Tablecloth Quilt: Label Pocket -- or -- Patshken Zikh Mit -- פּאַטשקען זיך מיט

This is a continuation of Friday's Blogger's Quilt Festival posting. To read about the quilt, go here.

The Pocket
The label for the tablecloth quilt is a pocket that holds a card with a list tht describes the photos and identifies who is in each one. The card also has my mother's name and my name on it. The button loop was made from a leftover drawstring from a pair of pajama-style pants.

The Photo
That's a 1970s photo taken by my dad. I was visting home from college. I'm surrounded by a batch of Slovenian potica. Our dear friend, Nell Simala, was teaching me how to make it. I made the yeast dough the night before and the next day, Nell came over and taught me how to stetch, fill, roll, shape, and bake the potica. It was the best we ever had because I goofed and read the recipe wrong and accidentally doubled the butter in the dough! LOL! You can see a picture of Nell and me rolling the potica in one of the blocks shown here. That photo only show about a third of the full batch; it was a huge recipe!

The Writing on the Pocket Says:
For my mother who taught me to cook and sew, who is a great cook and seamstress, and who let me patchke in her kitchen.
Love -- Mindy
1999

Patshken Zikh Mit -- פּאַטשקען זיך מיט
As I started to post about this it dawned on me that I was not exactly sure what patchke means. I always thought it had something to do with arts and crafts, because my mom would tell me how her mother loved to say (while my mom was doing craft-type projects), "Rita loves to patchkie."

I thought it meant "mess around," but just to be sure, I went looking online. Many of the online Yiddish dictionaries confirmed I was right but there's an additional judgement of wasting time. Here's what I found:

• SillyMusicYiddish Dictionary says it means "waste time; fool around when you should be doing something worthwhile like writing a parody of Cabaret."
• Bubbygram Yiddish Glossary says: "Potchki: (potch-key) experiment, dabble, mess around, play around with. "I don't really paint. I just potchki." "I was just potchki-ing around in the kitchen but it turned out pretty good."
• Online Yiddish Dictionary says: "patshken zikh mit  פּאַטשקען זיך מיט" [I believe that would be the reflexive form] means "bother with, be involved with something messy."

 I'm sure many people think quilters are doing a lot of fooling around but I beg to differ! Lucky for me, I came from a family that highly values patchkieing around!