BlazingNeedles

Barbara is a self employed fiber artist whose love of knitting and crochet led her to establish Blazing Needles. Using a knitting machine or knitting needles, yarn, and a sense of style and creativity cultivated over the years, she creates beautiful knitted items to wear or to decorate the home.
In Blazing Needles are all things knitted and crocheted, by hand or machine, from Judaic golf club covers to the whimsical crocheted cactus, Yarnius Crochetius.





Child's Hanukkah Scarf















Yarnius Crochetius














Knitted Judaic Golf Club Covers
















To see more of Blazing Needles creations, go to www.BlazingNeedles.etsy.com
Don't forget the Miracles of Hanukkah Sale going on now...and don't forget the secret password.
Psst.....it's candles. (JW mag if you got here from Jewish Women's Magazine).

Feature written by Goofing Off (GoofingOff, it's what I do best).

Purim 5770/2010 EtsyChai Roundup

• Purim - Traditions, part II
• Purim – Let’s make some noise! – video how-to
• Purim – Traditions, part I
• Purim – What’s it all about?

Craft links submitted by Linda B. of Linda B’s Beaded Jewelry:

• From Chabad.org - Purim crafts
• Purim masks to print and color
• Miscellaneous Purim crafts

Mardi Gras Earrings by LindaB142

Craft links submitted by Tammy of Tamdoll’s SILVER Mountain Originals:

• Games, music, e-cards, crafts, recipes at BabagaNewz.com (great resource for Parents and nice online site for kids!)
• cards, masks, decorations, treats, costumes….Creative Jewish Mom
• games & Hebrew resources at Behrman House Publishers

Hamentash Earrings by Tamdoll’s SILVER Mountain Originals

Fairy Princess Witch Girls –Discontinuted -Pattern from GoofingOff 

 Abstract Pin/Brooch with lapis from Siragwatkins

Purim – Let’s make some noise!

During the reading of the Book of Esther, the "Megilla", during Purim, listeners use a noisemaker, or grogger/gragger,  whenever Haman's name is mentioned during the reading – to “blot out the name of evil”. 

Here, EtsyChai team member Terri (terrbear37.etsy) shows us how to make our own noisemaker out of paper and includes a really nice rubber-stamp technique called Joseph’s Coat to decorate it:

After watching the how-to video, you can print the pattern, here, and make your own.

Thanks to Terri of Cards & More by Terri (terrbear37.etsy).  You can also watch more great technique videos at her blog.

What will your decorate yourself or your house with this Purim?

keum boo hair doodle by markaplan

 

Love in the Vineyard magnets by TamarHammer

 

 Tibetan silver charms by Leslietsy

Don’t forget to read all the other great Purim posts this month and check back for more to come!

Purim – Traditions, part I

EtsyChai members all have different traditions – here we’ll share some of ours:

“I live in Modi’in, Israel, a community currently made up primarily of young families. At Purim we are lucky enough to receive a huge amount of Mishloach Manot. The kids get excited about it weeks in advance! Because of the sheer quantity that we receive, I am of course aware that other families also receive the same amount of ‘junk food’.  Therefore I try and make my own packages a little more individual.

Last year I baked delicious chocolate chip cookies inspired by a fellow blogger! The Australian girls at A Spoonful of Sugar blog have the most wonderful recipes and their cookies certainly went down a treat with my friends last year. I added a little bottle of wine into the package, wrapped it all up nicely and closed it with a homemade tag with a photo of my  kids in their fancy dress costumes! It is wonderful to see them all lined up, before the delivery begins!”
-Lisa of Handmade in Israel (read more stories of her life in Israel at Lisa’s blog, too.)

“A Purim memory - my childhood Rabbi dressed as the Megillah Gorilla every year and the kids loved seeing the Megillah Gorilla stomp around and go wild when Hamen's name was said! He held a big stop/go sign - like a street sign - so the kids would know when to make noise and when to be quiet for the reading. “
- Melanie of MopTopMaven

Melanie’s character clips are great for dress-up and the perfect finishing touch to a Princess costume!

“In my synagogue, we had a Sephardic Cantor. One year, she and her husband dressed up as Hershey's kisses (with tin foil) She put bottles of grape juice, wine and schnaps on a little table in front of the bimah.

In between the chapters of the Megillah reading, the congregation was invited up to have a shot to encourage us to drink and "not know the difference between Hamen and Mordecai."

