נוטה שמים כיריעה

I am just beginning work on a tallit for Y. I know her parents from before they got married. Y’s grandmother died just a few months ago. Y was close to her grandmother. We may incorporate some textiles that had belonged to Y’s grandmother into the tallit.

Y is quiet and thoughtful. She’s one of those kids who needs time to think things over. because she needs time to process ideas and to think about what it is that she really wants , we divided our design session into two parts.

Y is a small kid. Probably, like her mother she will reach her full height once she is in her early 20’s. At this moment Y deals with both the gifts and difficulties of being much smaller than most of her contemporaries. On the one hand, strangers tend to think that she is brilliant. On the difficult side of the scale she looks far younger than her peers.

Y chose the verse

“( God) stretches out the heavens like a curtain”

from the Psalm we recite when we put on the tallit for her atara/neckband. She wanted the stripes look like sky with pomegranates and leaves strewn about. Yesterday, I began establishing the sky.

Y chose silk tussah for her tallit. I cut it to be as large as it could possibly be and fit her now. the plan is to add two stripes to expand the tallit when Y reaches her full height.

Today I painted pomegranates. First I painted the basic shape.

Then I began shading the fruits.

I then added some leaves.

Then a bit more shading and some gold highlights.

The colors have to cure for a bit and then I will press them to make them permanent.

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sarah in nyc

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