Ella's corners

When Ella and I first met to discuss her tallit, we had thought that the verse on the atara/neckband would be " And I will increase your offspring, like the stars of the sky."  As we refined the design, we all realized that that text from her Torah reading, would serve better on the corner pieces. We decided that each corner would hold one ( or two ) words, so when Ella gathers the fringed corners in her hands, as we do, during services, the entire verse would appear complete in her hands.

Often, when I do text on pinot/corner pieces, I use a short verse of maybe three or four words. When I do that, I paint each word along one edge of the corner. If I do it correctly, the letters interlock and just look awfully cute. One word on each corner presented a bit of a design challenge. I had realized too late, while working on a previous tallit that the words would look best written in a tight circle around the eyelet that will be in the center of the corner piece.

I tried to think about a good way to temporarily mark that center eyelet. I tried to press a fat crayon into a gold stamp pad, but I was unable to see the mark. I then remembered the large pieces of sidewalk chalk left over from my oldest son's  fifth birthday party. I pressed the chalk into the center of each  corner piece and painted the letters. Then I added stars with a brush.

We used that bucket of sidewalk chalk once or twice  in the park. I have, however used the chalk from that bucket over and over again to mark my sewing. If I were truly an organized person, I would have tossed that chalk years ago.  I'm glad though, to have had exactly the right tool for the job.