Design Opportunities

Those of us who sew will often call errors “design opportunities”. Yesterday, was a design opportunity day. I have been working on Linda’s tallit for a while. Mostly I have been working on the stripes. Linda was coming by yesterday with the pinot, corner pieces, and the atara, neckband that she is receiving from her rabbinical school. I thought that it would be nice if Linda could see her tallit assembled.

I had already measured out the fabric for the tallit ad serged the raw edges. The stripes were being inserted, rather than being appliqued. So I had to cut off the equivalent of the width of the stripes from the fabric I was using for the body of the tallit.

That accomplished, I was about to cut the remaining fabric in half and then sew those strips to the other side of the stripes. Well, I was fairly sleep deprived, and cut the remaining fabric going the wrong way. Linda was showing up in 15 minutes. The fabric is from the early ‘90’s and is no longer being manufactured. I had bought the end of a bolt.
Here it is, you can see what a lovely silk it is.

I do have several lovely white silks. I thought that I would have Linda select one of the other white silks to finish off her tallit.

Linda showed up. I showed her what I had accomplished. She was really happy. Then I showed her how I had messed up. I showed Linda the alternative fabrics, and Linda made, what I thought was an excellent choice. A silk tussah herringbone that looked really nice with the base fabric.
But as we talked, I noticed the metallic/silk shantung that I was planning to use to reline Linda’s other tallit. I suggested that I do a series of stripes in the metallic going perpendicular to the first set of stripes. It would look deliberate, rather than like a pathetic fix. Linda loved the idea. As my sewing friends say, it was a design opportunity, well taken. Many thanks to my youngest for being willing to be my model.

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sarah in nyc

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