2015 Year in Review

It was a big year of changes for me (most of them wonderful).  Through the midst of it all, I managed to have a very productive year.  In fact, I completed twice the number of projects that I did in 2014!

1.  First, I completed my verses for the Torah Stitch by Stitch project.

2.  I embroidered a beautiful Scrub Jay for Studio MME's e-book of patterns.

3.  I couldn't tear myself away from the cuteness of Fibery Friends.

4.  This adorable Grumpy Cat went to a very happy owner.

5.  My in-laws were touched to receive a reminder of their travels in Pretty Little Sydney.

6.  I gave Christmas Celebration to my friend Julia.

7.  I gave Christmas on Gingerbread Lane to my friend Cassie.

8.  I made Terry's Poem for my mom's friend to remember her late husband's promise to her.

9.  I made Golden Girls to thank Laura for being a friend to my mom when she needed one most.

10.  Steotchalong 2015 will make my husband the envy of everyone in his office.

11.  My brother's family loved the cute creepiness of Halloween Spooky Sampler.

12.  My husband would also take Mom with him to work if it weren't for some rules about office decorum.

13.  My friend Angela loved Cherry Blossom Festival Sampler as a reminder of sushi-related fun times.

14.  My Festival of Lights got a little brighter with the Chanukah Stamp.

15.  The year isn't officially over until I finish the yearly sampler from Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.  With the end of Story Time Sampler, I am ready for 2016.

I finished 7 Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery projects, 4 cross-stitch projects from other designers, and 4 embroidery projects (three of them original designs).  At this rate, I completed an average of 1.25 projects per month.  I think my WIP challenge really helped me be more productive.  Creating a smaller list of projects to work on helped give me enough variety not to feel stuck, but limited the focus of my work enough to get more done on each one.  I'll keep that in mind for next year.  Can I top 15 projects?  Let's find out!

Happy Chanukah!

Chanukah started on Sunday night.  My family ushered in the holiday with a festive dinner of chicken schnitzel, kasha varniskhes, and latkes fried in schmaltz.  I think it might take my body a couple of weeks to recover from that.

I knew I was going to have a happy holiday when the Pumpkins released a small pattern for the occasion.  It features an adorable kawaii dreidel spinning among sparkles.  The corners include the hebrew letters Nun, Gimel, Hey, and Shin.  These letters are on the sides of the dreidel and are part of the game that children play with it.  They also stand for the words "Neys gadol hayah sham"--"A great miracle happened there."  I am really impressed that the (I assume) non-Jewish pumpkins designed the letters so well.  Hebrew letters can turn out VERY badly if they are not done just right.  Check out Bad Hebrew Tattoos if you want to see some horror stories.

I got the pattern done just in time for it to decorate the house.  

Have a happy and healthy holiday season!

Moments of Embroidery Awesome

Yes, I know that I've been posting infrequently.  I don't want to leave my dear readers hanging, but I can't reveal the details yet.

I can tell you that part of what has been occupying my time is that I have been directing a production of Henry V for high school students.  The show went up at the beginning of the month, and my kids were amazing!  It's traditional for the cast to chip in and get a gift for the director.  In this case, my stage manager (and fellow stitcher) gave me a piece of embroidered art!  She stitched the names of all of the cast members on linen next to a bunny.  I believe the bunny is a reference to our favorite group game we would play for energy.  DON'T LOOK IT UP.  It will get in your head and never leave.  Anyway, I nearly cried when she presented it to me in front of the cast.

People are finding so many inventive ways to use embroidery--even animation!  One duo used embroidery to create an animated music video of "Chad Gadya," the song that traditionally closes the Passover seder.

Sure, it's machine embroidery, but I can forgive them because it looks awesome.  You can read more about their process on this blog.

What are you using embroidery for today?

Stitching in Action

My projects from last time are now off to their final destinations.

Megan Eckman of Studio MME is using my scrub jay in a photo shoot for her new e-book.  She'll send it back to me this week.  I can't believe this little bird is flying to Washington state and back!  Stay tuned for more information about the e-book, and a special surprise for my readers.

