sarah in nyc

Well, here it is. I’m really pleased. My neighbor thinks that it looks like it came out of Pompeii. I love that despite the wild color combinations it’s actually a pretty calm piece. I hadn’t planned on the stenciled stripes. I wasn’t happy with how high the stripes were on the tallit, so I added first the purple stripe and then the terracotta one. I had purchased the stencil for the “Old Shul” tallit. I used a mixture of silver acrylic paint and finely powdered metallic in bronze for the stencil.I wanted a soft, slightly faded image. All of the elements work together well. The mix of wild elements reminds me of my older son’s Hebrew school class. The kids were all really mouthy. One would have expected them to be really snotty to one another and to their teachers. Instead , they were kind and supportive of one another. They were outrageous and really funny but worked well in a group. One might have expected this tallit to be clown-like with it’s riot of reds. Instead it is gra...

Shaun’s tallit is nearly done. Shaun is one of those women who has an intense relationship with fabric. One of the fabrics she showed me  while we were working out what her tallit was to  look like was a batiked silk scarf with loosely painted pomegranates   I drew the outlines of the pomegranates with tailors chalk on the magenta silk noil. I like to have each of the pinot/corners of the tallit be slightly different. It gives the wearer of the tallit something pretty to focus on  if they loose focus on prayer. Shaun is someone who gets a bit of whimsy. So I played with each pomegranate, playing with different techniques. Among the techniques I used were embroidering with my sewing machine, hand embroidery, beading and couching ribbon.  I couched the metallic borders with a zig- zag stich on my machine. I like how the metallic borders look like they were doodled by hand.

Passover is over, and it’s time focus on real life again.I spent part of yesterday constructing the stripes for Shaun’s magical red tallit. The text painted on the stripes are often used as magical incantations, but they come from Psalms. Shaun loves rich colors that vibrate against one another ( so do I). The diagonal stripes are made out of tie silk from a Fabric Mart mystery bundle. It’s heavy, heavy silk. I only had a little bit, maybe 1/4 yard but by cutting it on the diagonal. I was able to stretch the little bit of fabric . I had purchased several spools of decorative threads in various shades of red. You can see that I’m making good use of those threads.  The red printed paisley ribbon just pops on the magenta noil. The stripes are nearly done and need to be inset into the base fabric of the tallit. I took the photos on top of the base fabric ( a silk/hemp from Dharma Trading). The wild colors in this tallit are exactly why I adore working with clients so much. I proba...

Shaun, my client for this tallit loves color. I have posted the progress of the color red in the base of this tallit. Shaun was happy with the photos I had emailed to her.  Shaun particularly  loves when similar colors bump up one against the other. Back in the days when I used to make quilts, I used to pull fabric bolts off the shelf in the fabric store, stack them on the cutting table, and play with color combinations until the colors vibrated in my eyes. The quilts I made in those days were pretty wild. Yesterday, I bought the embroidery threads that I will use to cover all of the seams on this tallit. I purchased the ribbons on line. I love the red paisley, and and not quite sure about the multicolored watercolor print. pictured as well, is the red shantung stripe with lettering. There will be other stripes in purple. I see a whole lot of color vibration going on…how about you???