New grandson means that on the eight day he has his circumcision, which although is a ‘surgical procedure’ happens with friends and family.
The ceremony was very early on a Monday morning, so this was a small gathering of family and a few friends. Luckily Westley can be distracted with toys. 
Not bad for 7 am.
Sorry not many pictures, between a camera that isn’t great and an iPad, images are blurry.
Here he is as the ceremony starts, both cousins looking on. Mom moved them back, I remember my sons at that age getting a little too close when their cousin had his bris.
Here is one of those sons, now an uncle. He had the ‘honor’ of holding him, even as the actual bris happened, and was a lot less squeamish than at age 6. Surrounded by love, the baby only cries for less than a minutes, then it’s over and Mommy immediately gets him back. 
What, whats’ happening to my brother? Later Westley gave the Mohel the biggest stink eye! was that because he remembers 19 months ago, or because he doesn’t like someone hurting his new baby?
This is the third grandson Andy has circumcised, we are hoping there will be a few more.
And his Hebrew name, which is given at this point is Jacob.
Mom took him to the back room to nurse and then joined us with him 15 minutes later as we enjoyed a quick breakfast of lox and bagels. No matter what the Jewish ceremony is – it always involves food!
Leah
My Sherman Oaks group have been knitting a lot of patterns by Very Busy Monkey. I loved what they were making so got in on the fun. This is the start of the 
I think the yarn was an old Sweet Georgia I had in my stash. Very subtle color changes. 
I knit this shawl going to and from Israel, so yes, I can see certain mistakes that happened while knitting on a very long flight. But I won’t point out where they are. This is what pre-blocked lace looks like – a mess.
Post blocking, the shawl is larger and actually lacier.
I like the crescent shape, it stays on the shoulders. 
Love how the shadow really gives you a better picture of the lace.
For now, this is going into my gift pile, I wear the blue/green shawl daily. As much as I love this one, I’m willing to give it away, so since I already have a favorite right now, this one can chill.
I have already cast on my next shawl, the
Yes, it is pretty amazing how good mom looks right after giving birth. Newborns are tiny for such a short period of time, how quickly we forget.
Proud dad! Cameron has a head of dark hair, unlike his blond brother. He also is very long with long fingers and toes. That comes directly from my maternal grandfathers side of the family.
Of course I’m beaming here! One can never have too many grandchildren. I’m only up to four. He wieghs almost 8 lbs. But there is something about the tiny human body that is very solid, babies are miracles in every way.
Proud grandpa!
He came home quickly. 26 hours and all was well so mom and dad just wanted to be home. Westley meets him for the first time.
So far so good, he is intrigued by this baby.
Looks like Cameron wants to reach out to big brother Westley.
Luckily Cameron arrived bearing gifts. Truck is one of Wesley’s favorite words. So is trash by the way – so it’s combined in one fun toy.
And then there were four. Nothing better than seeing my kids families grow!
A Sauce company even had a jackalope as their mascot.
Someone else was selling scary looking horned hybrids. 
I’m seeing that the mounted trophy is popular.
Amirigurumi made it’s appearance.
Along with these cute fellows.
Using old posters of Los Angeles as design elements. An orange label with the Biltmore Hotel and the old Philharmonic Auditorium and the the Title Guarantee building on Pershing Square.
Someone was selling handmade baby quilts. I always admire people who sell quilts, I don’t care how small or simple it is. A quilt is a lot of work.
Succulents were in everywhere. Sometimes real…
…sometimes made of fabric…
… and even felted. The dirt itself is felted, hence the shot glasses.
Someone has taken raffia to a whole new level.
This bird really grabbed my attention.
As did the glass by 
The one booth where I did make a purchase. Driftwood and glass, what could be better in my garden.
Next week there is a local craft fair, one I can simply walk to from my house. I’ll be sharing more impressions from that one as well.
I love this block that my friend 
Very happy with my color choices. 
This one could have been paper pieced, but I worked carefully with the half square triangles and flying geese rulers. 
A nice clean back ironed well (almost) makes working with these small pieces much easier. Soon no one will see the backs. So I better show them from time to time.
