Away, and home again

The High Holiday season is filled with weeks where each week is filled with the prep of the equivalent two or three Thanksgiving dinners in a week plus three days each week where all work is forbidden. So for a month each day of the week feels like a Friday, a Shabbat or a Sunday. My husband and I kept asking on another what day it was.

My sister was in the hospital, (she is OK now, thank you for asking), and needed someone to escort her home and help her transition to home.

I took the train.

It was my first time in the new Moynihan train station, (the former post office building on 8th Avenue across from Penn Station).  I hadn't taken the train to Boston in several years. It is just so much more civilized than taking the bus.

I love seeing Manhattan recede from view.

We passed Costco! I have often stopped before I do my shopping to admire the view of the railroad bridge and the approach ramps of the Triboro bridge. I loved looking back at my usual point of view.

One of the best things about the train trip to Boston are the water views.

I grew up surrounded by the marshes of Quincy. When I was a child I found the marshes to be really ugly.

Now I find them beautiful.

As we got further north there was more foliage that had turned.

Seeing the commuter trains  on the tracks meant that I had gotten close to my destination.

My sister is blessed with a large circle of friends who really love her. Some of her friends drove us back to her apartment from the hospital. Her fridge and freeze were filled with more of that love.

I had some errands to run for my sister and took some photos along the way.

Prescriptions got filled. 

Groceries were purchased.

Bits of business were attended to.

And then I made the trek home, again on the train. It was dark out so no photos.

Once I got home,

autumn had gotten to the plaza in front of our subway station, that my husband has dubbed,  "Spare Change Plaza".

I had work to begin.

My son had asked me to make him two red and black geometric pillow pillow covers for his Amarillo apartment.

I decided to make something that wasn't that labor intensive.

I marked off squares of black cotton velveteen with painters paint and daubed the spaces between the tape with red acrylic paint.

Below are the two painted pieces of velveteen.

One pillow cover is completed with a red zipper and velveteen backing. 

The other pillow cover still needs to be constructed.

We are leaving for texas to visit our son in Amarillo as well as relatives who live in Houston and in Dallas.

Our Houston cousin is going through some difficult health issues. I wanted to make her something with the traditional Jewish prayer for healing.

I had an offcut of a vintage linen damask tablecloth. I first block printed the background. I have a piece that I am about to begin that will have a block printed background and I wanted to practice first because it had been a while since I had used my wooden print blocks.

After the background was printed I painted the text.

When I was part way through, I realized that I had created a type. Acrylic paint will wash out of fabric when it is still wet. I got the typo out but some of the blue pigment had spread.  I had a plan for how to mitigate the error.

My husband looked at my work and then told me that he had an idea of how to make the error less visible. he has been living around me and my work and what he suggested was pretty much the solution that i had decided to do.

I had learned long ago that all lettering looks better outlined. I outlined all of the letters on this piece and then went about turning my error into a "design opportunity".

I now have to figure out how to finish off this piece.

Now that this week is coming to a close I feel like the weeks will now have seven days in them again and not feel like thedays of the week are counted in base two.