The Torah Stitching is on its way to Toronto.  Before I shipped it, I took this video of what my verses sound like when chanted out loud.

The organizers of Torah Stitch by Stitch loved it.  They are going to put it on their website, as well as show it to potential donors as they continue to raise money for their exhibition.

First Project Update of 2015

This year is getting off to a great start.  I have already finished two projects!

First I completed my Torah Stitch by Stitch verses.  It took me a while to get started, but I really got going when I made a goal of stitching a word a day.  Now that it is done, I will mail it back to the project organizers in Toronto so that it can join the other finished panels.  They currently have over 900 volunteers in 16 countries!

I also finished another project that was cool in a different way.  Studio MME is a pattern company by designer Megan Eckman.  Home Ec just started carrying her kits.  They use mostly running stitch, perfect for the beginning embroiderer who wants to create a beautiful picture out of basic stitches.  The pattern I just completed is her design of a scrub jay.  I've never heard of it either, but it is a bird from the West Coast.

The design is made with backstitch, split stitch, and the humble running stitch, but the bird looks so stark and lifelike.  If you look on her website, you won't find this pattern . . . yet.  That's because it is being included in her new e-book of patterns, and a picture of my little bird project is going to be in it!  I will be writing more about it in a few weeks, and there will even be a special surprise for all of you.

Other updates:

• Frosted Pumpkin's yearly sampler for 2015 is Story Time Sampler.  It is going to be portraits of famous characters from classic literature.  It has a very delicate color palate--pastels against a light grey background.  I can't wait to see how it all looks together.
• I'm finally getting started on doing a quote that I auctioned off for charity . . . an embarrassingly long time ago.  This is a fun one.

Looking Back at 2014

In January, I wrote a post about my stitching goals for 2014.  Let's see how I did . . .

1.  Finish, finish, finish!
This year, I managed to finish the following projects:

Winnie the Pooh Quote

Polar Bear

Drop Cloth feather stitch sampler

Torah mantle

FPS's Mysterious Halloween Town

FPS's Autumn Harvest Festival

Uncle Morrey's WWII Diary

Hopefully joining these will be the Once Upon a Time sampler.  I've got a week left!

Of course, this barely makes a dent in my craft queue.  Some of these projects were really ambitious due to their size and complexity.  I think that I have finished a decent number (thanks to HabitRPG!) and I have reason to be proud of my accomplishments.

2.  Submit another entry into the State Fair.
Succeeded x3!  I got two ribbon winners, and placed higher than last year.

3.  Try a new technique for transferring patterns.
Thanks to the light pad I got for my birthday, I have now transferred several patterns through the tracing method.  It really opens up the possibilities for designing my own patterns.

4.  Learn blackwork.
I bought a kit.  Does that count?

Next week, I will share my goals for 2015.  What did you accomplish this year?

Torah Stitch by Stitch

In Judaism, it is a mitzvah for a Jew to either write a Torah or have a Torah written for him.  Physically writing an entire Torah is a task done by trained scribes with feather quills.  Most Jews fulfill the mitzvah by donating money to a Torah writing project, such as one to create a new scroll for their synagogue.  One artist, however, has started an innovative project to simultaneously update the task to the 21st Century while also using the ancient art of embroidery.

Torah Stitch by Stitch was started by Toronto-based artist Temma Gentles.  Her goal is to get volunteers from around the world, Jewish and non-Jewish, to cross-stitch every word of the Torah.  When you sign up, they mail you a kit with thread, needles, aida cloth, and a pattern of four verses.  You then have six months to send back your completed verses.  The completed projects will be displayed in an artistic installation.  The idea is to both find a new way to fulfill the aforementioned mitzvah, as well as a way of putting a female twist on the male-dominated scribe tradition.

Here's a kit that I got back in August.

This verse is the following:
"and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the lobe above the liver, which he shall take away by the kidneys. And the priest shall make them smoke upon the altar; it is the food of the offering made by fire, for a sweet savour; all the fat is the Lord's. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat nor blood. And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying:" (Leviticus 3:15-4:1)

Ah yes, a very inspiring section.  Or not.  I like how it ends on an incomplete sentence.

For more information on this project, visit Torah Stitch by Stitch.

