Challah covers

My daughter got married this summer and when her future mother-in-law invited me to a bridal shower last spring, I wanted to give her something personal but also something she would use. Something homemade, I thought, would be perfect, but nothing so big that it would be awkward for the newlyweds if it didn't suit their taste. I finally decided on challah covers.

 What are challah covers, you ask? On Friday night in Jewish homes, the sabbath is welcomed by lighting candles and saying blessings over the wine and bread. The traditional challah, a braided bread rich with eggs, is covered with a decorated cloth.

This challah cover says, in Hebrew, shabbat shalom -- peaceful sabbath. I think Hebrew letters are absolutely gorgeous, but I don't read Hebrew and so I wasn't at all sure that I could make free pieced letters that would still be recognizable. My son-in-law's family are Israeli and would definitely know if I botched the Hebrew, so I was pretty nervous about this. Google to the rescue! I saw this fabulous challah cover on Malka Dubrawsky's blog, A Stitch in Dye. Armed with that and free piecing techniques I learned from Tonya Ricucci (see her book, Word Play), I stitched this up. I love the colors! Now that I know it's legible and actually really and truly says "shabbat shalom," I may try another that's a little wonkier. How much fun would that be?

The design of this batik challah cover has a history. In one of the Renaissance synagogues still standing in the Ghetto Nuovo in Venice, there are floor tiles set in a design that I copied (above). But the tile was laid with an obvious mistake in one of the sections, as a reminder that only God is perfect. Check out the lower left block here and you'll find the mistake. As I told my daughter, I sketched the tiles from memory (no photos were allowed) and may not have gotten the basic block quite right -- but after all, only God is perfect!

The third challah cover I made from the Circle of Life I posted about here. I knew when I posted about it that I wanted to turn it into a challah cover, but didn't say anything because I didn't want to spoil the surprise! I'm thinking of turning the small kaleidoscope quilt in my last post into a challah cover, too.

Love and a swap

I'd been putting off making a block for Julie's White Coat Project because I didn't know how to do it. I decided I wanted to make something using selvages since Julie has made quilts with them, but I've never worked with them before. I also wanted to make something with free-pieced letters, but I didn't know what I could do in a small block. Finally, I decided to try Tonya's classic LOVE block.

This is 6-1/2" unfinished, with each letter block finishing at 2-1/2". The selvages are stitched down only in the seams -- is that how it's done? Well, it's how I did it! I hope it plays well with the other blocks Julie receives.

I participated in an I Spy swap, so much fun! I make lots of I Spy quilts and a swap is a great way to get a variety of fabrics. I had a few plans for what I'd do, but the squares started out at 5" (so they finish at 4-1/2"), and that's awkward for using them with other blocks. I've been seeing some rainbow I Spy quilts -- like this stunning one at Mermaid's Purse --and thought I'd like to try one. The swap didn't provide me with 10 squares of each color, so I had to supplement from my stash, but that just means I have leftovers for another quilt! I bordered each square on 2 sides with solids and arranged them stepwise (the picture is sideways). I've sewn much of it together, just haven't taken the photo yet. It's fun and quick.

Another B

I wanted to make a B with a spiral base for Brenda's Big Birthday -- I imagined lots of swirls and elegance. Not so easy to stitch since I don't do applique! But when I looked at my drawings, the swirl looked like a cat's tail. And the top could be a cat's head, couldn't it?

So I added ears and voila, a cat! I'm thinking about adding embroidered eyes, but am not sure. Thoughts?

I  made the cat by cutting 1-1/2" strips. I was going to cut some squares to make half square triangles (for the ears and the indentations in the B) when I remembered my Easy Angle Ruler. It lets you make HST's using the same size strips as your squares. I learned about it from Bonnie Hunter's website and absolutely love it!

Brenda's Big Birthday B

Happy Birthday, Brenda!

Brenda at Scraps and Strings is having a Big Birthday, and she's asking fellow Bloggers to send her a Big B for her Birthday quilt. Happy Birthday fabric seemed in order, so that's what I used for my Big B. I'm toying with the idea of another B but don't know whether I can pull it off. I may give it a try, and if it works, you'll know.

