I do actually sew

Between Passover and managing to get through Covid-19 I haven't focused my writing in this blog on sewing, either for work, or for pleasure, in a really long time. That doesn't mean that work hasn't been going on, although to be honest,  I have been less productive lately. Nevertheless, despite working with three other adults in the house three of whom like to work in the same space (my usual work space) it hasn't been all that easy.

Max's bar-mitzvah had been rescheduled from May to November. It was time to pull out his tallit and see what still needed to be done.

I wasn't thrilled with the letters I had embroidered for his pinot/corner pieces.

 

They are a bit chunky and clunky looking.They really do need a border to help clean them up.

 The line of gold stitching helps. Unfortunately, I was having trouble focusing on the job. I was as distracted and fidgety doing the line of gold embroidery as an ants-in-the pants elementary school kid. When I am working that badly there is only one solution for me. I need to make clothes. There is something about making something fast that lets me get back to the close and careful work of tallit making.

I began going through my Japanese sewing books as a distraction. 

The premise of this book is that you can make cool and arty clothes by cutting up and combining t-shirts and sweat shirts and men's dress shirts. The results are a mixed bag. Some fall completely into the weird camp and others are kind of great. As I reread the book I remembered a couple of cashmere shells that I owned but never wear.

This tunic seemed easy enough to make with the cashmere shells.

I had one red sleeveless shell and one grey short sleeved shell. They were both size small.

The result looked not particularly flattering as a short open fronted shrug. So, I sewed up the front and looped the top edges through one another. I also added a grey sleeve to the red sleeveless side.  It did the trick. I made a wearable garment and I was ready to get back to Max's tallit.

Max's tallit needs ribbons to incorporate into the stripes. I had already embroidered the bronze triangles on the slate grey ribbon. 

Today I layered a darker blue wider ribbon under the slate blue ribbon and attached the two ribbons together with the two rows of wide silver scallops stitches.  I liked where this was going but I needed to add a bit more blue.

I don't even know if you will consciously see the blue embroidery from two feet away,but it will work better in the finished piece. It feels good to be making progress.

I'm also going to post a piece that isn't sewing at all but crocheting. A friend was having her first baby. I started this baby blanket as soon as I heard that she was pregnant.

The technique was a new one for me. I made a whole bunch of circles and then basted them to a backing and then crochet all of the circles together. You then cut away the backing.

This project reminded me of the free wheeling craft projects of the early and mid 1970's.

The blanket has been received so I can now post about it. I loved working on this, although there were moments when I didn't know if it looked like it was made by a crazy person.

I'm looking forward to doing more work on Max's tallit.