Spring

 

Spring cleaning.  What do I do with this 12" square which has been languishing in my cupboard? It was made as part of a challenge when I belonged to FAT Ladies (FAT being Fibre Arts Toronto).  We met once a month and had monthly challenges.  It was a creative period for me, in the art quilt mode and we had three exhibits at three different library branches.  I was disappointed when the group fell apart but that's life.

So now what to do with this piece?  It was made on a pale green silk background (former dress of Carmit's),  The lettering was fused from cottons in my stash.  The flowers were from a dollar store lei, and beaded.  The quilting was minimal - I liked the random quilted lines of variegated green thread.  The quilting over the lettering was just wavy lines following the word from side to side, less as a design element and more as insurance that if the fusible didn't hold, the stitches would.

I actually like it and think I will hang it somewhere.  Maybe do three more companion pieces. Hmmm.

Needlepoint

Rotem and Maya got married on March 14, 2020 in Israel.  My entire family, including my (now) almost 101 year old mother had flights booked.  Menachem and I arrived on March 5th and I can't remember now if Inbal, Amit and Doron arrived a day earlier, the same day, the next day...

I saw Menachem packing N95 masks and Lysol wipes and laughed at him for being hysterical.  Who knew?  People had just started talking about Covid.  First, Carmit's flight from Munich was cancelled.  Then my siblings in Canada started  cancelling one by one.  Then the Israeli guests cancelled.  A game of "chicken" was played with the banquet hall to see who would cancel first - if we did, the deposits on the hall stood to be lost.  If they did, they would have to refund the deposits.  In the end, Maya's brother negotiated a compromise.  The wedding celebration was rescheduled for October (the banquet hall wanted August - we balked at having to pay high season flight costs.  In the end, even October was too soon.  The banquet hall cancelled and the deposits were refunded.

Maya Rotem got married in their back garden, with only her parents, brother and sister-in-law, us, Inbal and her kids in attendance.  They exchanged vows under the chuppah I had made years ago ("if you build it, they will come" being my theory at the  time...).  Inbal and her children returned to Canada the next day and we followed about a week later on one of the last flights out.

So where does needlepoint fit into this scenario?  Last year, I missed their first anniversary having totally lost all concept of time.  I vowed that I would not miss their second.  So I started thinking about what I hoped would be a unique gift for a unique couple.

This is the top half of their wedding invitation.  I had it made into this

 

I emailed the "shoe" photo the a company called "Needlepaint" in Colorado and they translated into a needlepoint kit, complete with tapestry yarn, a print-out to follow

and instructions on the method of stitching.

Inbal went to Israel on Thursday and I sent it with her.  My thinking is that they can needlepoint it themselves and then when they come to visit for Pesach, I can have it made into a pillow.  Or if they don't want to needlepoint it, I'll do it myself and send the finished pillow back to them.

So that was our second year anniversary gift.  I'm still working on the first year one and hope to have it ready by the time they come but can't publish anything until they come.  Hopefully, I can get it done.

And speaking of needlepoint, I found an online program to translated pictures to patterns.  I have an old needlepoint canvas and lots of tapestry yarn, so I just may make a pillow for me.

 

This and that

 The zipper on my favourite fleece jacket broke.  I really don't want to throw it out or pay an exorbitant amount to have it professionally replaced so I will attempt to replace the zipper myself.  I am unable to actually remove the stitching holding it in so I cut off the teeth, will somehow attach binding tape to the front lapels and attach a zipper to them.  It may look a little hinky (is that a word and does it have an inappropriate meaning?) when it's done but it will make me happy to keep it out of the landfill.  Keeping my fingers crossed. 

Did a little sewing done on the 3rd Torah tie back.  I just needed the push to get started.  And yesterday's lunch and shmooze presentation by Shelley on stabilizers gave me an idea.  I'll let you know if it works.

We were at my mother's for lunch with my cousin visiting from Israel.  Except my cousin didn't show.  There was a misunderstanding.  So while we were out, we stopped off at Sew Sisters and I bought their last Northcott world map panel.

And I found clarinet fabric so I couldn't resist.

That's all for today, folks.

Mazel Tov!!

 In 2015, the POM guild put on an exhibit called "Celebrations" at Darchei Noam synagogue in Toronto.

Honey, Brenda and I decided to do a joint project, a quilted wall-hanging. 

