Creating an ocean and a summer dress

 The meals were eaten. The shofar was blown and now it is time to squeeze in as much work as I can before we leave for Israel to visit our son--right after Yom Kippur.

A few weeks ago I met with a new client. Bonnie grew up on the coast of southern Massachusetts and now lives just north of Boston on the sea. Bonnie is the daughter of someone who ran a textile mill so fabric is in her bones. 

When we met she realized that she wanted the stripes on the tallit to look like the ocean of her childhood home. While the body of Bonnie's tallit would be made out of a lovely raw silk, the stripes would be painted on a smooth faced silk.

I felt fortunate when I found a length of super heavyweight silk charmeuse that was left over from a tallit I had made a while back. Before I began painting, I spent a long, long time looking at images of the ocean off the coast of southern Massachusetts, actually the beach I went to most often as a child. When the colors were set in my head I got to work.

I pleated the silk and bound it using rubber bands. I then began applying the dye. Here is the silk bundle dyed and mostly dry.

I couldn't open the fabric until it was completely dry.

When I opened the fabric bundle, it looked like this.

I know, it doesn't look that impressive but I wanted the dark lines of color as the base layer of color.

I loaded up watered down fabric dyes into small spray bottles and began spraying dye onto the the silk.

This is getting closer to what I wanted. But I kept going.

After more layers of  droplets of color you can almost get the sense of sunlight on the ocean.

The  darker bits give the sense of  the movement of the waves without getting too literal.

I pulled a thread of the raw silk that will be the main body of the tallit so I could precisely cut it to size. 

I edged the silk with the serger so it doesn't unravel. I will see how much of this tallit I can get done before I leave.

 Here you see the painted silk on top of the  raw silk.

I had been so crazed with work that I hadn't focused very much on our Israel travels.  I finally checked the extended forecast and realized that it will be hot and since we are staying in Ashkelon, likely muggy as well.  I had planned to just take a bunch of knit dresses. But given that it will be in the mid 80s I realized that I would need another woven cotton dress.

I poked around in my stash and found a Marimekko bed-skirt that had part of the treasure trove of excellent fabrics that my pal Alix had given me from her late mother's home. I unpicked the hems and made myself a new hot weather dress. Here it is unbelted.

 I will probably wear it belted.

I had used this dress as my pattern. 

The black and white Marimekko print was based on my take on this  Norma Kamali dress.

This had been my take on the brilliantly cut Norma Kamali dress.  

When I want a dress in this shape I just fold one of the dresses based on this shape in 1/4s and lay it on top of fabric that is folded in 1/4s , cut around the dress and stitch it up. The sequin dress is staying home on this trip.

Hopefully I can get both more sewing done before I leave town.