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 This way, even if it's out-of-date, if someone wants to know who it is expressing that "This is the most hilarious post EVER," they at least get a sense of me, right?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.

Craftapalooza

I took on more crafting projects than I should have this holiday season, but I don't regret a single one--especially now, as they're starting to move into the "completed" column of my to-do list. One important project was actually five projects: creating something for the teachers and administrators at Eli's preschool. There was a group gift that consisted of cash, collected from all of the families. That took me of the hook for making sure it was something practical, so I could just have fun. I decided tote bags were the thing, so I set off to find a pattern. I ultimately decided on Amy Karol's Pleated Beauty, from Bend the Rules Sewing. It was simple enough to suit a wide range of styles, but allowed for a little bit of personalization for each individual. Ultimately I made six bags, knowing that one would be my least favorite (or at least the one I was least confident in). I wanted to make sure I was in love with each bag I gave.

This first bag is for one of Eli's teachers. I couldn't get a perfect grasp on her taste, but it definitely tends toward traditional. She's not afraid of color (think: splashy sweaters) but I didn't want to go too bold. I combined a deep red corduroy with a Japanese print for the pleats.


The next one is for the center director who wears lots of earthy colors, along with some brighter ones. I stayed earthy with hers. (I think hers is probably the bag that comes closest to "the one I would have made for myself.") It's wide wale brown corduroy with one of my favorite quilting fabrics in the pleats.


This one is for the teacher I know the least; she's only in Eli's class one day a week, but I didn't want to leave her out (so many gray areas in holiday gift giving!). I went for classic, with a fine wale navy corduroy with another Japanese print for the pleats. This is the first bag I made, so this one has just one interior pocket, which is very large. This is the one that prompted me to shrink them down and do two instead of this giant one. I added pleats to the pocket because it was sagging so much.


This is for the assistant director of the center, and it's one of the ones I'm most excited about it. When I'm making gifts for people (or simply choosing them from a store), I'm on constant "high alert," waiting for the clue about what will suit them best. The recipient of this bag very often wears bright blue, either in her clothing or her jewelry. I didn't want the bag to be too over the top, so I saved the color for the lining and I love how it came out. Now, every time I see her wearing bright blue I get a little giddy about giving her the bag. This one is fine wale corduroy with Alexander Henry prints from JoAnn's for the pleats and lining.


And this one will be my absolute favorite to give because I had the best, best clue for what to do. This is for the lead teacher in Eli's class. One day at the start of the year I was wearing a shirt I'd purchased on Etsy that had Russian dolls silkscreened on to it. She commented on it and told me that she collects Russian nesting dolls. I filed that little factoid away, not knowing if or when it would come in handy. I was thrilled to find this Japanese print and bought it in gray and off white. I hope she loves it as much as I do.


And this one was going to be the "spare," I think because it didn't feel as personalized as the others. And then it just so happened that my sister was in my sewing room and saw the fabric and said, "Oh! Make me something with this for Christmas!" DONE! Instead of sewing in an accent fabric on the exterior, I just followed the lining measurements and pleated the fabric on its own. I think it would have been too busy with something else added. This is the only bag that's not corduroy.


Based on the numerous other blog entries out there about this bag and some of my own preferences, I made the following adjustments:
*I widened the straps by 1/4 inch and added a flannel facing to make them a little cushier.
*I also sewed the straps into tubes and then turned them right side out and topstitched them. That was just easier for me.
*Instead of one large pocket I did two smaller ones, one on each side of the bag.
*I didn't measure the rigid interfacing for the bottom of the bag until the lining was fully constructed. I found that the measurements that Amy provided were just a little shy of how I wanted it.
*I tacked the rigid interfacing at the center as well as at the corners. It seemed to want to flip without that extra stitch.
*I reinforced the attachment of the straps to the bag with an additional line of stitching just above the top stitching that went around the entire bag.

And one thing I would do if I made another of these bags in the future:
*I'd increase the length of the straps by about an inch so that I had more to work with as I attached them to the bag. This would allow me to further reinforce them. I'm not entirely confident in their strength at this point.

Overall, this was a very easy bag to make and lent itself well to multiple iterations and some fun creativity.

Left brain, Right brain

I got news today of my first professional indexing job, some editing work, and I sold a couple of bibs. Not bad, and overall I have to say I like the balance.

I got my Etsy shop going a couple of weeks ago and have sold a few things since then. I also got a message from someone opening a store in downtown Boston (on Newbury Street, no less) who would like me to consign some, so that's fun. I just keep making 'em, much faster than they sell. It's fun, though, and it keeps the creative juices flowing.

The editing work should be fun and the money will be great to have. We moved to a more expensive town a year ago and since then money has been incredibly tight. I have to say, I do miss my impulse purchases. Thank goodness for ebay and Craig's List - not only for the buying but because I have managed to sell all kinds of superfluous items from our home. By doing that I have managed to score a few impulse purchases (like my digital SLR that I justified by calling it a 40th birthday present to myself). I wouldn't trade being home with Eli for anything but there are definitely days when I miss my disposable income!

