Moving right along

 Hanoch, the man for whom I am making this tallit, is an army chaplain.  He really wanted the pinot to  echo the Jewish army chaplain stole (pictured below).

The stole isn't a tallit, but it is often worn on official chaplain business. The Christian stoles are similar but with Christian iconography. (I am not going to explain how the Christian liturgical stole is actually derived from Jewish religious dress, so the Army stole is a weird back borrowing. But that is a different topic.)

I suppose that I could have put in a million hours to replicate the embroidered insignia. I know that what I would have ended up with would have been an artistic take on the military insignia rather than the real thing. For some clients that would have been the perfect approach, but not for Hanoch.

So, uncharacteristically for me,  I commissioned  Jan Gorelick  to use her computerized embroidery machine to create the pinot for me.  The machine that Jan owns is the equivalent of a scanner and printer but instead of printing ink on paper, the output is embroidered on fabric. I am simplifying the work involved by a whole lot but, you get the idea.

 I really loved working with Jan. This is what she sent me.

I wanted to integrate the Jan's pinot into the design of the rest of the tallit. I stacked a black Petersham ribbon over a turquoise satin ribbon and embroidered it into place with a gold metallic diamond stitch. Then I added the turquoise saw-tooth stitches on either side of the Petersham ribbon.

My goal was for the Jewish and the army elements in this tallit to have a conversation with one another and not sulk at opposite corners of the room.

Below you can see the ribbon applied on the pinot. I cut down the emblems that Jan had made. so the proportions would fit the tallit better.

Yes, I am aware that I haven't finished trimming all of the loose threads.

Jan had added a simple blue eyelet.

I sewed the pinot onto the tallit with a bright green scallop stitch. I expanded and embellished the eyelet using a turquoise silk thread a slate blue rayon embroidery thread and a gold metallic thread.

And here are the pinot in place on the tallit. Your brain doesn't actually notice the bright green stitches but it just works better than using the expected blue.

I really think that this works.

The atara still needs to be completed...but with tzitzit, this is a useable tallit. A friend saw the tallit the other day. She commented that she imagined a child snuggled close to Hanoch and just taking in all of the small details during services. My friend is right. I often design for the person looking closely at every detail of a tallit and not just the viewer from across the room.

And now a follow-up form Friday's post. 

The custard did not set. It was delicious, but a sauce rather than a custard. After Shabbat, I added more tapioca starch to the mixture and cooked it for another minute or two in the microwave.