This fabric is for valences for our bathroom windows. I knew the fabric I wanted (I had designed it in my mind), but of course no designer had read my mind. This fabric has the right colors and is cheery, so it will do -- especially as it was on half price sale! It's outdoor fabric and fairly stiff, which got me thinking that it would make a wonderful satchel. I think I should have just about enough fabric left over for that, too.

James

The letters are now a word, a name! Joining the letters into a word is my favorite part of word play -- so many options! Well, one of my favorite parts -- I like choosing the fabrics, and deciding on variations, and ... you get the idea. :) The little A in my last post was just too small, so I made a bigger one. My pile of extra letters is growing, and most of them seem to be A's. Any relative or friend with that initial could be in luck!

I love using the pattern in a fabric to make a border. I just measured 1/4" away from the line along the circles and cut, and stitched right on the line. You can see the 1/4" on the left side that will be in the seam once I stitch the backing fabric around the name.

Otto has a baby brother

Yes, indeed, it's been awhile since I've been in blogland, and I hope to catch up with you all soon. I have quite a few quilting projects underway!

Remember little Otto? I made him a trip around the world quilt, then decided to put his name on the back, then decided to play a little...until the back became the front! You can see the quilt I made for Otto here.  Well, he's a big brother now!

Little brother gets a match game I Spy quilt -- two squares of each fabric. And can you guess what his little brother's name is?

Sweet baby James -- remember James Taylor's song? I used Tonya Ricucci's wonderful Word Play Quilts book to make the letters! You'll see tomorrow what I did with the name.

Sruti & D9P

Hoorah, I'm shooting down UFO's!

I started this for a friend's baby girl Sruti a long time ago. Today I finished the i (see how the dot is a little heart?) and put borders around all the letters. I've learned to put a LOT more border than I think I need, because otherwise I don't have enough. I'd rather whack off what I don't need than try to add more.

The border/binding fabric has all the right colors, but I'm not sure I like it. It will just be a narrow border (about an inch). If I don't use this, I'll probably do a 1" border with the same solids in 3" to 4" pieces. The closeup below shows it better.

I think as a narrow border, that dotted fabric works. It's hard to tell when I just lay the unstitched blocks on a big piece of the fabric. Thoughts? That's a wonky piano key border, which I am really into these days -- and it uses up all those whacked off pieces!

Last post I promised to show what happens to a Disappearing 9 Patch (D9P) when it disappears.

Cut the 9 patch in half both vertically and horizontally. Measure carefully -- you're going to have to stitch these back together.

Then flip 2 pieces that are diagonally opposite from each other and stitch back together for a whole new block! Since I have lots of different greens and an uneven number of ants and blue and red watermelon squares, I will switch out the quarter-blocks with other cut D9P blocks until I get a pleasing design -- I don't want all the same greens together. I like some unity in the quilt, so all my centers are the same (watermelon seeds) and all the borders are green -- though scrappy greens. But if you keep the border squares the same, and the focus squares the same, then you might want to vary the centers to keep the quilt from being just plain boring!

That's what I did with this one -- all the border squares were the same bear footprint fabric, and most of the focus squares were bears (but don't you love the s'mores fabric? I just had enough for a few squares). So I varied the center squares among several brights and then switched out the small blocks before sewing them back together.

See now? This is why we all took science. This is the Law of Conservation of Matter at work! The Disappearing 9 Patch didn't really disappear, it just got rearranged into something else.

Changing 'm' to 'mmmm'

M's and W's are not so easy. No, indeed. I knew that when I chose THUMP for Tonya's Halloween quilt, but I am determined to make a decent M, one that will make me hummmm with delight instead of shouting "eek!" (or even "*&#^$#!!")
My letters are supposed to have very fat and very thin parts, which I thought would emphasize the heaviness of THUMP. I sketched the word to get relative proportions and auditioned a bunch of M's. At this point I think I will do it the way Tonya suggests in her tutorial instead of using any of the ones in the picture. Any ideas for an M?

