Imperfect but pretty good

I have been working away on the tallit.

And I think it is looking pretty excellent.

I made the pinot.

Here they are both before and after tidied up and backed.  I loved how pretty the bronze metallic thread looked against the blue.

The pinot gave me an idea about how to proceed on the atara.  First I did the same metallic stitching on a strip of the same blue silk. I backed the silk with a bit of plaid flannel to stabelize it ad to give it a bit more body.

I then calligraphed the text using a wide brush and black ink onto plain paper. I turned the paper over and outline the letters with a black marker. I decided to work big to make stitching the letters a bit easier.

Then I traced the backward letters onto iron-on interfacing.

Then I stitched the letters following my backward outlines.

I was feeling really pleased with myself.

The work was progressing well.

But then I put the half done atara onto the tallit. The scale was all wrong. It was just entirely too massive for the scale of the tallit and the scale of the wearer.

So it was time to try again. This time I just painted the letters directly onto the silk. I will have to forgo the cool metallic stitchign because painting over the stitchign just won't work. I'm sad because the larger scale atara is just so pretty.

This will end up pretty but not exactly what I intended.

Shabbat starts in just a few minutes. We will eat our delicious but imperfect meal with dear friends.

Shabbat Shalom!