Last Friday afternoon I went with my friend to the home of her late mother who passed away a couple of months ago, in order that I would collect all her quilting/sewing stuff. I brought it all home with me and have just dumped it all in the "Teddy room" for now. I need to start sorting everything out, in order to see what we can do with it all. Besides completing the quilts she has started and any other item like crochet'd squares which have gone to someone else to complete.
All her patterns and books need to be sorted out, threads, fabrics books and notions etc.,
I hope to get stuck into some of this tomorrow seeing as how my machine fixer man came today and took away three of my machines for service and check ups. so I will take a (small) break from sewing in order to sort all this stuff out.
We have a quilting meeting tomorrow night and maybe I will take some of the stuff along there and see if the girls want anything.
Her machines and quilting cotton fabrics I will keep and hopefully some time in the summer I will teach her granddaughter how to quilt. It will be her batmitzvah in August and I think this will just be something she will enjoy, especially using her beloved grandmothers machine and fabics. I am sure we will have a good time together doing this.
It was back to the card table this afternoon, together with my card playing friends. We play Kalooki every Monday afternoon, something different to do other than spend ALL my time in the studio, I must admit, I enjoy the break. Next Monday I think it will my turn to host the cards and make something good for tea.
That's it for today,
bye for now.
Terry.

Today is a sad day for my friend Keren. It was her beloved dog Perach's last day. I found this picture of us having a great time in the snow, this was something new for me being an "African" we had a good laugh and Perach got cold paws.

I too have treasured memories of life with Perach, when she came and slept on my feet or snuggled with me on the couch Shabbat afternoon reading quilting magazines (what else could we do) sitting on the bench in the middle of the night outside Beit Ha Noah on Ahuza street. watching her as a pup in Kochav Yair. I felt for you and Noam and the family all day today knowing what you were going through having been through this with our beloved "kitty". But it is such a relief when it is over and we know our pets are out of their misery and pain.

Enjoy her memories.

I have been sewing like crazy today, managed to complete 36 stars and 60 triangle fill ins for the center of the chuppah. need only 34 more fill ins for the outer edge of the center, when it is all in place I will take a picture and post it up.

Tomorrow we play cards again monday Kalookie has been on hold for awhile due to some of us travelling girls, now we are all home for a while so we can get a few weeks worth in.

That's all for today

Till next time.

Bye or now

Terry

It's been a few days since my last post, busy times. It was Yom Ha Zikaron (rememberance day for the fallen soldiers of the State of Israel from the beginning till today) then came Yom Ha Atsmaut. Independance Day, the one and only "Sunday" of the year at least here in Israel.
As usual, we had our Israeli dinner here at home with just a few friends over for the Shwarma/flalfel/pita party and some good hearty patriotic singing followed by watermelon, icecream and chocolate cake, I forgot to even take my camera up to take pics but you can imagine it anyway.
Picnic braai (barbeque for the non South Africans) with more friends and of course more Israeli songs. But for us as a group of friends this is also a very sad as recently one of our very dear beloved friends died after living in a coma for about 18 months, he had the sweetest voice that anyone could imagine being a chazan(cantor) and a lover of music and Israel in general, as his wife and our beloved Pam said " a light has been taken out of this world, we will sorely miss it" This was a day that he loved best of all as most of us do, so it will be a day that we miss him most of all too.
So as you can imagine not much got done in the studio.
Now I am working on the Chuppah for our shul, so one of these days I will post a picture of "what's on the design wall" when it is closer to being something more than just bits n pieces. And of course I want to complete those lovely flowers as well, so - till next time
Bye for now.
Terry

What's on my design wall today, I have just completed appliqueing these 20 flowers using beautiful variageted threads and a very small machine blanket stitch. Also these exotic large flower prints are just so gorgeous to use. This is the second quilt I am making using these flowers.

These are from a kit called Diane's Garden by www.detailsbydiane.com fell in love with it a Quilt festival Houston this last November. I am thinking about using the for the outer frill part of a Chuppah cover and making something with a stained glass magen Daved Star with applique on the main body of the cover. I hope black is OK to use for this purpose instead of the traditional white, this is just a thought at this stage, so, I will probably put these lovely flowers away for now till I can think more cleary on this idea.

