Done! Done! Done!!!

 This week has felt like finals week in college. I have been scrambling to finish three tallitot all due this week. Two of the tallitot were made for Todd and Ale whose wedding ceremony took place yesterday.

For those of you who have better things to do than read every blog entry I post here---the following is a recap of the making of Todd and Ale's tallitot.

The making of these two tallitot was a long list of small tasks that took place over several months. Todd and Ale are both deeply thoughtful people. They are both teachers and care a great deal about words. Our initial meetings were via Zoom and we were in constant email contact over the past few months.

 First I had to source linen that didn't cost $100 per yard. Luckily I had friends who were able to steer me in the right direction. I am grateful to my sewing list buddies who sent me to Fabrics-store.com and to Tallit maker Lois Gaylord who was incredibly generous with her time and experience in working with linen.

All of the linen needed to be sewn together end to end so it didn't unravel. All of the linen then needed to be washed and dried several times so that it softened up enough to not wrinkle every time it was looked at. in case you were wondering, linen is an impressive producer of ---lint. 

Todd and Ale chose to use this poem  about seeking God as the central text of their tallit. Each line of the poem was calligraphed four times- each tallit got a set of two, one for each side.

 After I calligraphed the text each letter if every word of the poem was outlined.

If you know anything about how I work you will know that the passive voice is simply a figure of speech. There was no machine or factory carefully painting each letter and then outlining alternating between a little pot of gold paint and one of copper. Working so closely with each letter with each word ( four times each) really made me fall in love with this Yehuda HaLevi poem.

After I painted all of the linen strips and set all of the colors it was time to start constructing the tallitot.

Todd's tallit is made of heavier linen and he wanted a big flip over the shoulders tallit.  That meant that ( and I hope that I don't get confusing here) both the right side and the wrong side of the tallit are visible. So the stitching used to sew down the linen strips with the words is visible on the WS of the tallit. I used decorative thread both in the needle and in the bobbin and used the pretty decorative stitches on my machine.

The dense stitching was used to sew down a linen strip on the reverse of the tallit. The less-dense stitching serves as a spacer.

When all of the strips were sewn onto Todd's tallit I edged the entire tallit with a bias binding.

Ale's tallit was constructed differently. She wanted a narrow shawl style tallit so I appliqued all of the strips and then folded the tallit in half ( wrong side out) stitched it together and turned it right-side out.

Ale is petite. All of the text strips had to be placed close together.

Amazingly---the text on Ale's tallit can be read straight across both sides of the tallit...Why yes, a bit of puffing my chest out about that.

 Next, the couple needed to figure out the texts for their pinot---corner pieces. I had suggested that they could each use it to be a romantic message to the other.

They chose

כְּשֽׁוֹשַׁנָּה֙ בֵּ֣ין הַחוֹחִ֔ים כֵּ֥ן רַעְיָתִ֖י בֵּ֥ין הַבָּנֽוֹת׃ Like a lily among thorns, 

כְּתַפּ֙וּחַ֙ בַּעֲצֵ֣י Like an apple tree among trees of the forest

for their corner pieces.

These are Todd's.

Here are Ale's

A little bit of research led me to realize that the biblical verse wasn't talking about either a European lily or a rose because neither actually existed in the land of Israel during biblical times. Instead, the verse was actually talking about an Egyptian water lily. The joy of working in 2021 is that I could also find an image of an Egyptian water lily to copy in cotton batiste. Thank you for noticing the hand-dyed yellow center of the lily and the bit of glass beading.

Since these photos show closeups of the ribbon surrounding each of the pinot, why yes, I did custom embroider them. Quilting fans might further notice that I used a modified version of the log cabin quilt on both the pinot and the atarot( the neckbands). The quilt block is a symbol of home and the red center is a symbol for the hearth at the center of the home.

Here you see the atarot, two halves of  a line of yet another Yehudah HaLevi poem

More custom ribbon, more modified log cabin blocks, and more calligraphy!

Ale's tallit was done!!! (although I am leaving out the part about having to redo her atara three times)

So Todd's tallit is also completed.

The day had arrived for them to tie their tzitzit!

First, they tried on their tallitot and admired themselves in the mirror. Then they sat down to tie their tzitzit.

As they worked they each noticed details that they hadn't noticed before.

They put on their tallitot with all of the intentional verses and blessings.

What a joy it was to work with this couple! I had the pleasure of watching their wedding remotely yesterday. Todd's tallit served as their chuppah and Ale's wrapped the couple together.