Did a ton of Linus stuff recently. Things look so compact in their little bags, but those represent hours of cutting, finding fabrics, piecing, etc.
And finally, gorgeous purple! Our yard has so many irises blooming now. I love the rich color and know it will just last a little longer, so I bought a hanging basket of red, white, and purple pansies to enjoy until fall.

Blues

My stash has turquoise and aqua, but very few true blues. Just not my color, I guess.
I pulled what I had and then when to my LQS, which had a blues sale in April. I was going to use reds for wonky strip piecing for a quilt background, but with all the red in my family room, I think it would be too much to hang a mostly-red quilt there. Right now I'm waiting to see how blue the color sheet in the washer will be when the load is done.
And I finished this! Tonya, it will be in the mail today or tomorrow! What I learned from this:
1) You do loosen up as you make letters. I made these in spelling order, and the i is definitely my favorite.
2) When piecing wonky piano keys, do it on a foundation. (Some of us learn the hard way.)
3) When the fabric has a wonky design, like these chilies, the piecing can still be fairly straight and it will look wonkier than it is.

Name & Chicago & Stars

It's been a long time ... so sorry! I kept thinking I would be back to reading and writing blogs any day, but it didn't happen until today. I have done a lot of Linus stuff -- my friend Bunny came over and helped me find backings for quite a few quilts, which she took off to finish. And last week I put together batting and backing for 16 quilts! It feels great to have those gone to quilters.

And as for my own quilting, I made my name for Lazy Gal Tonya. Since I like to work with hot colors, I used a chili pepper fabric for my name as a little visual pun. Still have to trim and piece them together, that won't take long. They'll be in the mail soon!
And I pieced yet another I Spy -- the final one for my nieces and nephews. This one has a checkerboard inner border and I was so pleased that the size of the checks worked with the size of the blocks -- the corners meet just right!
In my last post I mentioned that stars kept popping out of the tumbling blocks, but many of you commented that you couldn't see the stars. Maybe the following photos will help. This is "Tumbling Blocks with Emerging Stars" from The New Work of Our Hands. Each side of the tumbling block could be a point for a star, and each star point could be a side of a tumbling block.
And here's a close up:
I went to the Chicago Quilt Show a week ago. I just loved it! There were lots of vendors, lots of quilts, but I'll just show two for now. First, I was pleasantly surprised to see a wonky log cabin in the midst of quilts with more standard patterns.

And this quilt is a stunning rendition of the Museum of Canadian Civilization in Canada. My DH has family in Ottawa, just across the river from this museum, so we have visited it a few times. It's a gorgeous building, and the quilt captures its mood quite nicely.

That's a quick catch up. I will be visiting you all in blogland!

Quick -- What color is this?

Did you say red or green? It confuses your brain because it's getting both messages -- the word red but the color green. Psychologists call this the Stroop effect. You can learn more about it at a neuroscience site sponsored by the University of Washington, and it even has a couple tests you can take to see how much more quickly you can say the colors when they match the word than when they don't. This is the beginning of my next quilt, the one with rainbow colors hinted at in the previous post.

I am totally smitten with Tonya's wonky letters. So engaging! So many possibilities! I've been toying with various ideas about how to use them and finally settled on this. Seems to fit the style of the letters, too. If you've never seen Tonya's quilts, you're in for a treat. Her blog is Lazy Gal Quilting, and on the sidebar she has a link to tutorials for her wonky letters. It's not my usual style to just cut and stitch without measuring several times first, but it was a blast!


Here's a photo of an old (a very old) t-shirt of mine that has the mismatched color words. Guess I've been fascinated by this for a long time. We saw an exhibit on the Stroop effect at a science museum in Canada many years ago and my husband, who is a cognitive psychologist, explained it to our kids and me. My older daughter went on to major in social psychology in college and the younger one is finishing her major in cognitive neuroscience, so this quilt will fit our family well!