I have been invitedto teach at the next Israeli summer workshops, now, what am I going to do about that. i think I will just do what I did last time and use the "Pyamids plus" it has been a few years since I tought this technique so I am sure there are new people who don't know it. Just hope I can get more of thesebooks and that they are not out of print from www.chitrapublications.com

that's all for today, just off to help Russ embroider his "logo" onto his jeans (he loves doing things likethat)

Bye for now

Terry

Ok here is a new picture of me with my beloved DH Nuts, this one is for you K hope you like it. Most of the time I am the one behind the camera not infront of it and I am always with someone else.This you realize has taken me about an hour to get to where its at. I keep pushing the wrong buttons, closing it when It should stay open, losing the pictures to somewhere else, now I seem to have put a few pictures in a place I can easily get to so I will try and download some more for this blog. In the meantime I am not having much success with this it just doesn't seem to want to do what I tell it to, so, I will save this as a draft and do it again when I have calmed down and not so frustrated with this. OK with a little help from Russ n Anna finally got this picture in. Keren... enjoy. this is a great picture of the both of us with lots of fun memories to go with it. Just a few more tips n hints and hopefully soon I will be able to do this on my own.

Managed to complete my flowers, but it is getting late and I have to go everything ready for Shabbat with a littlehelp from Russ n Anna.

Bye for now

Terry

Today was a "nothing special kinda day. gym in the morning with a good walkabout, Zvia was teaching here in the studio, went out to lunch and got it right this time, there are some very nice new restaurants coming up in our little town these days as well as some new shops, it has been a while since I went walkabout up Ahuza street. One new little shop is a crafty place. They have all pre made ceramics made up, chose one and sit and paint it yourself, they do the firing and you have your very own handwork gift to give away or keep for yourself very nice, hope it lasts. it is also next to a very lovely kitchen shop called "Taste" with modern and very nice everything to do in the kitchen stuff ,and they have demonstrations going on all the time. Took one a while ago in English on healthy cooking, funny, I still cook the same as I always have.

Came home after lunch, felt sleepy while on the computer and promptly fell asleep on the bed in the Teddy's room. but before I ramble on in another direction, I did manage to applique a few more flowers out of the 20 I need to complete and managed to do my supermarket shopping. Again picture in the wrong place, should be next to this paragraph, nevermind For those who don't know me, All the teddies in the cabinet I made (and more) teddy on the chair is Douglass. This word is a play on the hebrew word for "fish" dug - as he is a copy of a Kodiak (baby) bear mostly in Canada who fish for salmon, but my poor bear doesn't have and fish therefore ("dug-less) he is one of my bigger bears who now resides in my bedroom with all the big bears. On the left of the picture are all the bears given to me or I have bought.

This room is in my studio apartment and is sometimes used to host guests (of which we have lots) but it is not the only room we have for guests.

My studio is an apartment on the first floor of our apartment building, on this floor also is Hubby's office apartment across the hall, very useful for those photocopies I need to make of all sorts of things and to have hubby close by for all those financial questions I have to ask him from time to time like how much must I charge in Shekels if I paid X dollars., or how about we go out for lunch today I have been too busy in the studio to do anything about it, stuff like that.

We live on the second floor where we eat, sleep and entertain. The kids apartments are on the ground floor, Russell still uses his when he is home for the weekend from University, and Jaqui's is the one we now use for the guests, she has her own place now in Tel Aviv.

Our secret hiding place is on the 3rd floor. shh don't tell anyone my swimming pool is there where I go for my chunky dunk in the middle of the night and to cool off in the middle of the day (in summer only of course).

Natan has his big screen TV for all those sports events he like to watch with all his friends in the TV room and finally "The big suite", a lovely large guests room that looks like a swiss Chalet on suite and can sleep LOTS of people.

I just checked out the pics that I was looking for, but they are all outdated so in the next few days I will take new pics of our home and post them up for you to see.

