Breathing deeply

 I have three tallitot all due the same week in June. Two are for a bride and a groom, Todd, and Alejandra. The other is for Ella a bat-mitzvah girl.

Ella's tallit is made out of a herringbone woven silk noil that has a beautiful drape. Most of the tallit will be painted blue to look like the sky. The "stripe" sections of the tallit will look like the sky at sunset on one side and sunrise on the other. I had cut the silk to size and rough hemmed it. I was ready to start painting the blue sky.

I didn't want the blue dye to bleed into the sunrise and the sunset. sections of the tallit. I came up with a clever way to block the dye. I first pressed in a fold  I then put raw rice on that fold. If any dye migrated the rice would hold back the flow of the dye.

The watered-down dyes are applied in thin layers and allowed to dry and set between applications of color.

So far two layers of dye have been applied.

I have also begun constructing Todd's tallit.

These strips need to be sewn onto the white linen that was cut to size.

The work began well enough

I am adding the colored strips on both sides of the tallit, not just on the face. That way, when Todd flips the tallit over his shoulders the stripes will be on the underside as well.

The stitches used to attach the colored strips show up on the reverse of the tallit.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself...

...until I messed up.

I had placed this strip incorrectly.

Sometimes a mistake can be sort of fudged away and nudged into looking correct, even when it isn't. I had sewed the red strip to the tallit using a beautiful diamond-shaped stitch.  I hoped that a bit of skillful faking would fix the error and I kept stitching away. I then realized that all of the lovely diamond-shaped stitches would have to be taken out. 

Well, I went through all of the usual stages of realizing that I had made an error. First comes self-loathing. ("Ugh! I am such a moron!").  I didn't have the luxury of time to stay in that state very long.

I had a big and pesky job ahead of me. First I picked out all of the big and easy to unpick stitches. The photo above was taken at that stage. Every single sitch had to be carefully removed. Damaging either the calligraphed strip or the white tallit itself were not options.

I had about sixty linear inches of stitching to undo. The most important thing was for me to stay calm and not get angry at either myself or the work. So all day yesterday I picked away bit by bit at all of the stitching. there were times when the task felt like it would take forever. My work method is to keep finding the easiest bit of the task to do at each moment and work on that. After several hours, the job was done.

Nothing was ruined, not the strip and not the tallit. A bit of pressing and everything will look perfect again.

Yesterday was my birthday. My house is now filled with flowers. These are from my beloved sister-in-law.

The roses and the lilacs below come from two different friends. The vase is a gift from a dear friend who is no longer alive. The conversation taking place between three people important to me, taking place in my living room makes me very happy.

The roses alone in the vase were wonderful, but the combination is even better.

My friend Debra cash suggested that I read this post about a thirteenth centuryShavuot shopping list.

Please note that it is not dairy. We will be serving dairy for Shavuot---that shopping has mostly been done but not the cooking.

Tonight though we are eating chicken

 

that has been cooked in one of my birthday gifts, a spice rub.

We had a collection of slightly sad vegetables in the fridge.

Roasted, these vegetables are no longer sad. I think that the fig vinegar, another gift, has turned them into something wonderful to plunk on top of lettuce as an elegant salad.

I am full of many hopes and prayers for a peaceful weekend in Israel.

Shabbat Shalom!