Pomegranates

I guess you figured out by now that I am a proud member of the Toronto Pomegranate Guild.

When Covid started, when I was still at home before I returned to the office, I got busy working on various projects.  The first one was a piece I started after visiting Lorraine Roy's studio tour.  She is a Canadian fibre artist who does amazing work representing trees.

I was inspired to do a piece based on  pomegranates.  I started the background with a grid of 6 blocks by 6 blocks of wedding fabrics, for a grid of 36 blocks, each block being about 3" so each row, horizontally and vertically is about 18".  I call it Chai-ish because it is never exactly 18".  I placed two pomegranates - one a representation of a vertical cut and the other, a horizontal cut. The idea was to connect the pomegranates by stitching and beading in a swirling pattern.  I got as far as the first few inches of the swirl and the project stalled.  Covid restarted it.  It took longer than I thought it would but I found the repetitive stitching and beading to be meditative.

 

When I finished it, I looked for another project in my UFO's.  Well, not really a UFO.  I had a pomegranate which I had made for a Pomegranate Guild exhibit.  Each member made an approximately 6" square pomegranate, in any textile medium they wished, and all the pomegranates were inserted in a grid frame.  When the exhibit was taken down, each member got their pomegranate back.  And it sat in my sewing room waiting for something.

 

I decided to make a companion piece to my first Chai-ish.  I put the pomegranate in the centre of a solid white background satiny fabric.  I then embroidered and beaded 36 spokes from the centre to the edges.   I decided to meditate a little less so the embroidery and beading on this one is like the first, but on steroids.

I now have two Chai-ish pieces which currently reside on the living room wall instead of the chuppah which stayed in Israel after the backyard wedding but that's a story for another day.