It's All Connected

 All of us are familiar with the image of the country bumpkin coming to the big city and being overwhelmed by the sight of all of the tall buildings and the bustling crowds.I have been living in the big city since 1982 and I find that again and again what draws my eye are bits of nature hiding amid the concrete and steel.

The other day, my husband and I went together to take care of some household chores just out of the neighborhood.  I reminded myself of our oldest who  learned how to read letters and numbers at an obscenely early age and every time we went out she had to stop to name every number and letter in every sign in every window along Broadway. Going a block or two could take most of an hour. I kept having to stop to take pictures.

The day was one of those days when the sky is deeply almost slate grey and the sun is shining at the same time. It was the perfect day for dramatic light shining through the last of the leaves still clinging to the branches.

The next day, I had to go downtown to pick up ribbon for a tallit for Miles. I left my house later in the afternoon.

The clouds were reflecting the late afternoon light.

As I walked to the subway, I kept stopping to take photos.

Although sometimes it feels like time stands still while you are on the subway, clearly the planet had kept turning while I was underground and we had reached a different point in the sunset during my time underground.

I went into Pacific Trimming to buy the blue ribbons that I needed for Miles' tallit and stopped to admire some of the more unusual zippers in their stock.

I had never seen the scalloped zipper tapes before. I loved the zippers edged with patterned twill. 

These metal toothed zippers with vinyl tape is new for me too. Of course I could think of several ways to use these zippers but I didn't buy any zippers but only purchased what I actually needed--various widths of blue petersham ribbon.

I am actively working on a tallit for Miles, a bar mitzvah boy who is the great nephew of my dear Tanta Marcia. The tallit that he wants is a fairly straightforward one of embellished ribbon on raw silk. but while I have bengun that pbusical work on his tallit, in my head I am working out how to actually make Nini's Nova Scotia themed tallit.

Nini had sent me a series of photos she had taken during her summer in Nova Scotia.

Nini is a wonderful photographer.

I keep thinking about how to incorporate some of the visual elements of these photos into the tallit

Normally the design of tallit  stripes is just horizontal.

I am starting to think that I need to work in the diagonals of the treeline reflecting in the water into the stripes.

So I am multitasking.

Miles' tallit is 38 inches wide. I need to create 76 inches of each stripe. Each stripe starts out relatively plain and then I get to work.

This is what I accomplished yesterday.

This blue and gold striped ribbon now has a row of turquoise diamonds running down the center stripe.

Plain blue petersham topped with a thin striped satin ribbon that has been secured with gold embroidery.

Here a lighter blue petersham has been topped by a thinner white petersham  that has been attached with a dark blue ogee shaped stitch, the white ribbon is topped by a navy blue and gold braid that is secured with gold embroidery.

I am still not done with this ribbon but you can see three passes of embroidery on it so far.

A different kind of layering took place with this bread that was rolled with a thin layer of poppy seeds. You see it here on a plate after being toasted. Unfortunately I can't share how good it smelled toasted.

And yesterday, the sky was no longer that exciting slate grey with the sun transforming the light into something visually compelling but is the flat grey that will be present for much of the coming  cold  months.