bimah cover!

for the last six weeks or so, i've been working on a new bimah cover for the UVJC. It had to be something that would beautify the sanctuary, be appropriate for a 10th anniversary celebration of the building, coordinate with the wonderful artist-made curtain behind it, please at least some of our very varied congregation, be something within my skill set, and something that I would like. yikes.

I did some research on what bimah covers were available for purchase, just for something to go by, mostly they were squares of velvet with some gold embroidery and gold fringe. nice, but not what this space needs. It is a contemporary, open, mostly unadorned space. I love being in there.

My original version was way too dark for the space, but after a few more starts and stops (and almost complete halt), this is what the finished product looked like. I am quite pleased with it, although it doesn't look much like my original "vision".

The Hebrew letters are silk screened onto a commercial batik, then that piece was covered with a gold tulle. The blue and green wavy fabric are also batiks. The shiny green stripe on the edges has a lot of metallic threads which melt at higher iron temps. who knew?

Many, many thanks to Steve.

new class, new journal!

I'm taking a new online class with Sue Bleiweiss on just journal making. So much fun plus the other people in the class are wonderfully talented - they inspire me to work harder!

I took a couple days from trying to make a bimah cover to make this journal. I'm so glad i did. the bimah cover has possessed me from the get-go, but i have made no real progress on it. the journal cover is from one of the many failed attempts! the problem is trying to make it fit with competing interests... what it needs to be vs. what i would like to make. apparently those are not the same things.

anyhooo... this was a fun project and i now have one last idea for the bimah cover (it's supposed to be for the 10th anniversary celebration next saturday (ha!)) to go try.