sarah in nyc

in her completed tallit. Looking so much like her mother. She tied her tzitzit in the Sephardic knot pattern of 10-5-6-5, spelling out the name of the Holy One. Ayelet’s mother comes from the Syrian Jewish community. I look forward to being at Ayelet’s bat mitzvah on Shabbat.

    Some elements of making a tallit ( or doing anything) are just plain fun. Other elements are about as exciting as watching paint dry. The other day I had to cut the silk for Maya’s tallit. Generally, when you gut a piece of fabric from selvedge to selvedge, the easiest and most accurate way to cut is to make a little cut at the selvedge and then just rip the fabric. It makes a great satisfying sound. You also end up with a perfectly straight edge. I learned this from a cranky very old chain smoking saleswoman in a fabric store that no longer exists on 39th street.   The old saleswoman  had a really contentious relationship with the owner of the store who she probably remembered from the time he was in diapers. The two used to have screaming fights regularly as you shopped for fabric. they were both quile lovely on their own. They had a screaming fight each time I went in there. I’m not quite sure why it didn’t bother me enough to stay away, but it felt ...

I loved working with Tess, yet my actual work with the tallit was difficult. This tallit just came together with tremendous ease. I’m incredibly happy with it. I love how the colors that are so close keep your eyes busy trying to figure out exactly where they separate.  I credit Ayelet for the brilliant addition of the crazy green. I never, ever would have chosen it on my own. I don’t think that my client is always right. If I think that a client is making silly choices, I will steer them in a better direction. This green was completely off the wall, and yet it pulls the piece into another dimension.

It took me thirty years to figure out how to work when touch of adversity . I had gotten to a stuck point on Tess’s  tallit. I had to take out lots of really dense stitching.  As any of you who sew know, that it truly depressing.  Sometimes I have extra fabric to turn to in case I mess up. In this case, I didn’t . So I had to just be really careful. It’s exhausting to have to be so persnickety. I decided to give myself a break. Rather than just sitting around eating bon-bons, I turned to Ayelet’s tallit.  It’s all put together, except for the atara/neckband and the pinot/corners. My camera is showing the base color of the tallit as a royal blue. It’s not. It’s a royal purple. the tallit really pops. It makes me happy to look at it.the atara is nearly done. The pinot need a bit more thinking through.

Yesterday, I began constructing the stripes for Ayelet’s tallit. Those of you with sharp eyes may notice that the green is much more emphatic than it was in yesterday’s photo. I over dyed it and it is now the color that Ayelet requested. the fabrics in their raw state I began by sewing strips of silk together. I had thought that I would construct the stripes out of simple strips of vertical stripes. My husband took a look at my work and said one deadly word,” Christmas”. I realized that he was right. The orange, pink and chartreuse combined to look like Target’s holiday theme of a couple of years back. it was time to re-think what I was doing. I made some of the green strips narrower.For some reason having the stripes run horizontally made them seem far less like Christmas. Adding the purple sashing also went far in improving the look.

Getting a package of silk in the mail is always a treat. This batch of silk is for Ayalet’s tallit. I love the colors, actually let me amend that. Ayelet had asked for a bright lime green. What arrived is alarmingly quiet. It remind me of the walls of a hospital in the 1950’s. I may have to over dye what got sent to me. The orange metallic was a surprise, a delightful one. I can’t wait to get started.