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 ...

If you've been following me on Instagram, you've seen lots of images of the progress of this piece. Lately I've been adding a gazillion French Knots, finishing up the beading and then finally mounting it on a fabric-covered canvas.

Let Them Flourish - Ready for Exhibition

Let Them Flourish (aka Biodiversity)

In the Beginning

This piece started off as a fabric collage of images related to Biodiversity, the theme that was given to us as part of the February 2021 TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club workshop. Kate Tume, our instructor, had us exploring narrative potential with embellishment.

The ...

This Legend of Zelda icon is coming. The idea of sewing layers and turning them right-side out worked, even with the points. I'm now sewing around the edges for stability. Also made a small sample to see how they will quilt before I put them on the quilt. The first picture has them loosely atop the quilt. The next one shows three sets of triforce triangles tacked to the design wall. The last one is my sample. I'm using Sulky Metallic on the top and Glide in the bobbin. Needed to loosen the top tension just a bit ...

I've been doing some more slow stitching. This time with a little meditative quiet time added in.

Slow stitching, meditation style

In the October/November edition of the Quilting Arts magazine, I read an article that spoke to me. The article, Stitch Meditation, by Liz Kettle talked about meditating while stitching, since she found that regular meditation didn't really work for her. Wow! I've been trying to meditate and find it one of the most painful things to do. Quieting the mind is really difficult, except when I'm immersed in my quilting, or playing with code ...