Torah Mantle (Part 2)

It was a long journey, but this weekend I finally completed the Torah mantle.

I worked on the final patch over the weekend during brunch at Home Ec.  As I worked the final appliqué stitches, I actually felt myself getting choked up--because I was nearing the end of my largest and most significant project to date, and because I wished that Auntie was here to see it.

Over the several months I worked on this project, I learned a lot of important lessons that I will carry with me as I continue to hone my skills.

1.  Ingenuity
With its polyester (?) woven fabric and construction, I had to figure out entirely new strategies for stitching compared with what I had done in the past.  My solution was to embroider designs onto cotton fabric patches, then sew the patches onto the fabric.  The result was a design that was easier to stitch while adding more color, which is what my customer wanted.  You can see the individual patches in my Flickr album.  If I am open to new ideas, I can stitch with more unusual materials.

2.  Entrepreneurship
This was my first commission, and I have a much better sense of how I will deal with paid work if I choose to do it again in the future.  I learned to get as many details as I can, and to advocate for myself while also listening to the customer's needs.

During this time, I was reading a thread on "Ravelry" in which knitters and crocheters gave ideas on how to respond if someone says "you could sell those!"  Many people would answer, "I do this as a hobby.  If I sold them, that would be work, and work isn't fun."  That is a real concern when considering whether to turn a hobby into a business. Suddenly, you can't just make anything you want because you need to devote some time to the project that you are selling.  I discovered some tricks that helped me balance my crafting time.

For example, while I was in the final stages of sewing on the patches I did all of my work at Home Ec.  It was easier to sew there because I could lay the cover flat on a table and avoid distractions.  (Note:  I don't consider chai tea and mocha-frosted cookies to be distractions.)  The cover was bulky, so I began keeping it at my day job's office to avoid lugging it back and forth on the bus.  I discovered that when I kept my commission work in a separate physical location from my house, I was much happier and relaxed at home.  If it wasn't in my house, I did not feel the pressure to work on it 24/7.  Lots of artists and crafters rent out studio space in which to work.  That won't be possible for a long time, but I now understand the psychological value of maintaining separate work and home spaces.

3.  Perseverance
There were times when the project felt overwhelming, and I was so close to giving up.  After waiting for the panic to subside, I would come upon an answer that made the job easier.  My customer was depending on me, and believed that I could do a great job.  Sticking to it was worth it, and I feel like now I can accomplish anything!

As I held the finished project, I said a prayer known as the Shechecheyanu.  It is an all-purpose prayer to thank G-d for bringing us to this moment in time, and it seemed appropriate to say on a new work of creation.  May I continue to create beautiful objects and grow as an artist!

Project Round-Up--8/26/2014

With all of the Fair preparations, it has been a while since I posted my progress on other projects.

The August square of the Once Upon a Time Sampler covered "The Musicians of Bremen," a fairy tale about a group of farm animals that saves the day.  Not very many people I've talked to have heard of this one, but I know there was a Muppet special about it.

I never did post a final picture of my polar bear, so here he is.  By now, I have gotten him framed and he is sitting on a shelf in my living room.  (If you would like to learn this shading technique, Nicole has another class starting in September!)

Mysterious Halloween Town now has a haunted house.

At some point, I felt like I needed a change from backstitch and cross-stitch, so I whipped up Dropcloth Sampler of the Month's feather stitch sampler.

And to top it off, I am making progress on the Torah mantle.  After completing this name plate, all I need to do is one more lion before I stitch the patches onto the cover.

You must be wondering how I find the time to do all of this.  I've been stitching for at least 3 hours a day, barring some other event.  Most of this is just cutting into time that I would have spent noodling around the internet, or watching TV.  (Of course, I still watch TV, but now it's productive!  The Simpsons marathon has been an awesome time to catch up on projects.)  I think it's really helped my peace of mind to keep my hands busy, and the satisfaction of completing a project lifts my spirit.

