Back to Sewing

 Now that Passover has been put away I can give my attention to Nini's Nova Scotia inspired tallit.

The tallit is inspired by Nini's sense of the divine when she is "back home" in Nova Scotia. These beautiful photos are Nini's.

A Nova Scotia weaver created

this tartan to celebrate her home province in the 1950s. I wore skirts in this tartan from infanthood through my college years. The colors in this plaid are OF the place. Nini wanted to include the tartan in her tallit.

The other day I bound the edges of the pine tree stripes with the Nova Scotia tartan.

I love how the bit of yellow silk thread in the trees picks up the yellow stripe in the tartan.

Since I took these photos I have spent the time to pull the loose threads to the back. 

When I design a piece I have IDEAS, and to see them come together as I had imagined is just a joy.

Here are the trees  placed just above the stencilled and embroidered fog.

I know where the journey of this tallit to end up but I don't always know exactly which road I am going to take.

The embroidery looks great from the front of the tallit but looks less lovely from the back. I need to cover the underside of the embroidery. (If this piece were meant to be seen only from the front covering the back of the embroidery wouldn't be an issue). But this isn't a tablecloth but a tallit where the reverse will be visible.I have been mulling over exactly how to create a pretty backing for the embroidery.

Yesterday, I decided on a solution. I took a strip of the same pale smokey lavender silk that the rest of the tallit is made from and began stencilling oceany looking waves. I started out using pale silvery blues to echo the foggy bits on the front of the tallit.

I realized that since I am binding the tallit with the tartan then the blues need to have a better color connection to the rich colors of the tartan. Forgive me for not taking more photos during the process but perhaps to compensate for that, here is a photo of the stencils that I cut from a tissue box.

This was the result.

You can see the paler waves behind the deeper blue waves.

My "error" in color choice actually adds a bit of movement and dimension to the water.

Oil paint sticks which I used to create the waterwork wonderfully on fabric. I love how you can mix the colors directly as you work.The color is lush and there is variation in the color and little bits of metallic and iridescence just as there is when you look at water in the sunlight.

The only downside to using the oil paint sticks is that they need to dry for a couple of days before heat setting the color. While the pigments dry they smell like old fish. As I type this, the smell of old fish is wafting over my shoulder.

I have also dyed a different bit of silk to probably function as another ocean stripe on the front of the tallit.

This is three thin layers of dyes sprayed onto the dobby woven silk with little two ounce spray bottles.I had thought that I would add waves with bias strips of the tartan. Now as this is coming together I am not so sure and may opt for machine embroidery in appropriate colors.

Nini had wanted me to include both the beach roses and wild blueberries on her tallit. 

I am mulling over how to do both of those tasks. I assume that those elements will be part of the pinot-- the corner pieces