Finished!

My husband and I leave town next week for a few days to visit his sister and her family. There was work that I just had to get done before I left.  (Suppose the plane crashes?)

Today I finished appliqueing all of the celestial elements onto the blue base.

I thought that it would be a nice touch to line the pillowcase. Aside from giving the whole thing a bit more structure, it would also hide the wrong side of the appliques. It wasn't terrible looking but it isn't something you would want to show company.

I wanted to use a fine smooth cotton. I found some red cotton batiste in my stash. I thought it was perfect. ( there are verses in the Brit Milah ceremony that reference blood as a symbol of life).

You can see a bit of the lining peeking out from the edges before I sewed up the pillowcase and added the hem edge.  I realized today that all of the pillowcases I have been making in spurts over the years to amuse myself was actually a good use of time. You never know when an arcane bit of knowledge comes in handy.

Before I assembled the pillow I entertained the thought of decorating the hem with hand embroidered stars. My eye then fell on the ribbon I had made for the tallit. I realized that it was perfect. 

If you are a sewing geek you can read the next paragraph, otherwise, feel free to skip it.  In order to create a tidy seam inside the pillowcase, I sewed the hem bit onto the pillowcase with the raw edges to the right side of the pillowcase. I then covered the seam with the ribbon.  You can see both the bright red lining and the tidy seam inside below.

Here are detail shots of some of the celestial elements.

This is the text in the background.

The soon to be grandmother of this soon to be born baby and I know one another from when we were both young single women in New York. Our daughters attended elementary school together.  We travel in different but intersecting orbits. There is somethign quite wonderful about those moments when we and our lives intersect.