I have also been thinking about this Cracked list on ways we sabotage our lives without knowing it.  One of the points the author makes is that your life will be better in the future by way of you magically becoming someone else.  We all have ideas about what we want to do or be in the future.  "In 10 years, I want to have higher-paying job in IT."  "In 5 years, I want to be fluent in French."  And yet, we tend to not spend any time during the day actually working towards these goals.  We just think it will happen, somehow.  If a goal is important to you, start working on it TODAY.  I have a vague idea that I want to get better at embroidery and do something significant with it.  Start a business?  Put my work on display?  Teach classes?  Whatever this goal turns out to be, I know it will require me to keep improving my skills, and I'll move closer towards that goal with every stitch I make today.

Torah Mantle (Part 1)

After a couple hiccups, I am finally making great progress on my Torah mantle!

To refresh your memory, a Torah mantle is a cloth cover that is placed on the Torah when it is not in use in order to protect the parchment from debris.  They are usually ornately decorated, often using goldwork and applique.

As my first commissioned piece, it was very important for me to create what the customer wanted.  He had requests for symbols, some Jewish (lions, crown) and some personal (scales because he is a lawyer).  He wanted an emphasis on red, yellow, green, and blue colors.  He is also a fan of Marc Chagall, a 20th Century Jewish artist who is best known for more abstract, expressionistic work and stained glass.

With all this in mind, I found images that managed to represent the symbols he wanted without being too realistic in style.  I altered the pictures so that they were black-and-white outlines, then used printouts of these pictures to trace the design onto colored fabric.  I enjoyed using my light pad and discovering that it worked just as well with colored fabric.

I'm going for a fairly simple style with these pieces.  I'll use one color thread for each picture except for the family name, which will have a multicolored floral design.  The outlines are done in backstitch, with some other stitches for decorative details.

This is my take on a Judaic symbol known as the "Lion of Judah."  Animal imagery in Judaism has an interesting history.  It is against Jewish law to worship idols or make graven images, but Jews could never agree on whether representational art of people, animals, and plants counted as graven images.*  Sometimes, disagreements erupted even between Jews in the same community!  In Europe it was a common occurrence for a rich man to donate an item like a curtain for the Torah ark decorated with deer, only for the town's rabbis to argue over whether they could actually use it in the synagogue.

The only exception to this debate was lions.  The Twelve Tribes of Israel are each represented by a symbol, and the lion was the symbol for the tribe of Judah.  This association traces back to Genesis 49:9, when the patriarch Jacob blessed his son Judah by calling him a "young lion" (gur aryeh)  Tradition dictates that most Jews are descended from the tribe of Judah, and this is where we get the term "Judaism."  Because of this history, lions have been a popular symbol for Jewish ritual objects.

Another symbol I've made is the crown (keter).  Lots of torah mantles include this at the top of the design as a symbol of learning and G-d's majesty.  I played around with the details on this picture, using chain stitch for the band of the crown and buttonhole wheels for gems.

Once I am done with each symbol, I will sew them onto the torah mantle.  I've learned a lot at every stage of this process.  I am grateful for the opportunity to not only try doing a hobby I love professionally, but for the opportunity to grow as a Jewish artist.

*My favorite example of this issue can be found in one of the synagogues in Venice.  The walls of the sanctuary are decorated with famous Biblical scenes, but they tried to find ones where they could get away with not depicting people, flora, or fauna.  One picture is of the Red Sea after it drowned the Egyptians, with chariot wheels poking out of the water.  Another is of Moses beating a rock with his staff to bring forth water, but Moses is holding the staff from "off-stage."

Project Round-Up--5/27/2014

I finished the last class of my certificate program.  My university-centered job has started its summer lull.  We just got back from a relaxing beach vacation.

You know what that means, don't you?

MORE TIME FOR STITCHING!

Now, all of this free time to craft can be too much of a good thing.  Without precautions in place, the day might come where my husband will come home to find me unconscious, buried under a pile of craft supplies.  In order to make sure that I give each project the attention it deserves, I am utilizing the power of HabitRBG to keep me on track.  I set up my first negative habit--from now on, I will lose points if I start a new project when I already have a work-in-progress in that category (knitting or embroidery.)

So far, I have finished the April and May squares for the Once Upon a Time Sampler.

April--Goldilocks and the Three Bears

May--Jack and the Beanstalk

I like the Beanstalk square because Jack looks just like my nephew!