But this post was supposed to be about balance, and how I seem to have found it. (Focus, Karen, focus.) The other day I was working on that old journal article that has been resurrected and I decided to drop what I was doing and finish up these guys for a friend who is a children's storyteller:



In that moment I realized I have found my perfect balance between right and left brain, between hobbyist and professional, between fun and work. It won't make me rich, but it does make me happy.

When you can't produce a human, produce something else

Okay, okay, that title is a bit melodramatic, but I was looking for a segue from previous posts, which were somewhat depressing and even seem to have caused some worry. (Thanks for checking on me, Arizaphale!) I've just been busy, and it's all my doing, and it's great.

A little backstory: We moved from California on New Year's Day, 2004. David and I both did a thorough job search and his panned out before mine did. Once he had steady income and health insurance, we saw our way clear to becoming a family. Two months later we knew Eli (or his theoretical female counterpart, Sarah) was on his way. I kept up my job search and got an offer about a week after our happy news, but the insulting salary offer made it easy to turn down. I found some college admissions consulting work but two days before I was supposed to meet with my first client I got put on bedrest. Rather than bring in any money, I instead managed to watch every single episode of Dawson's Creek on daytime TV. (It's important to have goals, you see.)

Once Eli arrived there was no question that I'd stay home with him - I've never been conflicted about that - and of course there wasn't time for much else. Just when it seemed like I might have some time to take on a little part time work we decided to move again. And then we needed to settle in. And that brings us to the present. And it's been three and a half years and other than a fabulous, healthy little person running around the house, I don't have much to show for it.

But I think some switch got thrown a month or two ago, and now I'm a machine! And that makes it hard to find time for blogging. In fact, I don't even think I've had the mental space to think of anything interesting to blog about, let alone sit down to write it. So that brings me to this: my what-have-I-been-doing entry.

When I was in graduate school I edited a book and created the index for it. I loved the process of creating that index, I'm sure because it tapped into my love of organizing and highlighters and my training in qualitative research. So, when I saw a course offered last year in book indexing I enrolled pretty quickly, figuring that would be a great way to make a little extra money. As a former university instructor and administrator I have a large enough network of book authors to get me going, and the work flow is easily controlled. I took the course and then promptly did nothing with it. Fast forward about six months and I created some marketing materials and David - bless him - made me a website. And then I promptly did nothing with that. Well, fast forward six more months (to a week ago) and I finally managed to get all of my marketing materials off. Thirty-nine little packets of indexing goodness. Boy did that feel good. So that's Item One.

Item Two is a bit more creative. Eleven years ago when my nephew was born my mom made him a bib. When my sister and brother-in-law requested a few more, she turned the project over to me and a hobby was born. I had so much fun making these things and apparently other people liked them because I often heard "You should sell these." Believe it or not, the primary reason I didn't is that I used a button closure on them and I was worried about the button coming off and a child choking, causing me to be sued and lose all my earthly possessions. (I know. The logic astounds me even now.) Fast forward to about a month ago and something got me going and I decided to sell the bibs. I set up a shop on Etsy that's not live yet, but will be soon. So in preparation for that I've been sewing like a madwoman. I wanted 30 bibs to start with and I now have 32. Fun.

Item Three: Mystery Shopping! Are you familiar with this? It's when you pose as a regular old customer but you're secretly a spy, recording the good, the bad, and the ugly of your shopping experience. A local friend of mine who works in retail needed someone to do this at one of her shops and I volunteered since I had done this many times when I was in graduate school. (Since restaurant mystery shops typically reimburse for food, it was a great way to feed myself.) That got me thinking, "Hey, I could do this for extra money." So, for the last six weeks or so I've been all over town eating and shopping and taking notes and recording times and making $8 here and there. It won't pay the mortgage, but it sure does keep me entertained. I'm keeping my eye on one company that does spas, restaurants and hotels. Their assignments get snatched up fast, but I'm determined to get myself a two-night stay somewhere soon.

Good old Item Four involves even more of my past life, this time in the form of a resurrected journal article from 2000 that never got published. A woman I worked with in California - who was then a student and is now an assistant professor - is the guest editor of a special issue of a journal that it's perfectly suited for and she got in touch to see if I wanted to submit it, so the thing has taken on a new life. I've had to dust off all the intellectual parts of my old brain and see what it's still capable of. It's slow going, let me tell you, but it feels good to be connected to my old work. It was work that had meaning, so I'm proud of it. (I have a Ph.D. in education and did work related to getting more underrepresented students interested in and going to college.)

