Getting Ready for the Studio Tour

My synagogue’s artists’ open studio tour is on Sunday. I’m working away to be sure that I have work to show ( and to sell). You can read more about the event here http://www.anschechesed.org/web/guest/upper-west-side-artists-studio-tour-nov.-20

This challah cover design is the first I came up with. I used to applique all of the elements, the sun, the moon and the lettering. The text comes from the end of the creation story, and is also the beginning of the Kiddush, ‘ It was evening and it was day.”

It was hugely time consuming. I probably made something like fifty cents an hour on those early pieces. I have taken a break from this design for a few years. After playing with the same design for fifteen years, it becomes a bit less compelling.

A couple of weeks ago we had dinner at the home of a friend. She had an earlier iteration of this challah cover. My husband asked me to make more of them. he has a tremendous fondness for this design.

I always like to make my husband happy.

Instead of the center being made out of quilting cottons, I painted the design onto white Ultra- Suede. The Ultra-Suede grips the brush in a really pleasing way.

I edged all of the center medallions with ribbon that I had purchased a few weeks back.Score!!!! Mitering the corners used to be something that made me curse in frustration. I guess if you do something for long enough, eventually you can improve. I didn’t have to curse once. Not even a little “G” rated curse. The miters all got formed neatly, all of the ends got finished discreetly.

For you construction geeks, I’m serging the front to the lining and will add various ribbons or bias bindings to cover the serged edges. I have seen lots of challah covers with ribbon just on the front and the raw serged edge looking not so pretty on the back. In addition to my OCD impulse to not like raw edges, having a doubled ribbon on the edge adds a nice bit of heft to the edge of the piece. Hopefully, I will have five done by the end of tomorrow.

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sarah in nyc

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