At my old synagogue, the Hazzan dressed up as a Kentucky Colonel (he was actually given this title in Kentucky) and wore a tux. One of the gabais wore an umpire costume and had a whistle and there was a strobing light, like on a squad car. When the name was mentioned, musicians would play, the whistle would blow and everyone would do the graggers and stamp their feet. There was also a costume contest for the kinder.  It was fun.”
- Linda B. of Linda B's Beaded Jewelry    So pretty, for many holidays!

Welcome Winter

I know, I know, it’s not winter everywhere.  But it is at my house.  It hit four degrees Fahrenheit this week!  Since I avoid driving in the snow and ice, my family spends lots of time indoors playing games.  Let’s see what the EtsyChai Team has to say about games:

Board games are always a big hit.  Have you played Scrabble lately?   
         

“When I was growing up, we had neighborhood Monopoly games. To keep the games going, when someone ran out of money, they were allowed to write "checks." We also made additional denominations of money and additional houses and hotels. Sometimes the games lasted a week!”
--Shelley of gratitudejewelry.etsy & poemweave.etsy

Playing with dolls, taking them on adventures, or putting on puppet shows kept my kids busy during many winter days when they were small!  Now I use them in my classroom and the kids always like it when they come out.  Check out these from haleystudio.etsy:
           

What about relaxing, doing some knitting or crochet while watching the kids play a game or two?  Haleystudio.etsy also has some great handspun yarns:

“We love playing games, especially with our kids (who are now grown and gone -- SNIFF!). ….We used to play Dictionary. One person finds a word nobody knows. Then everyone else writes down what they imagined might be the definition on a piece of paper while the person who selected the word copies the actual definition. Then all the definitions are read by the person who chose the word and you go around the circle with each person saying which definition they think is the real one. If you guess the real definition, you get a point. If someone chooses your made up definition YOU get a point.
Of course, in the winter, games were always accompanied by hot chocolate (Mexican type) and some sort of comfort food such as home made chocolate chip cookies.   --April of agru.etsy & surlespointe.etsy

And if it’s not snowy where you live, you can always wrap yourself in this “Snow White Ruffled Scarf” from blazingneedles.etsy.com:

Is it winter where you live?  What do you do when you’re stuck inside the house?

----
Tammy
http://www.tamdoll.etsy.com
http://tamdoll.blogspot.com

The Games of Chanukah

The dreidel (or sevivon) is, probably, the most familiar symbol of Chanukah. It’s a four-sided spinning top with a Hebrew letter on each side. The letters are an acronym for the Hebrew words: נס גדול היה שם or “nes gadol haya sham” (a great miracle happened there), which refers to the miracle of the oil. In Israel, the acronym changes a bit to read נס גדול היה פה or “nes gadol haya po” (a great miracle happened here).

A popular belief is the dreidel game commemorates a game devised by the Jews to camouflage the fact that they were studying Torah, a practice that was outlawed by Greeks. Jews would gather in caves to study, posting a lookout to alert the group to the presence of Greek soldiers. If soldiers were spotted, the Jews would hide their scrolls and spin tops, so the Greeks thought they were gambling rather than breaking the law by learning.

HOW TO PLAY:

Everyone puts something into the center of the group: pennies, candy, raisins, nuts, markers, etc. Then people take turns spinning the dreidel to see what happens next.

There are two versions of the game, so you can choose the one you prefer:

• נ (Nun) -- nisht, "nothing"–nothing happens and the next player spins OR nim, "take"–the player takes one from the pot
• ג (Gimel) -- gants, "all"–the player takes the entire pot OR gib, "give"–the player puts one in the pot
• ה (Hey) -- halb, "half"–the player takes half of the pot, rounding up if there is an odd number (the same in both versions)
• ש (Shin) -- shtel ayn, "put in"–the player puts one marker in the pot OR shtil, "still" (as in "stillness")–nothing happens and the next player spins

Alternately, the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin might also represent the four kingdoms which tried to destroy us in ancient times:

N = Nebuchadnezzar = Babylon
H = Haman = Persia = Madai
G = Gog = Greece
S = Seir = Rome

 

 

 

 

 

When does the game end?

According to chabad.org The game ends when one of the following occurs: a) The platter of latkes or sufganiot is finished.
b) One of the children becomes whiny (usually upon realizing that pretty soon he/she will have no more chocolate coins remaining).
c) Mom or Dad have some urgent business to attend to.
d) The crack of dawn has arrived.

 

 

Dreidels were historically made of wood. Today you can find dreidels created in any number of materials, from wood to metal to polymer clay. Thinking of making one? Here’s a great website with some mechanical specifics.

