Claire Sherman Art

Cathedral window quilts

Posted on April 6, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

Here is a cathedral window pillow that I made in the 1980’s, entirely by hand. I hadn’t made one since then, but I’m teaching a class on how to make them at HelloStitch in June, so I’ve been researching them. A lot has changed since last time I made one. I found 5 different ways of making them: entirely by hand, 2 versions entirely by machine, and 2 that are a combination of hand and machine. I stayed up till 1:30 last night making a postcard sized one for the Berkeley Public Library’s quilt show. I made it entirely by machine, because I was in a hurry, and I wanted to see if I liked it by machine.

Here it is, above. I’m pretty pleased with it, but the craftsmanship is much higher when it’s done partly by hand.

Posted in Cathedral window quilts, Classes, Work In Progress | Tagged cathedral window quilt | Comments Off

My new video!

Posted on March 30, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

Watch this brand new video of me, teaching you how to make a matza cover for Passover, without any sewing. Of course you could sew on it if you wanted to. I used fusible web, and it is more permanent if you stitch around it. Here’s the link: https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2Fg-eahCRuTM8&data=02%7C01%7C%7C39a297b12199448a0f7e08d595d976a2%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636579683578643329&sdata=%2FokKMHo7swq7PML9MFIPkoi9RrvBMvzx%2FUeWfwp53gs%3D&reserved=0

Posted in Classes, Holiday quilts, Machine applique, Videos, Work In Progress | Tagged BimBam, how to make a matza cover, matza cover, no sew matza cover | Comments Off

Disappearing pinwheel churndash

Posted on March 20, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

Here’s one of the disappearing blocks that I forgot to post earlier. I’ve already cut it into nine equal squares. When you rearrange the pieces you can make a churn-dash. Churn-dash is the name of an old quilt block. If you looked at a butter churn from the top it might look like this. I think the dash is the part that moves up and down to churn the milk into butter. Here is a churn-dash with a pinwheel in the middle.

But you could rearrange the pieces so that the churn-dash was grey and the background was the purple dotted fabric. Or, you could change it into sort of a wagon wheel or wedding ring, with a pinwheel in the middle:

Posted in disappearing blocks, disappearing pinwheel, Work In Progress | Tagged disappearing pinwheel, disappearing pinwheel churndash | Comments Off

Videos of me demonstrating paper-cutting and mezuzah making!

Posted on March 20, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

My friends at Bimbam made YouTube videos of me demonstrating how to make paper-cuts and mezuzot. Mezuzah making video here and Paper cutting royzelech or Jewish snowflakes, here. There will be more videos soon on things you can make for Passover.

Posted in Classes, Videos | Tagged BimBam, mezuzah making, paper cutting | 1 Comment

Baskets!

Posted on March 15, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

I found a disappearing pinwheel block I’d never seen before on YouTube. It’s a basket! I made one and followed their suggestion to take a pinwheel from another block so that the “flower” on the basket would be a different color.

Since I’m on a basket theme, here’s an improvisational basket block I made recently. Here it is with the bias handle pinned on, ready to be stitched (by machine). It’s important to iron it after pinning it so that the fabric relaxes into the curved shape.

Here it is finished. In this photo it looks like ombre fabric, which would have been a great idea, but it’s not. I made a quilt with several baskets, a few years ago. You can see it here.

Posted in disappearing blocks, disappearing pinwheel, Improvisational piecing, Liberated basket, Machine applique, Work In Progress | Tagged liberated basket | Comments Off

Hand applique pet portrait

Posted on March 2, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

The great thing about helping with EBHQ’s workshops is that I’m taking classes outside my comfort zone, that I wouldn’t ordinarily have signed up for. That’s how I found myself spending two days with Nancy Brown, hand appliqueing a portrait of Milkshake, our family’s guinea pig. Here is the photo I started from:

I call this photo, “our curious morning ritual.” Almost every morning I weigh Milkshake, before feeding him his daily piece of carrot. Since guinea pigs are prey animals, it’s hard to tell when they are sick. (If a guinea pig acts sick or slows down, another animal might eat them). The two ways of telling when a guinea pig is sick is if they won’t eat a carrot, and if they are loosing weight. It’s also hard to tell if they are loosing weight without weighing them because they’re so fluffy. This is Milkshake in a Kleenex box, on top of our kitchen scale.