Other updates:

• The Torah mantle I've been working on is a lot more challenging than I expected.  It is made out of a white satiny fabric with a floral pattern woven in.  This fabric was meant for wedding dresses.  That makes it difficult to stitch on--it's like I have to do embroidery on top of satin stitch.  I'm having to adapt the design I was planning to do by changing the stitches and ways that I transfer the pattern onto the fabric.
• My end of the year tasks have delayed my ability to start the polar bear pattern for my class, but I plan on starting after I work on the Torah mantle.

Auntie's Work

Yesterday, I gave a talk for the women's group at my synagogue about how I became interested in embroidery and use it to connect with Jewish tradition.  I showed them my challah cover and State Fair matzah cover, but I also had the opportunity to show them more of my Auntie's work.

This is a challah cover decorated with doves, a challah, a kiddish cup (for drinking ceremonial wine), candles, and a siddur (prayer book).  The words in the siddur are the beginning of the blessing said over wine at the beginning of Shabbat dinner on Friday nights.  The candles are unusual because normally the mother of the house lights two candles at the start of Shabbat.  This challah cover has a candelabra with five candles.  Some families just like lighting extra candles, or they have a tradition of lighting one candle for each child and/or grandchild.

This well-loved, well-used challah cover has an incredibly elaborate challah and a longer segment of the blessing over wine on Shabbat:

"And there was evening and there was morning.  The sixth day--the heavens and the earth, and all within them, were finished."

This cover felt much older, with an extremely soft texture.  It reminded me of the texture of a tallis (prayer shawl) my dad has that belonged to his grandfather or great-grandfather, where it is on the way to having the thickness of tissue paper.

This is a wall hanging of the Hebrew alphabet. Auntie made one for my mom and each of her sisters as wedding presents.  My parents then let me take it to hang in my apartment after I got married.  Every so often, I take a couple moments to look at the stitches.  This has the widest variety of stitches out of any piece my great-aunt made, and it has interesting color choices and changes.

One woman brought a cross-stitch matzah cover made in Latvia in 1892!  Her grandmother's best friend made it for her as a gift before she left for America.  The friend created a logo on the back of the cover in which she intertwined her and the grandmother's first initials.  Other people took the time to share their experiences with embroidery.  It seemed like each woman had a project lurking in her closet that she started decades ago and never completed.  I was glad that my talk really struck a chord with people, and hopefully it will inspire some of them to take up stitching again.

What's My Worth?

Several weeks ago, right before Yom Kippur, I ran into the husband of a woman I am on a board with at the synagogue.  When I introduced myself, he said, "Wait, are you the one who does embroidery?"  Yes, I am.  "So you are the one who submitted that matzah cover to the state fair and got a ribbon?"  Wow, word travels fast!

He said that he has a project that I might find interesting.  Every year at the Kol Nidre service that starts Yom Kippur, my Jewish community has a tradition in which all of the torahs in the community are carried into the service and up to the bimah [stage].  (At this point, I was assuming that he was going to ask me to carry a torah during the procession.  I would have to politely decline since I haven't lifted weights in a while.)  He went on to say that his family owns a torah that they have always included in the ceremony.

When not in use, a torah is protected with a cloth covering called a mantle.  They are often very ornate, made with fine fabrics and embroidered using goldwork techniques.  During the rest of the year, they can be any color or design, but in the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, synagogues traditionally switch to white mantles to represent our purity after atoning for sins.

Antique reproductions

The man said that he sewed a torah mantle for use during the 10 days with cloth from a wedding dress that had been in his family.  When he first made it, it had a Jewish star and torah stitched on with surface embroidery.  Since then, he has decided that he wants a more complex pattern--more colors, more Jewish symbols.  He has not been able to add more because he doesn't embroider, and he has had trouble finding someone who was both talented and familiar with Jewish symbols.  When he found out about my matzah cover, he decided to ask me.  He said that he could pay me, and we agreed to talk more after the High Holidays.

