The Holidays are over, work can get done

 A couple of posts ago I wrote about restoring the challah cover I had given to my sister. When I wrote the post I was only partially done. I had cut away the rotted silk, found a good replacement, (the reverse of a red jacquard weave upholstery fabric),  had stitched the center panel with the lettering to the new and stronger fabric, and covered the join with a braid that I had embroidered.

My next task was to stitch the Chinese brocade to the upholstery fabric and to cover that raw edge. 

One might ask why I didn't just disassemble the whole challah cover. Brocade is incredibly shreddy fabric. If I unpicked the brocade border and tried to reassemble the entire challah cover the process of unpicking would likely leave me with shredded bits of brocade that would have become much smaller during the tedious job of un-sewing.

I carefully placed the upholstery fabric into position  (in the photo above it is just slightly skewed). I basted everything into position using a strip of fusible hem tape to hold everything in place. I needed to create a slightly wider ribbon because the ugly messy bits (shreddy silk shantung and shreddy Chinese brocade) were just a bit wider.

I rummaged through my stash to find something that would work.

I used the same salmon-colored feather stitch over the navy section of the military braid. I then zigzagged the military braid onto olive green twill tape using a blue silk thread. The blue picks up the blue foliage on the brocade. I stitched the new ribbon onto the challah cover using a copper thread because I had used copper thread on the original challah cover and some of that stitching is still visible.

I then covered the existing binding with a purple grosgrain ribbon that I stitched  to go with all of the other elements in the challah cover.

Why, yes, this was a huge amount of work.

I also finished a tallit that was a last-minute request. This isn't my favorite way to work but this was for a family I have worked with for many years. 

This tallit is a surprise for the bat mitzvah girl. her bat mitzvah is on Parashat Noah. The bat-mitzvah girl and her sister designed the invitation using an art app that created something that looked like abstracted water droplets

on a pane of glass in teal. My job was to create that look in painted silk. I built up the colors on the silk over several days, setting the color after each session and washing out all of the excess dye.

The bat mitzvah girl's mother said that her daughter had sophisticated taste. I thought about that as I got ready to make the corner pieces/pinot.  Rather than putting rainbows or a dove on the pinot i decided to go with an olive branch.

I searched google Images for olive branches. I drew an olive branch with a few olives onto a piece of cardstock, actually a bit of a Shanah Tovah card. I then used my craft knife to cut out the drawing so I could use it as a stencil.

I used oil paint sticks and a stiff brush to transfer the pigment to the silk.  I had dyed the silk for a tallit project several years ago. I layered colors to get the kind of color depth I was looking for.

I love the clean edges you get with a stencil.

 I lined each of the corner pieces and sewed them onto the tallit.

 

I then had to make the eyelets. I wanted to have the color of the stitching work with both the tallit and the pinot.

I chose these three colors of thread. Seen on the spools they don't look very harmonious. However once worked they will look beautiful together.

A few people have asked me for an eyelet tutorial. So here it is.

I mark the spot where the eyelet needs to be with chalk marked on top of an eraser. After I mark the spot I cut an X using a craft knife.

I then straight-stitch into the opening going all the way around the hole.

After I complete the straight stitching I then begin to buttonhole stitch around the hole.

This is the eyelet with the buttonhole stitching complete.

I have seen some eyelets made with just the straight stitching. I find them somewhat lacking in elegance. If you only use the buttonhole stitch it can be difficult to create a pretty even hole. Using both sets of stitches makes it easy to create a pretty eyelet.

Here is the completed tallit (except for the tzitzit).