I’m not crazy about this block. The designer was very literal, she even embroidered the stripe to look like a measuring tape as well as embroidering the words, measure twice, cut once.
I do love a good basket. Aside from my first embroidery block, I am using prints, no solids. It will be interesting to see when I put this together if it is too busy. I may decide to sash with a solid. Right now I am enjoying the challenge of making the prints work. Being so influenced by the modern quilt movement, I’ve added a lot of solids to my work. So this is a change.
In this block the circle was supposed to be appliquéd on top, I am proud of my ability to insert a circle, so I did. And interesting but not surprising thing is happening with this QAL (quilt along). People are veering away from the patterns, changing them drastically or adding new blocks. So there has been a crackdown by the developers, they are deleting blocks that don’t conform. It’s a delicate balance, you offer a massive project for free and then you want to keep tight control.
This might not pass muster, I was working with tiny scraps and I mirror imaged two of the outside hst (half square triangles), so instead of pinwheeling around the center block, they form more on an hour glass shape. Some people responded by saying, just remove and twist, some people don’t understand geometry.
Creating some very light blocks.
And some with higher contrast. 
My intent is to get good contrast between the blocks and I think I’m achieving that. As time goes by I’m getting scrappier and adding more colors, like browns and even allowing the pink I rejected, back in. 
I even found a wonderful new box for the blocks. No way would the original box hold 100 plus blocks. I found this lovely one.
Once the quilt is done I’ll have to find another use for this. Clearly I like the scrappy quilt look, even on a box.
Plenty of room to fill.
Welcome to Uncommon Threads, a collaborations between four fiber arts groups. 
Members of each guild need to sit in the gallery while it is open to the public. So I met Linda Stone, she has quite a few pieces in the exhibit. Being a member of two of the groups helps. 
This quilt was on display at Paducah a few years ago, Linda does realism very well.
She has been branching out into the modern as well. A sign of a good artist, one who keeps on learning.
It’s a good thing Maureen Cox signed this piece, we were friends years ago but then drifted apart. For a few years now she has been staining fabric with rust and then creating the artwork from there.
I was there the very first day it opened, so not all the artwork had labels yet. While this is clearly a quilt, it is also a from of collage.
By the same artist, Susan Gesundheit, this is a fabric collage, I don’t see any quilting here. Most of the quilts are considered art quilts, if only because they are small and are hanging on the walls.
This artist used vinyl in a very interesting literal way. For me coming to this kind of show is a real pleasure. I see names of people I have known in the past and see how their art has developed. I see new art I’ve never seen before and I get inspired, not to copy or recreate, but simply to enjoy good textile art.
I LOVE weaving, I did learn how to weave on an eight heddle loom. One has to pick and choose, I can’t do everything so I don’t weave, but I really appreciate what goes into it. 
Like here, a ‘simple’ stole, but look at the difference between the front and the back! The colors really change drastically.
Achieving three dimensionality.
Even a display of scarves makes my heart sing. 
Of course I react to bright colors…
…and three dimensional objects like these birds.
Or this wonderful dancing woman.
The quilt is home. My friends were amazed, never have received a hostess gift like this one! Here is it on their couch.
I immediately put it to good use.
It’s final destination is on their bed. They love it so much, I even got a phone call once I got home with another round of thanks. And this is why many of us create things by hand and give them to people we love. 
Sorry the image is fuzzy, I also delivered the wedding dress for their daughters wedding. JCrew for the win. It fits her perfectly! I must say they have great dresses at great prices. This little one in under $400 and is made out of a very good quality silk chiffon. We won’t be going back to this wedding in June, but I am so happy I did my little part.
Back to miscellaneous out in Jerusalem. This installation, decor, I don’t know what you’d call it is at the Cinema City center in Jerusalem. Just enjoying the creativity of it.
This pictures sums up Jerusalem today. This is the old street, Nachlat Sheevah. An old Courtyard nieghborhood in the center of town, today it houses high end creative shops, bars and a few restaurants. The colorful balloons are new to me, I’m guessing they light up at night. The crane is the most ubiquitous sight in the city these days, new construction is going on everywhere.
