Adam’s Tallit–A love story

While it’s always lovely to make a tallit with a bar-mitzvah child, making a tallit with an adult often reflects the adult’s more complicated life. This was certainly true with Adam and his tallit.

Adam is a really straightforward kind of a man. It’s always nice to work with such a client. Adam was very clear about a few things. First of all,he is an atheist. He wanted me to be very clear about that. Despite being an atheist, he goes to morning services daily. He began going out of a sense of love and obligation to his mother who had died, and then out of a sense of obligation to his community who had supported him during his year of mourning.

Adam is also severely color blind. In case you haven’t noticed, I am a color girl. I love color.

When Adam met with me he brought the grey shantung shawl that his wife wore at their wedding. We both felt strongly that being wrapped up in this symbol of their love was perfect.

Next we had to choose colors for the tallit. When Adam met with me I had all of the silks for Linda’s tallit http://sewnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/05/lindas-tallit-complete.html . Adam chose this dark turquoise for the stripes on his tallit. I don’t quite understand how Adam sees color but he had very clear likes and dislikes from the range of silk shantungs.

Adam at first didn’t want any text on his tallit, but as we spoke he realized that he did want text. He wanted the tallit to connect him both to his mother ad to his son.
I loved making this tallit. I loved how this tallit made for an atheist is relly about the love he feels for his mother, his wife and his son.

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