Number 116: I love engaging in many types of art: painting, (oils, acrylics, watercolours); ceramics, mosaic making; spinning, dying and weaving tapestries; sewing quilts; decoupage; and painting tablecloths!

Painting tablecloths is not that different from painting a canvas. The stretched canvas is usually made from calico as is the unpainted tablecloth.

Preparing for Yair’s Barmitzvah in January 1999 I started painting one small table overlay for the round main table of the Barmitzvah reception. Ray thought it was an excellent idea and suggested that l paint  all the table overlays – 16 altogether! 

I “outsourced” sewing the tablecloth hems – as I felt the project would never get done if l also did those! And set up working in the garage at our Quo Vadis home, on trestle tables acquired for teaching art.

Important to paint a unified “colour” theme! I created my own colours, as when at art school, by mixing an acrylic dye colour with a clear base colour, choosing shades of blues and greens, colours that both Yair and l love.

They looked lovely at the Barmitzvah Reception. I subsequently gave some to various close family and friends, and kept others. Both Cecil who came out from Israel for the Bar Mitzvah and Margo in Toronto,  have one. Recently l gave  Maya one of them, good as new! for her new studio apartment in Melville.

But there were four tablecloths remaining- l must have ordered 20!  What to do with four unused tablecloths? After the Bar Mitzvah I sewed two together and painted two long tablecloths. One in deep pinks and greens with flowers, which l gifted my parents, reverted to me after they passed away. The other in blues with flowers scattered over the surface that you can see in the photographs, reflecting the process of painting it.

All this time later, now 22 years since their production, the tablecloths, both the small and larger ones, are still being regularly used.

Functional art and craft has a special place in my heart!