I snapped this picture from the bus, hence the Streetlamp post right in the middle. I don’t recall seeing this wonderful turret and this building used to be on my daily route. It also used to be part of Bikur Cholim Hospital which is no more. It is now part of another hospital. I think this whole section used to be enclosed and is now reopened and spruced up. Btw, my Armenian neighbor was born right here, she married and moved to Lebanon in 1967, the year my family moved to Israel. In the 1980’s when the troubles started in Lebanon, her family moved to California. Today we are neighbors in Studio City. What a world.
This Falafel stand has been here for 49 years, Falafel Maoz. It opened the same year I moved to Israel. I used to eat here as a child and today the parents who opened it have passed on. The brothers who run it today are my age and their children are also in the business. It is very good falafel, even if it weren’t the best, nostalgia demands I go there. Joel remembers it as well from his stays in the city. He also remembers Richies Pizza which opened next door in the late 1970’s but that is sadly no more.
Another piece of history. Emek Refaim is the main street of the neighborhood known as the German Colony. Last trip I shared pictures from the Christian cemetery that is right on that busy street. This time the gate to the German cemetery was open. I popped in and met a descendant of these Germans who had come from Australia to put a tombstone on her great great grandfathers tomb. If you are interested go to 
Many of the tombstones are new, put up by the descendants but they still use the old Germanic script that I have to concentrate on to read.
And then there is Jerusalem at night. Go read this article about the artist and his 
Some of the murals are of famous people, others are at the request of the stall owner. All of these are painted with permission and a lot of the paint has been donated. No one is getting paid for this project.
I wonder if this is a special request, a butcher, who sells mostly chicken (notice the image on the upper left corner). Here we see eagles and other birds becoming airplanes.
Then there is another kind of art, also on the metal doors of the shops. I saw a number done in this style, much more robotic or techno. They all had a play on words. In this case these are tomatoes, the saying is Tomato or not to be. In Hebrew tomato rhymes with the words To Be. So it’s a play on Shakespeare’s famous saying To Be or Not to Be.
Springtime is the most beautiful time in Jerusalem, everything is blooming. In another month the city will be hot, dusty and browner.
So I revel in the color wherever I see it.
Come on, who doesn’t love a bright pink hollyhock?
Or a beautiful painted wagon full of flowers?
Ten years ago there was one small miserable yarn store in the basement of a building, and Jerusalem doesn’t have many basements, so this was a rare place indeed. Basically sold very cheap yarn. But now, like the flowers there are a number of nice airy stores that sell yarn. There was nice cotton, good acrylic but no wool. In Jerusalem in the winter wool is a very good thing. Who knows maybe in a few more years they’ll have wool.
It is customary to buy some yarn on vacation, souvenir yarn is a wonderful way to remember a trip. I didn’t, I simply didn’t find any yarn that was worth buying. I have such great selection at my local LYS, 
I have to thank Chris Burden for 
One can’t talk about Jerusalem without mentioning the cats. A large population of stray cats is probably better than rats. They don’t carry as much disease and they do keep the rodent population down. Although this fellow just appears to be enjoying the good life.
This one is more up to the task, he looks leaner and meaner.
This one is just hunkering down for the night, hoping to just get through the night.
Not all cats are strays, this fellow enjoys the comfort of the Armenian tile store.
And of course there has to be a dog. What a collection of stuff around him, a Seder plate for Passover, a bag with Disney characters and a necklace that I wouldn’t mind owning myself.
According to the label these are based on old Jewish coins from the Roman period. Some were silver some were bronze. I like the idea of the QR code, but I haven’t used my code reader on my phone in so long, I’m not sure I even have it installed. Not to mention that without my knowledge data use must have used up all my Israeli phone number minutes. I didn’t make any calls and yet I ran out quickly.
One thing I noticed is that Israeli mosaics are made mostly from tile, unlike Italian mosaics that are often made of glass. Of course these are in the sidewalk so of course tile makes much more sense. The artist hand cut the circles, they are irregular which I find wonderful. Pity most people just walk over these without paying them any attention at all.
