Monday, April 2, 2012

Challah Collaboration

 

I am working in collaboration with our local Hillel and PassionWorks artists, on some Challah covers for show and sale May 5th.  Students worked with PassionWorks artists to create colorful, unique challah covers, and then they were turned over to me to enhance with stitching and to finish up.  Each piece is one of a kind.  They all measure approximately 22” x 22”, so they can cover a lot of challah.

Here is the first one that I’ve finished.

challah fancy first

You can see how pretty the colors are.  Each piece is different, but all are colorful and fun.  I stitched the outlines using Kreinik gold machine embroidery thread.

challah fancy detail

You can see the detail here.  Once this was done, I had to figure out how to finish the edges of the burlap.

challah basting

Here is a picture of  basting stitches I put in as a sewing guide for the stay stitch and decorative cording.

challah zigzag

I zigzagged over the basting stitch to keep the burlap from unravelling.

challah edge

Then I zigzagged some Kreinik #16 braid over the zigzags, to add extra sparkle.  You can see where I also did that on the edge of the painting.

challah fancy

Here’s the finished piece.  I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Now to do this at least 28 more times!