Revisiting an old piece

In 2011, Hilary gave me the honor of making a tallit out of old family textiles.
you can read about both starting Hilary's tallit as well as completing Hilary's tallit.

When I made this tallit I was concerned about how much life was left in the over 100-year-old silk that had been Hilary's great- grandfather's tallit.

Last night Hilary brought me the tallit in hopes that I could extend the life of the tallit a bit.

This is what arrived to my house last night (along with Hilary and her delightful kids who are no longer little kids but are now delightful adolescents).

The 120-year-old silk is shredding. I assume that none of us will be looking all that fresh and perky at 120 years old either.

This tallit was created to mark the end of what Hilary had called "the death years". She had been for a hard period dealt with the decline and death of several loved ones who are represented in this tallit. If the black stripes were just a black and white striped silk I would have no issue with swapping it out for something new. But this fabric comes from her great-grandfather's tallit and was found in her grandmother's basement. This tallit is about loss and memory. I needed to figure out how to keep the old tallit visible while strengthing it.

Hilary came to me with this tallit while I was going through my own death years. Fittingly, our meeting yesterday took place on my mother's birthday.

I have preserved other old tallitot with a sandwich of nylon netting above and below the fragile fabric. I wondered if a layer of silk gazar might do the trick as well.

My hours spent mending my son's tattered jeans made me think that I could stitch the layers of silk and netting together with silk thread. I was curious if I could elevate this whole project by using not nylon tulle but silk tulle.

Hilary and I discussed some of the possible options last night. This project also has a budget which means that I can't do endless time-consuming handwork on this repair.

Hilary loved the look of hand mending. she didn't love the nylon tulle but realized that it may be the best choice.

Nylon tulle is really inexpensive. Silk tulle costs about $100 per yard. Today I went to the garment district in search of the right materials for this restoration.

I found silk tulle and frankly, I hated it for this project. It was too thick, it just looked wrong.

I was able to find silk thread, in a place called, appropriately enough, Sil-Thread. I

bought the silk in two weights, in a lightweight that can be used in a sewing machine and in a heavier weight thread that can be sewn by hand.

I found the tulle here at Pacific trimming.

Here is the tulle over the tallit.

My plan is to stitch the black silk thread over the black silk stripes and the ivory thread over the ivory stripes. I want to leave as much of the original silk visible as possible. My plan is to have most of the work done by hand but to add some hand stitching over the machine work. I expect to blanket stitch over the edge of the tallit to keep the feel of the tallit soft when it is worn.

I feel grateful to be entrusted with family treasures. I look forward to getting back to work on this special tallit.

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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