Palms at the Kinneret. W: 22 in x H: 24 in. 2014.

Last year at the summer workshops of the Israel Quilter’s Association I started a piece based on my photo at the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). The workshop was taught by Maya Schonenberger. It was great! Maya is exceptional. Her work is exquisite and we all learned tons.

I finally finished the piece this week. It’s a really interesting technique that brings out the true texture of all the fabrics. The depth created by this technique is amazing! Well, you can be the judge. Here are some photos.
Dimensions: 22″ x 24″ / 56cm x 61cm

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Forest landscape quilt featured in Barnard Magazine.

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I started the tedious job of sorting them by color. Small snippets went into small plastic containers from my husband’s cold cuts… Large pieces went into the old cookies containers we bought and saved. I sorted till I thought I would scream. I actually took a water break long enough to describe this story here, during which time, one of our many cats came in and dumped two of the containers. OH DEAR!!!

So, no choice. I will finish sorting these and cover all the containers. I have shelves for storage and they will serve me well. It has been fun to see what I have. Actually, it’s been inspiring. I started thinking about how some of the green scraps would make lovely tree foliage. So, it is not all for naught.

When I am through, I will have a tidy workspace, happier students and a nicer space in which I can create.

What is my advice? Do this process after every project. If you wait till you have heaps of scraps the task will be so daunting you will not want to do it…

Here are a few photos of before and after… just to inspire you too.

Happy creating.

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Insulated Quilted Trivet

Beautiful star pattern trivet, made with special insulated batting to protect your table and counter top surface from heat and cold. This trivet is a functional and charming addition to your kitchen because it reflects the heat or cold away from your table.

Round star design. Made from three beautiful batik cotton fabrics. Matching binding. Fully washable. Lay trivet flat while air drying.

Each trivet is sold individually. Makes a lovely wedding gift when bought in matching sets (as shown in 3rd image).

Dimensions: 9 1/2″ / 24cm diameter

This is a sample of a set of trivets I made as a wedding gift. I will customize each piece according to your color specifications. Just let me know your color needs! You can write to me here if you are local or purchase your new trivets via my Etsy shop.

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The video was posted on Pissott’s site, our local fabric store.

Robert Kaufman Printing Process

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Kibbutz Shluchot. W: 35.5 in x H: 51 in. 2012.

I am very excited to report my quilt, The fields of Kibbutz Shluhot, which I created in 2010 for the 100 Years of Kibbutz anniversary, has been selected to be part of the International Quilt festival in Beaujolais, outside Lyon, France, 18 – 21 April 2013. The French committee selected my quilt together with 29 other quilts from the Israel Quilters Association to be shown in this exhibit. You can see more about the exhibit by visiting their site:
Quilt Expo at Beaujolais

The quilt reveals a scene in northern Israel of Kibbutz Shluhot overlooking Mt Gilboa, which is very special to me because it reminds me of 30 years ago when I volunteered on this kibbutz. I tried to convey the quiet and serenity of the scene in my quilt.

I created this quilted fabric art using raw-edge applique and many different cotton fabrics as well as “snippets” of fabrics and yarns. The date trees were hand sewn and the fence is made of yarn. I thread painted using all different threads to embellish the piece and finally I machine quilted the layers into a magical quilt that hangs on the wall.

Dimensions:
130cm h x 90cm w / 51″ x 35.5″

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Now that I have taken you through the journey of this wonderful project, here is a photo of the finished quilt. I hope you enjoyed my story. I wish Neil and Kathryn many years of happiness together!

Neil Diamond Wedding Quilt. 2012.

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I researched Kathryn’s roots and found photos of a castle in Ireland in the town from which her family came. The castle is in ruins today, but you can still envision its former glory. The area around the castle is of course a rich green — would you expect anything else in Ireland?

I found loads of photos of the skyline of New York, but I decided to only loosely base the NY portion on the real architecture. I tried to approximate the Empire State building, the Chrysler building and the Citicorp building. I did a lot of hand sewing to depict the intricate detail of each building. As a former New Yorker, I worked on the NY skyline with much fondness.

Below are photos of the two background areas, which show where Neil and Kathryn came from. Next entry I will talk about the individual paths they took till they were joined together in marriage. Hope you are enjoying this story as much as I did! Speak to you soon!

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I decided the best way would be to make a map of the enlarged quilt. Here is a photo of the map I worked up.

Next, I started to put together the strips. When sewing long strips the challenge is to keep everything straight. The longer the strip the more likely the fabric will stretch or that it will be off just a little by the time you reach the bottom. Well, if you do a few strips, that isn’t so bad, but the entire quilt is composed of strips of different widths. I worked painstakingly to keep everything straight. I put sections together, measuring each section to make sure it was even at the top and bottom before attaching it to the next section. Finally I attached all the sections and this is the top I made.

Next I made my quilt sandwich; that’s a top, batting and back. I set it on the dining room table to baste it. I got the usual groans from my family for taking over the table…
Here are some shots of the basted quilt.

Finally I quilted the piece. I have a wonderful sewing machine with lots of bells and whistles, but it is not a long-arm sewing machine. Fitting a quilt this large within the throat of the machine is hard work — hard to manipulate and no small challenge for my back muscles…
Here is a photo of the quilted and bound wall hanging. I’m really happy with the result. The buyer has just sent me payment and I will mail it to her in the US today! I sent her photos along the way and she is very excited. She promised me she would take a photo of the quilt once it is hung on her wall.

P.S. This is the message I received from my happy customer:
“Your amazing piece of artwork arrived 5 minutes ago!!! It is safe and gorgeous!!!! I will hopefully have it hanging tonight!!! I will email you a picture. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with you!!! I’ll be in touch.”
So rewarding when people are happy with my work.

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I took a second day of classes with Phyllis, where she taught the art of portrait in quilting. Here are a few images of Phyllis’s work. I’ll talk more about this in another post.

This summer conference of the Israel Quilters Association was a special one because the group is celebrating its 20th anniversary. There were quite a few guest teachers from the US, England and Scotland in addition to the long list of talented Israeli teachers. I wandered around and saw some wonderful projects. It’s just this kind of gathering that everyone needs to help motivate and jump start new ideas and energies.

The conference opened with a few speeches given by some of the guest teachers.

Alicia Merrett discussed “A Passion for Color”. Her talk dealt with the use of color in quilting. She loves vivid shades and uses color to give different impressions in her work.

The next speaker was Pat Archibald, who took us on some of her journeys and showed us how her travels had inspired her work. Pat, a teacher from Scotland, reminded us about the art of storytelling as well as sharing some amazing art with us. Her stories were mesmerizing, particularly her climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The last speech was given by Phyllis Cullen, who discussed the “Rules of Art”. Phyllis touched on the questions: How? Why? and What? She said that we can take artistic license with color, texture, values of light and dark to bring harmony, variety, contrast and balance to our work. These element lend themselves to movement. By playing with proportion and focal point of a piece you change the balance, tell a story and set a mood. Is your piece abstract? surreal? a landscape? a pictorial story? Phyllis mentioned keeping a journal of sketches, emotions, doodles, words and photos. In summary though her message was to have fun!

The conference was also an opportunity to meet new friends and visit with old friends. A group of participants on the Internet Jewish Quilters chat list attended the conference. Each day a group of us ate lunch together. Now my email pals have faces! I really enjoyed meeting everyone.

Are you getting the impression that I had a great week of learning, sharing and inspiration? You are right! That’s exactly what it was. Below I share some photos from the conference.

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