Personalize your cell phone sleeping bag, the cut-and-sew project available at Spoonflower (Cell Phone Sleeping Bag Cut-and-Sew Project), by adding your name with embroidery. You can use an electronic embroidery machine, of course, and you can also embroider a name by hand. If you’re giving the bag as a gift, a hand-embroidered name gives your … Continue reading
Sew a set of honeycomb place mats for your Rosh Hoshanah table and get ready for a sweet new year. These mats would be great in the sukkah, too. This is a simple pattern, easy to sew, and it’s a free pattern to boot. L’shanah tovah! Wishing you a good year! Materials Recommended fabrics: The … Continue reading
Even the little ones can get in on the holiday fun with their own soft toy dreidel. An you can get the PDF pattern in the shop! This dreidel sports the traditional Hebrew letters and a pointed bottom just like a classic dreidel, but in soft toy form. The letters are machine appliqued, and I’ll … Continue reading
The dream: make a matzah cover that looks like a piece of matzah. For more than a year the idea had been kicking around the back of my mind, and after two months of getting the pattern just right –as well as figuring out how to photograph it– the dream is now a reality. This … Continue reading
I know we’re in Purim mode at the moment, but we’ve just set the date for a Passover matzah cover sewing class at Beetle and Fred that you might want to put on your calendar. The class will be on Sunday, March 11 from 11am to 1pm. Beetle and Fred is located on Main Street … Continue reading
This Fabric Friday’s selection is Robert Kaufman Fabrics’ Kona Cotton in the color “Wheat,” to coordinate with the matzah print fabric you probably already have in your stash. I walked into one of my local quilt shops this earlier this week, not sure if I would find a color that would coordinate well with my … Continue reading
There’s a new challah cover pattern in the shop: “Almond Blossoms.” Almond trees are the first trees of the year to blossom in Israel. They produce flowers even before the leaves appear. In late winter, as the days grow longer, the almond trees come into bloom, a welcome sign of renewal and a promise of … Continue reading
The open skies and vast mountain ranges of Aspen provide a breathtaking backdrop for this romantic wedding chuppah created by floral designer and event stylist Frances Harjeet. Harjeet, whose firm Prema is based in Colorado, is known for her lush, romantic floral designs and impeccable styling. Her creations often emphasize our connection to nature. For … Continue reading
Update: You can now see the replay on the InterfaithFamily Facebook page. Is there a chuppah –or chuppah making– in your future? Join Rabbi Jillian Cameron of InterfaithFamily/Boston and me this Sunday LIVE on Facebook as we chat about everything you didn’t think you needed to know about the wedding canopy – chuppah! From logistics … Continue reading
This Sukkot I got the chance to lead a workshop for the Beacon Sukkah Project, a Sukkot-long program of arts and lectures organized by the Beacon Hebrew Alliance and Beacon Arts in Beacon, New York. To fit this year’s theme, “Open to the Sky,” I led an introduction to drawn thread embroidery, and thought I’d … Continue reading
During the festival of Sukkot we eat in the sukkah, visit with family and friends in the sukkah, and sometimes, so I’ve heard, sleep in the sukkah, although I’ve never done that. Why not sew in the sukkah? Particularly during the intermediate days of the festival when we’re less likely to be entertaining friends for … Continue reading
Are you thinking about making a wedding chuppah? Earlier this summer InterfaithFamily asked me to write a guest post about chuppahs –the various styles, where to find one, and tips for making one– based on my work at Huppahs.com. InterfaithFamily, if you’re not familiar with the organization, provides Jewish resources for interfaith couples and families. … Continue reading
Orange Summer by Justine Miller Have you heard the story about the woman who wanted to be a rabbi and who was told by a man that “a woman belongs on the synagogue bimah the way an orange belongs on a Passover Seder plate”? The story has inspired many families, including mine, to put oranges … Continue reading
Happy Purim! To mark the occasion, I’m posting this piece about the Jews in one of the cities of Queen Esther’s Persian Empire: Baghdad. It’s an excerpt from an article I wrote in 2003 on an exhibit about the Jews of Iraq at London’s Jewish Museum. The exhibit was called “By the Rivers of Babylon.” … Continue reading
Do you embroider, applique, do silk painting or other creative fabric technique? Have you ever dreamed about creating a unique wedding chuppah for yourself or someone else but weren’t sure how to get started? Well, I can take care of the first step for you: sewing the canopy. In the Sew Jewish Shop you’ll now … Continue reading
With a little holiday ribbon and some simple hand sewing, you can create this little spice pouch. Use it to hold spices for havdalah, the ceremony to end Shabbat. And, as Creative Jewish Mom Sara Rivka points out, it makes a great holiday party favor. The project is my latest guest post for Sara Rivka, … Continue reading
Mazel tov to Sara Rivka, the creative Jewish mom behind the Creative Jewish Mom blog, on her son’s bar mitzvah last week! This week she took a tiny break from her busy creative pace while I provided a guest post: an embroidered hoopla based on children’s art. That’s my daughter’s drawing on the hoopla, along … Continue reading
Happy hooplas! Lately, when I haven’t been focused on Jewish holidays I’ve been preoccupied with hooplas, or hoop art: fabric art made and framed with embroidery hoops. I love that the embroidery hoop that you work on becomes the frame for your work. It’s charming and sweet and an easy way to display your needlework. … Continue reading