I was so elated that when I got home, I cranked up my music and danced around.  (Not to Jewish music.  I think it was "Down Under" by Men at Work.)  I felt honored to be asked to work on such an important object, and that someone would actually pay me to do it!  Then it started to sink in . . .

Pay?  PAY?  What on G-d's green earth am I going to charge?

It's a question that every crafter with a home-based business must grapple with at some point.  You have to consider the cost of materials and tools.  You have to decide on a dollar amount for the time you put into the project--your time and effort has value, and the price of the item needs to reflect that. At the same time, we are living in a world where we are so used to mass-produced items that the cost of a handmade item can produce sticker shock.

We were discussing this during brunch at Home Ec because the local library is holding its 2nd annual Arts & Crafts Bazaar.  They are accepting handmade items, which you provide with a suggested price.  The items are then sold at the Bazaar and the money goes to their summer reading program.  Several people said that they had contributed high quality handmade items--both in material and technique--only to discover that the items were sold at less than their suggested price.  This year, they are reconsidering how many items they donate, they are using cheaper or leftover materials, and they are choosing items that don't involve as much of a time commitment to make.  One Home Ec patron said that her friend used to donate knit items to her church's fundraisers, but eventually stopped because she was so hurt by the way that the organizers constantly underpriced her items.  We want to help worthy causes, but we also want our hard work to be adequately recognized.  Non-crafters do not know how many weeks it took you to knit that Fair-Isle hat, or the eye strain and finger pricks you endured while stitching a monogram onto a handkerchief with one strand of floss.

I think it makes sense to tailor your price, crafting technique, and expectations to where your items will end up.  The goal of a fundraiser is to make money for the organization, so items need to be priced to sell that day.  Save the higher quality materials and complex skills for times when customers will be expecting to pay higher prices, such as an Etsy store, a craft fair, or custom work.  Browse the internet to find out what the prices are for similar handmade items.

I also don't know whether I should factor my experience into the price.  I will be putting in my best work, but should I lower the price since I do not have years of experience behind me?

Whatever the answer, I will take care in finding it.  When I receive the torah mantle. I will take it to the owner of Home Ec to ask for advice on materials and tools.  I will keep scouring websites to get ideas on prices, and I will ask for honest opinions from my crafting friends.  Above all, I will see this as an opportunity to grow as a Jewish embroiderer--and that is priceless.

The Binders That Tie: My Torah Binder Journey

One of the things I like about embroidery is that it allows me to explore Jewish concepts in a new way.  Not that there was nothing Jewish about knitting--I even knit the chuppah for my wedding.  (It is now spending its retirement as a warm winter blanket.)  When I tried to look up knitting traditions in Judaism, however, I did not find much information.  My grandmother and great-grandmother both knitted, but they were taught by a friend during vacations at their summer home.  There are long traditions of knitting in Scandinavia and Turkey, but I found frustratingly little about anything having to do with Eastern European Jews.

The story changed when I began looking into Jewish embroidery traditions.  In Judaism, there is a concept called hiddur mitzvah, "beautifying the commandment."  This means that it is considered a good thing to make ritual objects more attractive.  For example, it is a commandment to a person to wash his hands in a certain way before eating a meal with bread.  This involves using a cup to pour water on his hands in a certain sequence.  There is technically nothing wrong with using a plain plastic or paper cup to pour the water, but the task comes across as much more appealing if that cup is attractively formed and decorated.  A metal worker can make a metal cup with designs stamped on the surface, or a ceramics worker can make a cup on a pottery wheel and glaze it in different colors.  Decorating ritual objects emphasizes the joy of the task.  Throughout the centuries, hiddur mitzvah has been a source of creativity and livelihood for Jewish professional craftsmen, folk artists, and talented women.

There is an entire world of ritual objects to decorate for the home and the synagogue.  I could probably spend the rest of my life making holiday hand towels, challah covers, table cloths, and decorations for my house.  Synagogues have traditionally been decorated with ornately embroidered torah mantles, curtains, and other decorations.  (I just noticed that at our synagogue's new building, they have gone with a more modern look that emphasizes negative space, and the ark curtain has no embellishment at all.)  Often items embroidered for the synagogue made use of fancy gold work and beading, which was the work of professionals.  One specific synagogue item, in some communities, was traditionally a piece of folk art made by women--the torah binder.

