer was hectic. Working four and a half days a week, taking the 4 hour train ride up to camp for the weekend, working at camp, train ride back -- exhausting.
Then I spent two wonderful weeks at camp, babysitting the site while it was rented out. I had hoped to do some stitching but got very little done.
Since I'm home, however, I have been busy.
Remember the twin bat mitzvah gifts? Well, my original plan didn't work out -- I couldn't get the printer to print properly so I partially scrapped that idea and made two small wallhangings which are now completed and will hopefully finish uploading shortly. And now that they're finished, I figured out how to print on fabric... So I made labels. Once the labels are attached, I will be ready to send them to the bat mitzvah girls. (So what if the bat mitzvah was last weekend...)

July 26, 2006 -- 13, 559 steps!

2006-07-27T03:40:00.000-07:00

That's it.