We decided to use fabrics we had.  We used wedding dress and white fabrics to make a medallion for our quilt, and quilt blocks using a yellow/brown/ orange/beige batik charm pack (or maybe 2 charm packs?)  in a pattern called "broken dishes".  It is a Jewish custom to break a dish at the (orthodox) engagement ceremony.  We also looked the the custom of breaking a glass at the wedding ceremony, followed by everyone yelling Mazel Tov.

And so our concept for "Mazel Tov" was born.  We started with the medallion composed of six blocks of white fabrics.  We made 6 blocks, each block having 6 pieces. Do the math: 6 blocks X 6 pieces = 36, double chai (18), auspicious numbers for good luck in the Jewish tradition.

We wanted a 7 1/2" finished size.  We used a freezer paper template that size, cut out its pieces, ironed onto the fabric (six different fabrics in each block), cut 1/4" larger than the template piece, removed the freezer paper and sewed the pieces together.  The process was repeated 5 times.  We had six blocks  which would give us two rows of three blocks each. And the blocks could be rotated so that although each block had the same fabrics, they were in different locations on each block.

I am a little fuzzy here if we embroidered and beaded the seams  of each block before or after sewing the blocks together.  Probably before, because I remember Honey doing a seed stitch at the same time I was beading.  Brenda pieced the batik pattern blocks and 

Now to assemble.  The medallion was put together and the Hebrew letters for Mazel Tov cut from gold silk were stitched by hand by Honey.  We did a "dry fit" and realized we would need a border around the medallion in order to fit the size of the batik blocks.  So we added a 1/2" inch off-white duppioni silk border around it.  And we didn't have enough batik blocks so we,  inserted 2 gold silk rectangles, one on each side.  Brenda quilted it and it hung proudly in the Celebrations! exhibit.

It has hung proudly in my house since 2015.  But those two gold rectangles always looked unfinished to me.  Now it feels finished to me.  Unless a little beading could enhance the points were the diagonal lines meet...

Here is the finished piece.

Matai Purim? B'Adar

 It's a Purim turkey joke.  You had to be there.

Many years ago, I made this little 9" by 12" piece for Purim.

The hamentashen are fabric circles shaped into triangles and the poppy seeds are black beads.

The Megilla is a photocopy of first page of the megillah  printed onto silk.

I also participated in a Purim postcard exchange.  These are the ones I received.

Embroidery Challenge - Done!

 I finally finished it.  I actually finished a few days ago but didn't know how to "frame" it.  It was too big for the 14" embroidery hoop.  I went to Michael's on Wednesday looking for a larger hoop.  They didn't have any.  Then I thought about a metal macrame ring but they had either 14" or 19".  I ended up buying this:

16" was too big so I shaved 1/4" off the foam all around and tried taping the edges with white electrical tape.

 At this point, the foam was shedding.  I tried covering it with plastic film (saran wrap) but it wouldn't adhere and I wasn't happy.

Then a light bulb moment.  If I took the 14" frame outer hoop, removed the screw and glued a 1" piece of tongue depresser/popsicle stick between the two ends, I could enlarge the size of the hoop.  

I made a sleeve of fabric attached to the rainbow binding tape and pulled.  It worked but the embroidery fabric sagged.  So I cut a circle of foam core using the outside of the inner embroidery hoop as my guide.  I place that directly on the back of the embroidery piece, and put the inner embroidery hoop in to hold the foam core in place.  Placed a cord in the sleeve and pulled tight.  

Et voila - the front.

And the back.

 

So happy it's done.  Photo sent off to the POM for the Zoom challenge reveal on Wednesday night.

My "Auspicious" Beginnings as an Artist

My cousin is visiting from Israel.  We are getting together for lunch at my mother's house.

We have been talking about what's happening in Ukraine and although our family, both on my mother's side and my father's side, come from shtetls there, they didn't leave Ukraine to find a better life in Canada.  They left Ukraine to stay alive.  My great grandfather on my father's side was murdered in a pogrom.   Although on my mother's (and my cousin's) side no one we know about was murdered in the pogroms, their flight from Ukraine was a question of survival.

In anticipation of our lunch meeting today, I was looking for this:

This is an interview with Rachel Bardenstein, came to Canada before my mother's family.  The interview was conducted by Rotem circa 1994.

So now I come to the "artistic" part.  While digging through old paperwork, I came across my Grade Three - Four report card.  Note the marks for Arts and Crafts.

  

Enough said...