Creating the sky and the land and preparing to create the ocean

 First a couple of suggestions of excellent things to read.

Pity the Barefoot Pigeon by Ian Frazier is one of those gorgeous pieces of New Yorker writing that just never grows old.

I thought about the article as  I passed the pigeons patrolling 96th street as they so often do.  My husband always warns me not to stand under the pigeons' favorite perch when I cross 96th street to go to the subway.

The pigeons also patrol the area in front of the former public restrooms which are now a community art space. (Yes, the plumbing has all been removed.)

I have been listening to this 

excellent book as I have been working away on Nini's tallit. You can go visit the author's page and preview some of the book. I highly recommend it to any of my fellow textile geeks as well as to anyone who is interested in economic history. The book has been an excellent companion as I have been working away.

Much of the design work of this tallit has taken place on Facebook Messenger. I wanted to double check with Nini about the text for the atara. She sent me these two verses from the book of Chronicles 16.32-33.

יִרְעַ֤ם הַיָּם֙ וּמְלוֹא֔וֹ יַעֲלֹ֥ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֖ה וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁר־בּֽוֹ׃        

Let the sea and all within it thunder,

the fields and everything in them exult;

אָ֥ז יְרַנְּנ֖וּ עֲצֵ֣י הַיָּ֑עַר מִלִּפְנֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה כִּי־בָ֖א לִשְׁפּ֥וֹט אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃        

then shall all the trees of the forest shout for joy

at the presence of the LORD,

for He is coming to rule the earth.

So, most of the book of Chronicles is something like reading a biblical phone book,  "This guy was king for x many years and fought this and that king and then he died".   When you read the book of Samuel or Judges over and over again you read, "this was written up in the book of Chronicles." It wasn't a biblical book that I had ever studied. Several years ago i thought that I may as well read it. 

Most of the TWO volumes are as boring as watching paint dry but  Chapter 16 has a gorgeous poem written by King David. it's as if you opened up the yellow pages only to discover a couple of pages of the most beautiful poetry and then more listings for exterminators, house painters and locksmiths.

That particular poem is one of my favorites and has been incorporated into the morning services. Nini didn't want every word of the two verses and wondered if I were open to the idea of adding ellipses between the to chunks of text.

I thought that perhaps I could manage the same idea using two curves of text so the viewer would realize that there was a break between the phrases. I took a moment and made a little watercolor sketch of my plan and texted the photo back to Nini.

Nini loved the idea. Now I had the job of translating the watercolor on paper into fabric.

I found a bit of navy blue silk noil in my stash.  I chalked out the curves. I then wanted to begin on the sky above the water on the right hand side.

I thought that I could couch the fancy hand dyed silk embroidery threads onto the navy silk to create the sense of sky.

The embroidery silk is variegated. I am also varying the colors of the threads that I am using to couch the embroidery threads.

Bit by bit, I am laying down the sky.

Creating the earth and the trees was fairly easy.

That's the same green and navy silk tweed as I had used to create the forest strip. I used my machine's blanket stitch to create a bit of a sense of forest.

I am going to applique the curve of the sea using silk that I have dyed to look like the sea. I was trying to figure out how to cut exactly the sight shape.I am so grateful for all of the old craft books that I read as a child. A really old method just bubbled up out of my deepest memory.

I lay the atara onto a folded tablecloth-- so things were nicely padded beneath the atara. I lay a sheet of newspaper underneath the atara.

 I then used a fat-tipped needle and pricked holes through the edges of what will be the sea. I cut along the holes that I had made. Now I have a cutting pattern for the sea. Easy peasy!, (Once I had figured out what to do).

 I have already attached one stripe to the back of the tallit.

This ocean stripe covers the underside of the fog embroidery. Oil paint stick fog hovers above the water. Fog is essential to the Nova Scotia experience.

I feel good. All of the bits that I have been working away at are finally coming together. Soon the tallit won't just exist in my head but will be a real object that will surround Nini while she is at prayer.