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Shabbat Peace, Without the Carbs! The FAT QUARTER CHALLAH COVER: When feeling stressed, aggravated and overwhelmed....and it's only Tuesday...and you don't want to make any big decision but you really do need to sew.... Then it's time to make a stencilled, fat-quarter* challah cover. This finite project can provide a taste of Shabbat peace any day of the week, without the extra carbs (e.g. the actual challah.) (Only the quarters are fat? Oh, never mind). It helps to have some stencils lying around. I used my computer to make the cardboard stencils for a Temple retreat class that my friend Suzy and I taught a couple of years ago. (Stencils, including Hebrew letter stencils, are also cheap and abundant on the internet. See Resources).
They're words from the last part of the Hamotzi, the blessing over the bread, a phrase that is generally translated as: Who brings forth bread from the Earth," in Hebrew and English (Hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz).. I've been sketching wheat plants, trying to come up with something that would vaguely resemble the Hebrew letter "shin" (which is the start of "Shabbat" and of "Shalom!"). Here's a non-vegetative shin: a. The idea was to incorporate my wheat and word stencils into a design that would fit on a fat quarter. I wanted it to work as a wall hanging as well as a challah cover. One of my favorite layouts was this:
The wheat was easy enough to cut into a stencil! No, seriously, it really was! (I printed it out, glued it to oaktag, and used an xacto and/or scissors to cut it out).
Now, when feeling uneasy, I can now simply toss through my stash for a gorgeous, naturey, impossible-to-cut-up fat-quarter. With high-contrast paint, dab through the stencils. Add batting and backing, Quilt around the painted or appliqued shapes, add a binding, and it's done! For the first cover, I used a bronze metallic craft paint, on a glorious piece of hand-dyed green and blue fabric made by my friend Fran Goldberg of Skokie, Ill. (see her chuppah here). I had to skip the English wording on the sides because of une petite boo-boo. (don't ask).
For the next one, I started with plain white fabric. Stencilled a bronze metallic craft paint. Wait for it to dry, heat set with an iron. Then wet the fabric, and paint on diluted, transparent Setacolors. The bronze paint acts as a resist. I haven't quilted this one yet.
Here I used the cutouts (what was removed from my stencils,), painted around them with the metallic paint. I put the lettering in different places. Again, the wash of Setacolors was the last step.
I have a thing for violets and blues (can you tell?) The next one, using a slightly different wheat plant, I painted through the stencils onto a spectacular gold-overprinted batik. Edges were outlined with machine quilting. Click image for a detail.
For the last cover, I traced the lettering stencils with water-erasable pens, and hand stitched the outlines with embroidery floss. Commercial scrapbooking stencils were used to create the cosmic details (the swirl, lightening, raindrops, sun, etc.) A gorgeous gold-overprinted batik was fused to the center. This last version is a very beginner-friendly project, and doesn't even require a sewing machine. .
Yummy ribbon yarns were couched around the edges of the 2nd and 3d covers. So next time your soul needs solace, try playing with stencils, paints, fabrics and fibers, while thinking about Shabbat. You'll be amazed at how much better you feel! * A 'fat quarter' of fabric measures about 18" x22" before washing, a little less afterward. It is very different from a regular 'quarter yard' of fabric, which at 9" x 42", is more of a long strip, and would only cover a cruller. Most quilt shops sell tantalizing arrays of precut fat-quarters, tied seductively with ribbons. These goodies, alas, call to impulsive quilters the way fresh challah in a bakery calls to carbaholics. Buying fat quarters is all too easy. Cutting them up, if they're really gorgeous, is much harder. This project solves all the implied problems except the credit card debt. |
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(c)Cathy Perlmutter, 1995-2008 - JudaiQuilt - cathy.perlmutter@gmail.com |
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