No rest for the weary

Ari’s tallit is boxed up and has been picked up by Fed-Ex. That means that I need to get serious about Ella’s tallit.

Ella loved how the texts around tallit talked about כנף. You could translate the word כנף as corner, or your could translate it as wing. The texts around putting on a tallit use it both ways.

Ella wants the atara/neckband on this tallit to look like wings. One of the texts Ella particularly liked that talks about the protection of God’s wings is the השכיבנו.

The prayer was inserted into the evening service during a time when many synagogues were located outside of town. Walking home after evening services was not so safe . The paragraph was inserted so latecomers could catch up to the others and so that the attendees could walk home together in a group. The prayer itself asks for God’s protection. it evokes the image of God’s sukkah as well as God’s wings.

Ella and I spoke about having the lines of text serve as the stripe section of her tallit. It seemed to me that since the השכיבנו is an evening prayer, it made sense to me to use morning prayers on the other side of the tallit.

We flipped to the front of the prayer book together. The first morning prayer is מודה אני a morning prayer of thanksgiving for waking up. Ella was excited. She knew that prayer well, and loved it.

Ella wanted her tallit to be white. She fell in love with silk charneuse. I had some really nice quality 18mm charmeuse. Ella’s mother suggested that we splurge and go for the heavier 38mm charmeuse.

Silk is categorized by weight or momme’s ( mm) . a lightweight chiffon is probably 4 mm. The china silk you used in silk painting class was probably 8mm. a nice quality charmeuse is probably 18 or 24mm.

I ordered the silk. It arrived. It was so rich I wanted to lick it. I didn’t. I do have some self control.

I was however nervous about cutting it. I cut the length for the tallit the other day. Today I forced myself to cut the panels for the lettering.

Today, everything went well.

Here is השכיבנו. Once again my camera fails me, the letters are a dark and light silver, not grey.

And here is it’s day time partner.

The entire tallit will be white and silver. I think I will outline the letters to further define them.

I am not cooking this week. We have been invited to friends’ for Shabbat dinner. I can’t remember the last time we had invitations two weeks in a row. this feels really luxurious.

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