Here is the applique I spent two days working on. It’s still not finished. I need to add a table under the scale, and a background. I think I will use a button as an eye.

In the workshop, someone named Lynn was sitting across the table from me. The perfect black and white marbleized “fur” fabric came from her stash.

This is tracing paper, with the pattern I drew over my photo. I simplified it as I went along. Some of those pieces were just too small!

Posted in Classes, Work In Progress | Tagged East Bay Heritage Quilters, EBHQ, hand applique, Nancy Brown | Comments Off

Hamsa class this Sunday!

Posted on February 28, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

I’m teaching my Hamsa class again this Sunday in Berkeley at the JCCEB, 1414 walnut St. Here’s a link to sign up: https://catalog.lehrhaus.org/course/2018/winter/A150-BJ/ There is still lots of room in the class, but enough have signed up so that it won’t be cancelled. You could even just show up on Sunday!

Here’s the blurb from the Lehrhaus catalog:

EXPLORING THE HAMSA: A HANDS ON WORKSHOP

A hamsa is a stylized hand for protection against the “evil eye,” frequently worn as jewelry. Made by both Jews and Muslims, it is found all over the Middle East, but is older than either religion. Come learn about the folklore of hamsas and Jewish amulets, as we make them out of paper or fabric. The basics of paper-cutting, a traditional Jewish folk art, will also be taught. No artistic talent is required to make stunning hamsa designs. The finished papercut hamsa can be framed, to hang on the wall, and a fabric hamsa can become a wall hanging or a challah cover. Materials fee of $5 to instructor on the day of the class.

CategoriesJewish Culture, Practice, Visual Art

SCHEDULE

# Sessions

Date & time

Sunday March 4
2:00 – 5:00 pm

Location

JCC East Bay

Tuition

$36 for the public
$18 for members

Here’s the kind of hamsa you could learn how to make:

Posted in Classes, hamsa, Machine applique | Tagged Claire-Sherman, hamsa, hamsas, Lehrhaus | Comments Off

Star class and quilts

Posted on February 13, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

On Feb. 4 I taught a liberated star class at Hello Stitch. The name of the class was Very Variable Star. As I was making demo stars for the class, I wanted to see what would happen if I put a star inside a star, inside a star. I only had the first two made by the day of the class. There’s a saying, I think it’s in the Talmud, “I have learned much from my teachers, but more from my students.” The idea to do the largest star from ombre fabric came from one of my students, Mary Spadero. Thanks, Mary! I’m not going to make this any larger as it is already 39″ x 39″. Below are some of my students’ stars:

On the wall in the background are two quilts by Sujata Shah. Her show is still up at Hello Stitch if you want to see it.

Posted in Classes, Improvisational piecing, Lib-Quilters, liberated stars, Work In Progress | Tagged Claire-Sherman, Hello Stitch, Hellostitchstudio, improvisational quilting, liberated star quilt | 2 Comments

Back of hourglass quilt

Posted on February 2, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

Here’s the back of the disappearing hourglass quilt I finished recently. I put an hourglass block, cut into nine pieces to show the process on the back. I used a facing rather than a regular binding on this quilt. Look below for “First quilt finished in 2018,” to see the front.

Posted in Disappearing hourglass | Tagged disappearing hourglass | Comments Off

VIC quilts

Posted on January 29, 2018 by silvert@catskill.net

This one is called Axis Mundi: Jacob’s Ladder.

This one is Improv Stars.

These are the two quilts I’m entering in Voices In Cloth this year. The first is guaranteed to get in, and the second will get in if there is enough room. I will also have several small pieces hanging on the “Workshop Wall”. This is a spot for projects that were started in an EBHQ workshop. Since I’m the co-chair of workshops this year, I get to go to all of them for free.

In other news two other quilts of mine were rejected by QuiltCon, the show of the Modern Quilt Guild, of which I am a member. If you search #QuiltCon Reject, you will find hundreds of amazingly beautiful quilts that were also rejected. I guess I’m in good company.

Here are photos of the two “rejected”quilts:

C & J Wedding Quilt 2015

Orange Is the New Purple 2015

Posted in EBHQ, Improvisational piecing, liberated stars, modern quilts, Quilt Shows | Tagged #quiltcon reject, East Bay Heritage Quilters, EBHQ, improvisational quilting, Voices-In-Cloth | Comments Off