Tel Aviv Eretz Israel Musuem goldwork exhibition

The picture below is the front cover of the catalog and the exhibition officially opened last night. I spoke to the curator a few times. It is an amazing exhibit and the catalog is very good. There are 7 articles both in English and Hebrew and a bibliography plus 104 photos of works exhibited all in color and actually easier to see than in the musuem because everything was kept dark. The articles include religious and clothing items plus others and they come from many countries where Jews lived such as the Middle East, northern Africa and parts of Eastern Europe. The cost for the catalog is 100 shekels and I'm sure it could be ordered from the bookstore at the museum. I will also add a few more of the photos from the book. The items are goldwork embroidery using lots of threads such as Japanese gold plus some beads and other materials. The level of craftsmanship is very high and most of the items were made over 100 years ago or longer.

Goldwork embroidery exhibit book

handbag

finally. I'm able to upload pictures again. wonderful. I have no idea what was wrong or what is right now but played around until suddenly it began once more. This bag is my first and I'm unhappy about the way I did the lining and the handle. Lots of room for improvements.

crocheting shawls

I'm not able for some reason to upload the picture of my new cotton shawl that I crocheted. The pattern was from Leinhauser/Weiss: 100 crochet projects. Now I'm struggling with a simple pattern from the Harmony crochet book called shell and v. The pattern is basically one row which repeats after the first one. I think it has a mistake though. But realizing that 7 balls of cotton (120 metres each) wouldn't be enough, I went back and am now struggling to make it a triangle which means basically inc one shell or v at each end every other row.

Beading: I got into stringing finally after just doing beadweaving. It's a rapid way to make necklaces using bigger beads a nd a good way to use up my beads. Or it would be but I have to buy more beads to finish off the ones I have. I'm not sure this will end anytime soon. One of the big stores in downtown Tel Aviv is going out of business and I found a terrific size 6 gold seed bead from France for half price so had to return again to pick up more w hen I saw how nice they were. Of course, there were other good beads that I also had to bring home. I finally taught myself how to make dangly earrings with chain so now everything is dangles. I'm making matching earrings for some of the necklaces. However, I really need to move on to working with my crystals.

Knitting: I'm making an aran cardi for dd in cotton using the famous Paton's pattern http://www.patonsyarns.com/patternbook.php?PBS=500989%20. This one is so easy and fast to make. I did change the moss stitches on the ends though to rev st st. The pattern is on the back of the booklet and is called must have cardigan.

Swarowski bracelet and earrings

The bracelet was for me and the earrings match a bracelet \I made for my daughter. I adapted a necklace pattern by Sheilah Cleary from Beadwork, June/July 2003. I didn't have the Beadalon wire so I used Fireline 6 lb in crystal and two needles.