And finally, Item Five. This one I'm especially passionate about. I joined the Recreation Commission in our town when we moved last year and I'm sort of the resident playground advocate. The other members of the Commission have more of an interest in other forms of recreation (like playing fields) so I'm always the one to say "What about the playgrounds?" We're in the early stages of planning for a new playground and I'm bound and determined to not only make it fully handicapped accessible but also relevant and interesting to children with all kinds of disabilities and challenges, from autism to Down Syndrome. It's been a great excuse to research something new and explore potential funding sources (this equipment is likely to cost about three times as much as "regular" equipment). These are very familiar processes, since it's what I did in my academic life. I'm knee deep in it.

Last weekend we visited my parents and they happen to have a playground like what I'm describing in their town. We took Eli for a visit and I took some photos.





Looks like your run-of-the-mill playground, doesn't it? Really, in essence, it is. It's more spread out because the various components are connected by ramps; there seem to be more grab handles scattered about to help kids (and, let's face it, parents) pull up to higher levels; there are "bump outs" so kids in wheelchairs can wheel right up to the various places of interest. But at first glance you'd never see a difference, and that's what's great about it. As we drove home from the playground, I told David that I'd be so proud if I could make this happen for our town. But as I've thought about it more, it's not pride - it's just excitement, pure and simple. I mean, how great would that be for a child who hadn't been able to visit the playground before to be able to enjoy it just like her friends. So yeah, I've been devoting some time to this.

So with all of that, and some other things like a weekend away, some ebay selling, some hand-me-down clothing organizing, some administrative stuff I took on related to one of Eli's activities, and some general end-of-summer slacking, I've been busy! It's funny how in cyberspace that makes me appear quiet while here, in my world, I'm a noisy, bustling ball of industry. I don't know what caused this new surge of motivation - maybe there is some connection to feeling less-than-productive in other areas of my life - but it does feel good.

Like Water for Milkshakes

I spent last weekend at an old farm set up for art and craft instruction. I learned glassblowing, which happened to be the only thing on my "Do before I die" list. It was a trip a long time in the works (more than ten years) and I can honestly say it was perfect. This was the perfect timing, the perfect setting, the perfect everything.

I left behind husband and son on the first beautiful sunny morning of spring. After a two hour drive I arrived and met the other three people in my class. I also met my teacher who was one of those people born to be doing what she's doing. She's a talented glassblower and a natural teacher. I could not have asked for more.

We spent our first day making drinking glasses, our first night making paperweights. We spent our second day doing whatever we wanted and for me that included more drinking glasses and some vases and bowls, all with a lot of color to spice things up. The third and final day was more of the same. Everything came out a little wonky but each is a treasure to me.

So, like I said, the weekend was perfect. It certainly didn't hurt that I got to be outside for the first beautiful days of spring. I worked outside, I ate outside, I relaxed outside. I enjoyed the heck out of the weather. But more important than that - and as I tried to explain to David - I feel as though I nourished my core. It's times like these that I wish I was a writer so I could accurately put this experience into words. I don't think I can fully capture it, but I can try.

As someone who loves nothing more than to create (with fabric, with wood, with paper, with whatever), spending three days doing nothing BUT that was such a gift. I felt more privileged than I ever have in my life. And I don't mean that in the sense of "I'm glad I could afford to pay for this" (though I am certainly grateful for that). I mean that more in the sense of "I'm glad the universe aligned to allow me to be here." I just kept looking around at the people in my class and the people in other classes - who were spending the days doing things like weaving and making beads and painting canvas floor cloths and rustic furniture - and thinking "This is too good. How did we get here?!"

I've had time to create in recent years but it's always been stolen moments and it's always been with some very specific goal (sew a quilt; knit a blanket; make a scrapbook). There's always some deadline involved and there are always restrictions (though, admittedly, they're usually self-imposed). For three days I was free to create whatever came into my head. When I said it was done, it was done. If it got screwed up, I started over. I didn't have to think about a single other thing. Heck, they even fed me. Every bit of this weekend went right to the core of who I am and shored me right up, like a tall glass of water when you're so, so thirsty.

I've done other things in the last year that were designed to re-energize or rejuvenate me, but their effects have been temporary. To continue with the same metaphor, they've been like fabulous milkshakes that tasted great in the moment but were little more than distractions from the ongoing, nagging thirst that had been building - the thirst that started growing when I stopped having the time or the energy to nourish the creative parts of me that yearned for freedom and time. My glassblowing weekend was pure water that went right to the core of it.

Often in the past when I've had really wonderful experiences, I've been sad to see them end. There was a small part of me that was sad the weekend was done, but overwhelmingly I was happy to come back to this life. And I think that's really saying something because it means it was enough. Too often now things get cut short and I wish for more. But this weekend was not cut short in any way and that made all the difference.

My wish is that everyone could do something like my glassblowing weekend. Maybe crafting wouldn't do it for everyone, but I wish that everyone could find the thing that would do it and find a way to make it happen. The farm where I spent three days actually has a high school program and they never turn anyone away because they can't pay. So when they told us they were refunding a third of our tuition because of some problems with the glass on the first day I told them to keep it and use it for their scholarship program. I wish I could do more and in the future I know I will. And in the future I also know I'll go back.