Starting an atara

For the past few days, I have been designing an atara with a client by email. This isn't the ideal way to go about designing a piece. I prefer the instantaneous feedback you get with a face to face meeting. I am a brainstorming kind of a girl and  my favorite client meetings have me and my client tossing and rejecting ideas until we together hit on the right idea to pursue.

My client and I had decided on the text last year but I was just given the go-ahead to begin this assignment.

This is the text:

ח  בְּהִתְעַטֵּף עָלַי נַפְשִׁי, אֶת-יְהוָה  

It is a verse fragment of verse 8 Chapter 2 of the book of Jonah. Here a the translation of the complete verse:

When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thy holy temple.

The word that is translated as 'fainted' has an additional meaning in Hebrew it also means wrapped up and is the verb used to describe donning a tallit. This is a text I love to use on an atara, because it seems to me to be the perfect verse to think about as you put on your tallit.

My client mentioned to me last summer that he would love to use this verse on his atara. He seemed surprised that I think of it as my go-to atara verse.

Our email discussions have been about design. After a few back and forths, I understood what my client wanted, something fairly simple white on white.

The tricky thing is how to transfer the text that is to be embroidered in white onto white silk. I calligraphed the text onto tracing paper flipped it over, glued it to the back of the atara and stitched the outlines of the letters from the back.

The spray on adhesive I used blobbed the ink a bit.  My plan is to remove the paper guide as soon as possible to avoid any leakage on the face fabric.

You can see that had made some progress outlining the letters. you can see that my outlines are not perfect. That's fine, they are guidelines for me and will not be visible when I am done.

If you have sharp eyes you will see that I underlined this atara with silk shantung. The face fabric is a heavy silk satin. I had bought it as a remnant about 15 years ago. The regular price for this silk was about $80 per yard. I did not pay $80 per yard, I probably paid about a tenth of that price. It is beautiful to work with.  

I ripped away the paper.

Then I began chain stitching the letters.

As I type this post I am about halfway done with the embroidery.

Put on your seatbelts, I am about to change topics. ( My husband finds that my tendency to switch topics without warning to be a bit disconcerting, so that was your warning.)

Earlier this week we met dear friends of my husband's for dinner. One of the really delightful surprised about city life are the subway stations that exit into office buildings.

When I got out of the subway at 28th and Park I exited through this.

It is such a glorious way to emerge from underground.

We then waiting for our friends on this corner and went for an excellent kosher Indian dinner.  It was at Pongal, since you asked. Yes, it is worth a visit.