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.