--
April
http://agru.etsy.com/  (ceramics shop)
http://surlespointe.etsy.com/ (upcycled dance gear)

The Songs of Chanukah

There are so many songs that correspond to the holiday of Chanukah I can only offer a few of the more popular ones. I've included lyrics, often in both Hebrew and English, as well as links to online melodies to which you can listen.

Hanukkah Paperweights

Hanerot Halalu and Maoz Tzur (familiar to many as Rock of Ages) are the two generally sung immediately following the lighting of the menorah, with other songs being more casual and, many of them, such as I Have a Little Dreidel and Sevivon, Sov, Sov, Sov specifically for children.

What links them all together is the joy they express over the Jewish triumph over evil domination, an ongoing theme for many of our holidays.
Hanerot Halalu
Hanerot halalu anachnu madleekeem
Al haseem v'al hatshuot v'al hameelchamot.
Sheasita l’avoteynu bayameem hahem u'bazman hazay
Al yaday kohanecha kohanecha hak'dosheem.
V'hol sh'monas yamay Hanukah (2x)
Hanerot halalu, hanerot halalu kodesh hem.

(A candle and a flame, mirror of the light from within.
Can you see it as it flickers in the wind?
It's a star, but can't you see it now, far away?
What does it seem to say?)

Hanukkah Menorah Earrings

Maoz Tzur
Supposedly, the lyrics to this song date back to the 13th century, with the music, familiar to both Jews and Christians, possibly as far back as the 15th.

Ma'oz tzur y'shuati
L'kha na-eh l'shabei-ach
Tikon beyt t'filati
V'sham todah n'zabei-ach
L'eit tachin matbei-ach
Mitzar ha-m'nabei-ach
Az egmor b'shir mizmor
Chanukat ha-mizbei-ach
Az egmor b'shir mizmor
Chanukat ha-mizbei-ach

(Rocky Fortress of my Salvation
It is delightful to praise You
Restore my House of Prayer
And there we will give thanks with an offering
When you have prepared the slaughter
for the blaspheming foe
Then I will complete with a song of hymn
the dedication of the altar
Then I will complete with a song of hymn
the dedication of the altar)

The more familiar English words, which are NOT a literal translation of the Hebrew, are:
Rock of Ages, let our song, Praise Thy saving power
Thou amidst the raging foes, Wast our sheltering tower
Furious they assailed us, But Thine arm availed us
And thy word broke their sword, When our own strength failed us.
And thy word broke their sword, When our own strength failed us.
Mi Yimalel
I include this one, since it’s one of my favorite melodies. I often find myself humming it throughout the days of Chanukah without even realizing it.
Mi yimalel gevurot Yisrael
Otan mi yimneh?
Hein bekhol dor yakum hagibor, go-el ha-am.

Mi yimalel gevurot Yisra-el
Otan mi yimneh?
Hen bekhol dor yakum hagibor, go-el ha-am.
Sh'ma! Ba-yamim ha-heim baz'man hazeh
Maccabee moshiya u'fodeh
U'v'yameinu kol am Yisrael
Yitacheid yakum lehiga-el.

(Who can tell of the feats of Israel
Who can count them?
In every age a hero arose to save the people.
Who can tell of the feats of Israel
Who can count them?
In every age a hero arose to save the people.
Hear! In those days at this time
Maccabee saved and freed us
And in our days the whole people of Israel
Arise united to save ourselves.)

Mezuzah Case

And now for a couple of popular children’s songs. Lyrics to the rest of the listed songs can easily be found by searching online yourself.

I Have a Little Dreidel
I have a little dreidel. I made it out of clay.
When it's dry and ready, then dreidel I shall play.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, then dreidel I shall play.

It has a lovely body, with legs so short and thin.
When it gets all tired, it drops and then I win!
Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, with leg so short and thin.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, it drops and then I win!

My dreidel's always playful. It loves to dance and spin.
A happy game of dreidel, come play now let's begin.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, it loves to dance and spin.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel. Come play now let's begin.

I have a little dreidel. I made it out of clay.
When it's dry and ready, dreidel I shall play.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of clay.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, then dreidel I shall play.

Oh Chanukah, Oh Chanukah
Chanukah, Oh Chanukah
Come light the menorah
Let's have a party
We'll all dance the hora
Gather round the table, we'll have a treat
Shiny tops to play with, latkes to eat

And while we are playing
The candles are burning low
One for each night, they shed a sweet light
To remind us of days long ago

A few other songs:

Sevivon, Sov, Sov, Sov
Ner Li
Al Hanisim

Chanukah Chanukah

by April
http://agru.etsy.com/ (ceramics shop)

Please visit our team shops listed at the left of this blog. Happy Hanukkah!