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November 20, 2023
Are Bellydancer Coins Appropriate for Chanukah? And Thank You Target! from Gefilte Quilt

Shameless self-promotion, as well as promotion of Target stores (no financial affiliation with the latter):

Chanukah looms! It starts the night of December 7! It just occurred to me that I must locate my quilted fiber art dreidels, but finding them may not be easy. So instead of starting the search, I procrastinated by looking for my PHOTOS of quilted dreidels, to see if I needed to take new shots. I came upon this very nice photo:

The photo was taken in 2018, for my pattern booklet "Quilted Treasure Dreidels". Upon close inspection, I realized the coins I'd used ...

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January 16, 2023
Tallit Commission: A Time for Machine Embroidery from Gefilte Quilt

Here's my latest commission, and although I live in California, and the client lives in the southeast USA, it was made with help from one of the best Judaica machine embroiderers on the planet, Marilyn Levy of Ontario, Canada. It's a tallit (prayer shawl) for a young man's bar mitzvah. 

Like all my commissions, this one started out with a  discussion with the young man's family. They wanted cotton, with a leafy design, in blue and grey, so I drew up choices.



They liked #1 best, the simple vines. What was most unusual - and why they ...

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January 5, 2023
Celebrate New York City! Make a Quilt! from Gefilte Quilt

My favorite things in life (aside from people) include most foods; most quilts made by someone other than me; and many aspects of New York City, which is sorta my ancestral homeland. 

So I am thrilled to announce that after a lifetime of gestation (plus a year of actual work), my book, "Quilted New York; Celebrate the City with Fabric and Color" is in print and available! 

Here’s the proof, my new book in my old hand, wearing my Dad's even-older ring (I think my grandmother gave it to him in the 40s). My Mom’s ring is ...

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November 17, 2020
Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 29 - 33: Flamingos and Hashtags and Adverbs, Oh My! from Gefilte Quilt

Day 29: Flamingo Carrom 

This was made in the early 2000's, when my kids, my fabric stash, and I were so young! Also, I was obsessed with Marilyn Doheney's wedge rulers. Despite the frenetic color, and, lordy, the gold lame in the center (what was I thinking?)....

...I still sort of love it. Flamingos and zebras and tigers, oh my! 



Day 30: Frankenquilt! 
The previous project left me a bunch of extra wedges, which I stuffed into my UFO cabinet. About 15 years later, I pulled them out and made the central circle and inner border of this ...

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April 27, 2020
Passover Masks; I Couldn't Help Myself from Gefilte Quilt

Passover is April 8. With the world in the throes of the COVID epidemic, public health authorities and rabbis agree that people should stay home, and connect with farflung loved ones at the seder via Zoom, Skype, or whatever. 

I don't have any matzoh in my house yet - but of course, I always have plenty of matzoh fabric. So this morning, I broke away from making (somewhat) normal masks for friends and family; and I made these, just to make myself laugh.  First....

(I buy matzoh fabric here.)

The next mask covers two plagues: Frogs and hail. 

(The dots ...

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December 23, 2019
Last-Minute Quilted Christmas Gift Tutorial! And Chanukah Stuff Too! from Gefilte Quilt

Need last-minute gifts? The tutorial below may be educational for beginning quilter, and pure recreation for the experienced. It shows how to make gift'-themed potholders/trivets/ kitchen art from strips.

I made them from a roll of  Christmas strips bought on the "Sew Its for Sale" email list - formerly a Yahoo group, now on groups.io, here. This list is a dangerous cyber-yard sale - folks buy and sell their good-condition sewing supplies, for reasonable prices.

I'd been wanting a little Christmas fabric, enough to make presents for friends. When the strips arrived, I was delighted - it was a ...

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December 15, 2019
A "No Apologies" Tutorial for Improv Paper Pieced Log Cabin Triangle Quilts from Gefilte Quilt

When I started this quilt, the idea was to make a rainbow-colored 6-pointed star. I hoped to create a pattern people might use to make a wedding canopy, among other things.  The most relaxing way to do that, I figured, would be to start with log cabin triangles.  
So what you see in the central area of this quilt are a whole lot of log cabin pieced triangles - each center piece is light, and the three "logs" around it are darker. You're also seeing blocks I call "water lilies" - from left to right, the oddball orange, pink and purple ...

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December 1, 2019
Hanukah Gift Ideas: Paper and Fabric Judaica to Make, Sell, or Fling from Gefilte Quilt

Is it a bird? Well, birds are involved....

Is it a plane? No, more like a Frisbee - if you fling it, it flies, but not well enough for a game of  Frisbee golf. Wait, I remember! It's one of the yarmulkes (little Jewish hats) I brought to last week's artisan fair at my nearest synagogue, Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center!

I rarely do fairs - it's nearly impossible for a fiber artist to charge enough for the hours we put in. Nobody wants to pay $60 for a potholder. But someone I adore asked me -  and here she ...

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  • judaica
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