more progress on Sara-Beth's tallit

I had sewn binding along the edges of Sara-Beth's tallit. I'm actully not sure o the fiber content, but it is a lovely black silky fabric. I sewed it on by serging the raw edges together and then topstitching with a three step zig zag. Unfortunately I had to undo the binding on one of the long sides. My eyes were really not up to the task. Luckily I remembered one of the members of the Creative Machine List mentioning how she used to use a single edge razor as a seam ripper when she was a young girl. I was able to undo the sewing and not cause any damage. This is a very big deal.

I finally got the binding sewn on properly. and I'm happy with it. Next, I turned to the corner pieces, or Pinot. There is a tradition to have the corner pieces totally blend in with the tallit and the tzitzit. I don't follow that tradition. I like to have the pinot be really wonderful to look at, so one's attention is brought to the tzitzit, which are of course the most important part of the tallit.

I like to employ a method of embellishement that I learned from the artist Bird Ross. I don't remember what she called it, but I call it crazy stitching. I completely cover a base fabric with zig zags of straight stitches. I usually use four or five different colors of thread, often metallic thread. The end result just glows. I used a scrap of striped silk ottoman as the base and I stiched using silver and gold metallic thread along with a turquoise blue cotton thread and a purple rayon decorative thread.

I think that the corners will look beautiful with the rest of the tallit.

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Connecting with the past

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sarah in nyc

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