A torah is a scroll of paper attached to two wooden rods.  If left alone, the scroll would quickly unravel from the effort of taking it in and out of the ark and the parchment would crack.  In order to keep the scroll rolled tightly, the people reading the torah during services wrap a piece of cloth around the torah to hold it together.  Some binders have a buckle, others use velcro (shudder!), while others are long strips of fabric that are wrapped many times around the torah and have their ends tucked in.  The task of binding a torah after it is read is considered an honor, in the same category as blessing the torah before reading or lifting it up after reading.

In German Jewish communities, a female relative would save the swaddling cloth used during a baby boy's bris.  She would then cut it into strips, sew the strips together, then embroider blessings for the baby with detailed illustrations.  The blessings usually contained a variation on the following message:

"May G-d bless this young boy [baby's Hebrew name] son of [father's Hebrew name] and [mother's Hebrew name], born under the good star on the day of [Hebrew birth date].  May G-d raise him to Torah, Chuppah, and the performance of good deeds.  Amen forever and ever."

On the baby boy's third birthday, the father would take him to the synagogue.  The rabbi would use the embroidered fabric strip to bind the torah in a short ceremony to celebrate the baby's introduction to synagogue participation.  The synagogue then kept the torah binder on file as a kind of record of the baby's birth.  Ten years later, the boy would use the fabric strip as a torah binder during his bar mitzvah ceremony.

This tradition was mostly limited to German Jews, but now Jews from all communities are discovering it.  Some organizations hold workshops on how to create torah binders for different occasions and with a variety of materials.  As I learned about this tradition, I knew I wanted to create ones for the children in my family.  It was my chance to create something truly personal to each child, a Jewish heirloom that they can always treasure.  I also feel like it is a way to connect with these women of the past who created torah binders with their own styles, from rudimentary letters to dazzling needle-painted art.

I have begun my work by gathering the Hebrew names and birth dates for the child recipients.  This simple information can inspire a wealth of symbols to illustrate the torah binder:

1. The child's name.  Some names lend themselves to specific imagery.  Examples:  Zvi=deer, Devorah=bee, Tamar=date palm.
2. The child's zodiac sign.  As I learned on a trip to Tzipporah, an archaeological excavation of an Israeli town from the Ancient Roman occupation, zodiac imagery has a long history in Judaism. They are the same symbols, but the names more directly correspond with the image.  Example:  Sagittarius=archer ("keshet" in Hebrew)
3. The father's priestly class.  Jews are divided into classes based on whether their ancestors served as Temple priests or assistants.  While Judaism is passed through the mother, class is passed through the father.  Cohens are the descendants of the high priests of the Temple, while Levis are descendants of the temple assistants.  A torah binder might have symbols indicating that a child's father belongs to these classes.  For Cohens, the symbol is the hand sign made when they give the priestly benediction.  (You might recognize this as Spock's "Live Long and Prosper" hand sign from Star Trek.)  The symbol for Levis is a pitcher with water flowing into a bowl.
4. Holidays.  If a child is born during a holiday, that provides a ready source of symbols. Examples:  Matzah for Passover, menorah for Chanukah.
5. Torah portion.  Jews divide the Torah (Old Testament) into portions, reading one each week through the year.  A Torah binder can include imagery from the torah portion read the week of the baby's birth.  Examples:  A dove with an olive branch for the portion about Noah's ark, a burning bush for the first portion of Exodus.

Embellishments in this picture include a fish as a reference to
"Jonah and the Whale" (for the baby's father's name) and two angels for the zodiac sign Gemini.

The result is a piece of embroidered art that is completely unique to the child.  (Theoretically.  I will need to work out what to do to individualize the ones I will make for a set of twins . . .)

Right now, I am still full of questions.  How can I sew the long strip of fabric so that I don't go insane from all the hemming required?  What is the best transfer technique for getting my pattern onto the fabric?  Will I be able to finish one binder before my baby relatives graduate medical school?  Join me next time as I attempt to solve these questions.

[The pictures used in this post come from a Flickr set put out by the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC-Berkley.]