Further work on the Spirit of the Divine Mantle

I have been working away on Benjy's Torah mantle.

When you are close to the mantle you can see the little glints of light from the metallic embroidery threads. However, from far away that swoopy Divine spirit shape just looks like fog. ( Yes, dear reader, I do see that I haven't quite finished chain stitching around all of the edges of the letters.)

A Torah mantle has to look good from close up it also has to look fabulous from the very back of the room. I have discovered over time that if I add a sprinkling of glass beads to a Torah mantle the beads will catch the light and send it to the very back of the room. I always love when one of my mantles twinkles to the very back row of the synagogue.

I started stitching beads along the lines of embroidery threads.

I kept checking my work by holding the mantle up to a mirror in a room with low light. Eventually, it looks like sparks are shooting out of that misty shape. That is exactly what I am going for.

Last night, as I was sleeping I realized that I needed to add the myrtle branch that will be holding the dedication. I kept thinking about possible ways to add that myrtle branch, applique, embroidery... I woke up feeling anxious about the next step.

While I was mulling methods, I chalked out the myrtle branch on the velvet and took a hard look at it. The solution to my problem was soon obvious. I used oil paint sticks to color in the greenery.

You can still see the chalked outlines. Once the color has been set I will embroidery around all of the leaves and the branch.

Once again, the sheen of the velvet, the sparkle of the embroidery threads, and the beads are too much for my camera to process.

The foliage is less garish and the velvet is a darker richer blue in real life.

If I were a better blogger I would have taken more photos as I was building up each layer of color.

My next challenge is finding the wooden form for the top of the mantle. My usual source went out of business three years ago. this is a smallish Torah so I am nervous about just measuring one from my synagogue.

Maybe the solution will occur to me when I am sleeping tonight or perhaps one of you will have a brilliant idea to share with me.

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