This one is probably the first to be installed. It is the simplest image, the label is mostly worn off from the foot traffic. The QR code on the other hand looks just fine. So why didn’t they use the same printing method on the label?
Unlike the debate about who to put on the $20 bill, these ancient coins do not have any human image on them. Of course had they been Roman, they would have had the head of the emperor. These are Jewish coins, no graven image means no image of a person. A tree, a cup, a date palm or palm frond are perfectly acceptable.
This store sign has been here for a very long time, good thing the beauty salon is still in business. For all I know it’s a different business than the original one that installed the mosaic. They never put the name, just a wonderful barbar pole with a pair of scissors.
This isn’t exactly a mosaic. Just a small section of Hamsas on the wall of an incredible restaurant, 
Handpainted Armenian tiles have been a fixture in Jerusalem forever. This is a very upscale store where one of the artists was sitting inside painting. The work here is really exquisite.
This piece isn’t for sale, it’s embedded in the exterior wall. It says: You are peace, your home is peace and all you own is peace. It’s not a saying I’m familiar with, I’m wondering if it is translated from Armenian.
Once again an unitentional selfie, along side that gorgeous tile.
The reason for our quick trip to Israel was for my nephews’ wedding. A rather blurry image of him putting on the ritz.
With my mother and two brothers. The taller one, Yaacov is the father of the groom.
Sophia is gorgeous. I had met her before and she is lovely. When her family converted and moved to Israel – they too became very Orthodox, much more so than my brother. She like Meir is now secular. But one thing that caught me by surprise is the family as a whole.
I didn’t take many pictures at the wedding, all of the pictures are thanks to Joel pulling out his phone. I found this image online and I’m sharing it here, the two little girls in the bottom left are cousins of Sophia. In LA, this ‘type’ of Mexican is part of the landscape, these are not Conversos, these are native to Mexico, long before the Europeans arrive. How they learned about Judaism I don’t know, but there is now a large community in Cochav Yaacov in Israel. Israel is the most amazing country in the world, it really and truly is the most diverse nation outside of the US. Unlike the US, it is a tiny county. There is a pull for many people to become Jews and to move to Israel, on the settlement that this family lives there are immigrants from the US, Europe, Africa, India, South America. The one thing that unifies them is that they are Jews – either by birth or by choice.
As I mentioned, not a lot of photos, so I’ll share what I have which is mostly family. I’ll get back to the interesting story as well, since it didn’t stop, My nephew, his wife and sister, yes I have a very good looking family.
On the left my brother and sister in law with her sister and brother in law. Pay attention to the backdrop, this is the real deal, the wedding was overlooking the old City of Jerusalem, so those walls in the background aren’t some painted back drop. Of course the breathtaking setting added so much to the atmosphere.
I’m glad Joel handed me the phone so I could get a picture of him.
I can’t explain why these two are in most of the pictures. Sure handsome couple, but they aren’t the only ones.
All the cousins in one shot. I love how the groom and his brother (who is married but no kids yet) are holding the baby who belongs to the couple to their left. Yes, mom and dad can’t wait till you have one of your own!! (more than one really). One nephew couldn’t make it, he is still in the army and couldn’t get out to join in the festivities.
Great looking kids against a beautiful backdrop.
And then the wedding returned to surreal. As I mention, my brother is modern Orthodox, but because Sophia’s family is much stricter, there were some interesting things happening. First of all, the dress covering her from head to toe, the large opaque veil – that wasn’t her choice that was honoring her mother. Here she is walking down the aisle with her mother and grandfather. Unfortunately her father has passed away.
Traditional Chuppah. I just wish the photographer and videographer weren’t right in there, they blocked out view. So for the first time in almost 40 years, I am at a wedding where the couple is secular, and men and women are asked to sit separately. Not one family on either side, women on one, men on the other. I had to comment to the lesbian cousins that they lucked out, they could sit together.
And at the end of the evening, the very proud parents of the groom. Another kid married off! A job very very well done.