Adventures in Judaica

*sigh* I never come over here to post anymore, do I? (Do you like how I said that, as if there was a time when I did come over here to post?) (And do you like how I said that, as if anyone ever reads this blog? heh.) In the interest of full disclosure, I think I only created this blog so that when I commented on other blogs I wouldn't feel like some anonymous phantom, swooping in under the cloak of anonymity. This way, even if it's out-of-date, if someone wants to know who it is expressing that "This is the most hilarious post EVER," they at least get a sense of me, right? In my defense, I have been busy, mostly with sewing and not so much with editing and indexing. It doesn't pay the bills, but it does make me happy.

Eli just finished his first year of preschool and there was a mad rush for all kinds of end-of-the-year gifts. One of his teachers "commissioned" me to make a couple of gifts for other teachers. I put "commissioned" in those quotation marks because how do you really charge a preschool teacher (your son's preschool teacher, no less) true market value for something? So, with the cost of my materials covered, I made one teacher a table runner and matching challah cover, and the other teacher just a challah cover. I'm pretty proud of both of them, and it was nice to move beyond bibs for the first time in a long time.

This first one was for a teacher who is leaving the school to move back to Israel. I wanted it to remind her of the school without it falling into the trap of "let's put kids' handprints all over the fabric because teachers love that!" So instead I took the architecture of the building as the inspiration. The rise and fall of the center band mimics the school's roofline and the tan squares and rectangle represent the natural playground in the courtyard (four stumps and a balance beam log).




The second one was for one of Eli's teachers. The two larger flowers represent his two teachers and there is one smaller flower for each of the children in the class. I hadn't worked with linen before and I have to say, I'm in love. Sewing with nice fabric is why I do it at all. It just makes me happy. And this was also my first time doing reverse applique, which gave me a few headaches along the way, but after two failed attempts, I feel pretty good about the results.



Coming up next... the sewing machine meme from Sew Mama Sew.

We're attempting a vegetable garden this year. We have no idea whether it will work, but we have a patch of earth right by the front door that was in need of attention anyway (think crabgrass. lots of crabgrass) so we (and by we I mean David) decided to till the soil, get some loam, and plant some seeds. We'll see what happens.

This morning I came across the Backyard Botanical Garden Blog. Lisa, the blog's owner has created a beautiful, ready-made garden. The thing actually waters itself, people! How could you not love that?

We'll probably be on our own next year, but next year? After I win the lottery? I'm all over that thing.

Oh, happy day

I came over just to post the photo you see above, and thank goodness I did because I hadn't remembered that the last thing I posted was actually a deeply disturbing shot of me from the 1980s. So look at that. One day in office and Obama's already bringing change we need.