Sparks of divine light tallit-- done and delivered

When Martha met with me a few months back to begin designing her tallit she brought me a sketch she had made on the computer. She said that she had gone through an experience that caused her to think about shards of divine light. The sketch was an array of white rods on black.


Martha had also decided on a verse for her tallit.

הַמְחַדֵּשׁ בְּטוּבו בְּכָל יום תָּמִיד מַעֲשה בְרֵאשִׁית

(God ) renews in His goodness each day, always, the act of creation

The line comes from the morning prayers. That line would be the text on the atara/neckband.

We had decided on using a back silk matka for the tallit. The matka drapes like wool but it's silk. I had begun my work by stitching Martha's vision of sparks of the divine.

This is a mix of machine and hand work.  I made two stripes of this sort of work that needed to be joined to the main body of the tallit.

Most tallit makers who applique or sew their tallitot together (as opposed to the design being woven in) leave the underside of the tallit blank. A tallit is used in a dynamic way. You drape it over your shoulders and then flip or fold the outer edges back over your shoulders. Both sides of the tallit are visible. It is important to me that both sides of the tallit are striped.

I planned on adding a wide ribbon to cover the seams on the wrong side. I stacked two ribbons and began building up the design.

 Eventually, the ribbons looked like this.

And for my sewing friends- I fused the ribbon into place before stitching it into place.  In case you were wondering, just fusing the ribbon in place is probably not a good long lasting option. A tallit Is manipulated too much while being worn for the fuse-able tape to be sufficient.

Martha and I decided that including ALL of the text on the atara was probably a bit much. We decided to leave off the last clause " the act of creation". I  hoped that the atara and the tallit itself would imply the rest of the verse.

I had some wonderful unbleached raw silk that had been woven with threads of silver and gold in my stash. I wondered how it would take dye.

Actually, it took the dye really well. 

I thought that since the fabric was so busy, simply painting the text onto the fabric wouldn't work. I needed to embroider the letters.

First I added a bit of the divine light of creation using a mix of machine and hand stitching

There are many, many ways to transfer text to fabric. I used a method that works for me. 

I calligraphed the text onto paper. I then traced my calligraphy onto tracing paper. I flipped the tracing paper over and then traced my mirror image letters onto sheer silk gazar. Then, I basted the silk onto the back of the silk. I outlined the letters from the back of the fabric and then filled in with chain stitching.

 Why yes, that is time consuming. It isn't crazy making though.

 I also alternated the hand embroidery with other tallit making tasks so I didn't get cranky.

Eventually, the task was completed.

I edged the atara with ribbon machine embroidered to look like more sparks of the divine.

I painted the text on the corner pieces. I used a marker- cap dipped in chalk to mark the center of the circle. I tried the curve the lettering around the center circle. These letters later got outlined, because letters just look better outlined.  Once the corner pieces were lined and sewn into place I

added the eyelets.

As you can probably figure out by this point, I put a whole lot of thought into this talllit.

Each element works on its own but also works in the context of the whole piece.

Martha picked up the tallit today.   I think she was as pleased as I was.