Avoiding Procrastination

Sometimes working on a tallit can have terrifying parts. Ella chose a relatively expensive silk. It’s delicious to touch. On the other hand, the fact that it is so blindingly white means that there is little room for my errors to hide. Because it is relatively expensive, I have just enough to make the tallit. there isn’t margin for error.  When I was much younger these sorts of large multi part tasks used to terrify me into paralysis. When I was in my early 30’s I figured out a way around that paralysis. I work on the least scary part of the job, even if it makes no sense  from the point of view of efficient work.

I am supposed to quilt wings for the atara/neckband.  rather than work on that, I decided to work on the pinot/corner pieces. They are supposed to look like clouds.

Two layers of flannel back the silk and I stitched away with silver metallic thread.

This piece will be cut into smaller squares. I had thought that each square could suggest a segment of a cloud.

 

The quilting reminds me of a variety of quilting done in the 1970’s in pink nylon satin.

 

Clearly I think that this is a classier version of that sort of quilting. But I like those sinuous lines.

Working on the pinot helped me to figure out how to tackle the job of the the atara.

I realized that I love the look of the quilting backed by the flannel. I had to puzzle out how to get the design onto the fabric without marking the silk. This was one of those times when handling the materials helps me to come up with the solution to my problem. I marked the design on the back of the flannel and will stitch the design from the back.

 

I stitched the base line of the wings from the back. I may be able to do the rest of the stitching from the front. I like using the swing machine as a drawing implement.