Last year when it was Samuel's Bar Mitzvah, Matthew treated himself to a new tallit.

It is customary for a boy to get his first tallit on his Bar Mitzvah and so Matthew's was rather old now...as was his tallit bag.

Tallit bags are normally very traditional in style, made of velvet, with gild writing. It's very hard to get something more contemporary and modern. So when Matthew bought his sparkly new tallit (actually my Mum bought it for his birthday as she was taking Sam to buy his for his Bar Mitzvah) I decided to make him a sparkly new bag. Obviously this wasn't going to be velvety or gildy.

Matthew now proudly carries around his trendy tallit bag and gets lots of compliments.

Then, as is often the case, the tallit bag was in the right place at the right time and just when a friend needed a Bar Mitzvah present, they happened to see Matthew's tallit bag and commissioned me to make one.

Hence the new Personalised Tallit and Tefillin Bag Set was born.

I must say I am really pleased with these (as was the commissionee) and especially how well the Hebrew writing came out and particularly, as luck would have it, that I happened to have a silver fabric paint.

I realise this is a rather niche market gift and probably none of you, my lovely readers, have even heard of tallit or tefillin, let alone have use for them, but maybe one day when you are invited to a Bar Mitzvah, you will remember where to find the coolest gift.

Oh and if you happen to have any Jewish friends who would be interested, please do spread the word ;-)

It seems like a long time ago now that I was obsessing with Freezer Paper as a printing method, but since doing the Screen Printing Course it took a back seat. Not only did it take a back seat, but I wasn't sure if there was going to be a place for it now that I was screen printing.

Having invested in a fair size roll of freezer paper, I was a bit cross with myself for being so flitty with yet another craft.

Today I learnt that there is definitely still a place for freezer paper printing.

It goes without saying that screen printing is perfect for producing quantities in a way that just doesn't work with freezer paper.

And in contrast freezer paper is perfect for one offs. The time and expense of producing a screen for just one print obviously makes little sense.

So I was delighted to remember my stash of freezer paper that I could use to personalise this commissioned cushion. I used to embroider the details but with my recent penchant for printed fabric I really wanted to find a way of doing this.

I was very pleased to discover that freezer paper still has a place in my crafting...particularly since I have one mighty large roll.

And you never know, Jo and Fran, I may even need another one day soon...

How was your Easter weekend? Great I hope.

We have just come back from the best weekend ever. We went to visit one of Matthew's brother's who lives in Bristol. The other bro and his family came over too. We get along just brilliantly. (Take a look at us girls here). I couldn't ask for better sister and brother-in-laws. Really, I couldn't.

And what's more all the cousins, ranging from my big boy Sam at almost 14, down to little Luka at almost 3, are so close and love spending time with each other. They are a great team.

And what's more (just gets better and better, hey?) they all let me indulge myself by being my willing guinea pigs in crafting activities.

I'd brought along freezer paper, fabric paints and bags for a little activity yesterday afternoon and as if they'd be prepped by the other Mum's and Dad's - "you know what Auntie Karen's like. Just humour her and play along..." - they all sat willingly to 'play'. They continued to play along, even when I made them sit and work out their design properly before letting them lose on the freezer paper and paints.

Even Anastasia, aged 4, took it in the spirit that it was meant to be taken...

The boys were surprisingly keen. Hardly surprising. They've know Mummy/Auntie Karen for long enough.

They were only supposed to do one each (at Auntie Ruth and Auntie Alex's request to do one too) but as you can see they all loved it so much that they wanted to do a second. I was so impressed with what they've produced. It was such a fantastic afternoon and a great activity to do with them all as, despite taking some effort and concentration, results were pretty rapid and immediate.

And the bags came in pretty useful for our next activity - having something to carry home the precious rocks in that they had all collected in the rock pools by the beach.

First off, I have an apology for this post.

As beautiful as the photography was in yesterday's post, today's is the other extreme. Quite simply, some of these images are not pretty. Not helped by the colour paint I have been using.

But please bear with me, as I take you through my journey.

You all know of my love of hand-printed fabrics and my desire to do more screen printing and produce pieces of my own, but since access to screen printing is out of the question at the moment, I am looking at alternatives.

My Gocco printer is still not in full working order, due to the need for several accessories for it. So when I discovered Saints and Pinners were now stocking Freezer Paper I swiftly ordered some and have been sitting waiting patiently for it to arrive. I know that sounds like I have been waiting an inordinately long time, when in reality I think this has been less than 48 hours, thanks to the super efficient service Jo and Fran always provide. But considering my fabric producing journey started almost a year ago, this has been a long time for me.

So today I started experimenting with Freezer Paper Printing. The seedhead design that I used in my first screen print in the summer seemed a good place to start. I want to use hand-printed fabrics in lots of different ways and incorporate it my work with other fabrics too, so I'm starting with little patches that I can add to my work.

The Freezer Paper method is very simple to do. The paper has a shiny back and this sticks to fabric when ironed. Once you have cut out your design and ironed the paper on to your fabric, you stipple your chosen colour over. If you want to repeat the pattern reposition the paper and repeat as many times as you want.

Simples!

This really is a fantastically fun and easy way to print fabric and produce something really unique.

I am really enjoying experimenting with this and I promise the next photos I show you will be a little prettier than these...okay, A LOT!