But, thats for another day

Till then

Bye for now

Terry

Today was one of "Those" days, we made a date for lunch with friends, got there, waited, they never came, left cell phone at home charging, left their number at home as well. decided to eat lunch anyway came home to check if there were any messages, none, checked my diary. Date is for tomorrow.... ok we made another time and place. such a "blonde" thing to do and I'm not a blonde.

Managed to make a lovely challa cover for a friend who wants to give a gift for a batmitzvah present, very young design, my usual star with fun magen david fabrics, then I used silver fabric glue and made more stars all around.

Ok just posted the picture, still need more practice doing this and getting it in the right place.

Now it is time or me to go and start appliqueing my roses. that's all for today

Bye for now

Terry

Holocaust Memorial day

Today was Holocaust memorial day,
This morning at our Shul here we had a small ceremony which we have every year. We have guests who speak about their survival during the war. This year we had two young kids who have just retruned from a visit to poland on the anual "March of the living" of which I have been on in 1988. We have a couple of young boys who play their violins beautifully to music related to the ceremony. and we invite 6 people to each light a candle in memory of family lost during the war. One of our members is very active in trying to locate the whereabouts of Raul Wallenberg a famous man for assisting Jews during this terrible time. and, as always completing the ceremony with Hatikvah. at 10.00am there is a siren that peals out across the whole of Israel for about 2 minutes and the whole country comes to a standstill, cars, busses people in the street or whever they happen to be stop, get out of their vehicle and stand silently, head bowed in rememberance. this is a very moving sight to see and experience, it always evokes emotion.
All or most TV coverage is on or about people who have lived through this experiance and films sho like "Sophies Choice" Schindlers List" and others. People telling their personal stories and historical footage. the rest of the TV here is closed for the whole day. except for the news channels.

Other than that I have finally found a new project to do. A very pretty applique floral "Stained glass" effect using very large floral print fabrics and cut out, iron on applique on a black background. So far I have completed the first part and now all my 20 blocks are ready for stitching. This is from a kit called "Diane's Garden" by "Details by Diane" I bought it in Houston at the last Quilt festival in November last year by justf or such a time as when I had nothing else planned to do urgently. So, now I will spend less time on the computer.
That's all for now
Terry

Ok, I am slowly starting to get used to this, it's all new to me. Hopefully I will start to find out how this all works and get into the right circle. I have managed to upload some of my new pictures into my webshots pages wich can be found on the community pages of www.webshots.com and my user name is terrymow100, I have quite a few albums with lots of quilts, and my quilting friends quilts, my teddy bears, friends and family and places we have been to and go to regularly.
I have been at this computer all day and not managed to do a stitch of sewing, maybe because I am inbetween projects right now and need to buckle down and start something new, although there are always the UFO's to complete.
Would love to hear from fellow quilters/teddy bear makers from around the world, so do pop in and say Hi, I am very friendly
Bye for now
Terry

This is me, Taken in 2001 shortly after we moved into our present home and with my very own studio which I have called "Movibear Studio" and have a very pretty wooden sign outside my door made by my friend Jocelyn. It is a picture of a teddybear holding a patchwork quilt.
This is my very first posting and the beginning of my blog pages. I hope along the way you will enjoy the things I do and the places we go. I will continue to upgrade as and when something is in the process. I have a few things that are WIP and a commission to make a Chuppah for our Shul as they are in the process of writing a new Sefer Torah and have commissionedme to make the chuppah for Next year Simchat Torah. I am quite excited by this and have some wonderful ideas, it is now a matter of chosing the right one and getting the process off the ground.
I have 2 very lovely special gifts also in progress one is a special gift for a special sister in law, and the otheris a wedding gift for a special nephew and his lovely new bride. Both reside in Sydney Australia. The tops are completed but I am just not physically able to quilt these quilts the normal way on a regular home sewing machine any more, so I will take them with me to Australia where we will be going in May for a batmitzvah and have organised to have them quilted there, Until such time as I can use my very own quilting machine (wish list) I will only update their pictures when they are complete.
That's all for this my very first blog page.
Till next time
Terry