Off to, hopefully, sunny Israel

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

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

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.

Fuschia & Hot Pink Shadow Box Series

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

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

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.