sarah in nyc

    I made this tallit bag as my gift to Mimi. I began with a length of pale blue silk shantung.  Mimi's family calls this Mimi blue.  It’s her favorite color.   I added the side strips that were made of out bias pieced navy blue and maroon shantung. At first this looked like an Aerogram, those one sheet air mail letters.   I added the stenciled design. I applied the color with oil paint sticks. The beading was for the fun of it.

Mimi’s tallit has been a struggle.  Yesterday my sister asked me if  the source of my difficulties was my client. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Both my client are her family are about as wonderful as one can hope for with a client. I think that I came up with a plan that was harder to carry out than I had expected. I also made some mistakes that were just plain stupid. There were pieces of  the process that I ought to have thought through a bit better. The end result is frankly lumpier than makes me happy. Elements of this tallit though are really beautiful. This is the back view of the tallit. Night Day The atara in progress. The gazar  of the atara over the brocade. the brocade is not all that beautiful on it’s own, but I love how it shimmers through the gazar. The right side of the brocade , I know, it’s ugly. But look how terrific it looks completed with the gold shimm,ering through the dark blue. Mimi and her family show up...

I know I haven’t been posting a whole lot about Mimi’s tallit, but that does not mean that I haven’t been working on it and more importantly, thinking about it.  The thinking time allows me to think out possible problems before they develop. I had stenciled the text for the night portion of Mimi's tallit directly onto the fabric.  That was fairly easy because I was working on a smooth expanse of fabric.  Getting the letting stenciled onto the day portion of the tallit would be a bit more complicated. The pieced silk makes the surface uneven. I realized that I had to stencil the text onto a plain surfaced silk and then applique it to the tallit. So I did just that. Mimi was very clear that she wanted the day side to look like very early morning light. Luckily I had a piece of shantung in just the right color. I used a mix of blue, iridescent white and two shades of gold to get the right shade of color. My next worry was having the texture of the piecing showing t...

Earlier this week, or perhaps it was last week, I had cut stencils for the lettering on Mimi’s tallit.  I applied the letters using oil paint sticks in a mix of copper, gold and blue. The letters didn’t quite stand out enough from the deep blue o the silk so I then painted the outlines with a fine brush. it’s better, but still not quite right. So now, it’s onto the next step. I underlined the silk with cotton flannel, and am satin stitching around the letters with the dark bronze metallic thread. the thread is not really a sewing thread but a lurex thread meant to be used in a knitting machine. The thread is persnickety but the results are worth the additional effort.  I now have four letters completed , but you can see how much better the letters look with the metallic stitching. When I work, I often have music or the radio going in the background. It keeps me on track. I often find that the music threads through my work. This is especially true be cause I often listen t...

I’m now about 1/3 done piecing the day side of Mimi’s tallit. Yes, the silk in the photo needs pressing.   The night sky is dyed and the color is set.   The night colored silk will be underlined with the teddy bear flannel. With the flannel under the dark silk the two halves of the tallit will weigh the same.  I still have to wash the sugar and the salt off of the silk.  Experience has taught me how to anticipate problems.   Here is the sketch of the tallit so all of this can make some sense. the light section of the tallit  will be made up of the silk shards.  The dark of the darker silk.

Today I dyed the night portion of Mimi's tallit.   I guess I can call it “wet night” , the dye is still fairly wet in this picture. This is layer two of the dye job. The shine of the charmeuse  throws off light so colors appear lighter than than actually are. I have also been working away on piecing the day portion of the tallit. While the dye was wet I sprinkled layer #1 of the dye with salt and dribbled rubbing alcohol over the surface to make the sky look like outer space.  The salt gathers up the dye, so you get a more intense spot of dye underneath each grain of salt. The alcohol pushes the dye away so you get a lighter spot beneath it. I added both sugar and salt to the top layer of dye. I like creating the sense of looking into deep space.   Sometimes when dyes are out, it makes sense to dye other things that need some color.  My hands tend to get cold.  When my hands get cold, they hurt. I like to wear the sort of thin gloves women use...

I was ready to begin work on Mimi's tallit. I ordered the blue silk we had chosen.  A few days later I got an email from the supplier. They were out of stock and wouldn’t get more of the silk for at least a month.   I needed the silk. It was past time to get to work. I  Looked for the right shade of blue charmeuse on line and found it for $30/yard.  That’s awfully steep. I found a color that was the right tone, but almost-not quite the right color…it was lavender, rather than blue. I also found just the right color, but it was the end of the bolt, and the yardage was short.   My selection of fabric felt very Goldilocks…nothing was just right. I asked Mimi to come by , to see if we could hammer out a solution together. We looked at the fabrics and then both of us , at the same moment, came up with the idea of using all three colors.   We both thought that long irregular triangles of the three very close colors would look beautiful. I then m...