sarah in nyc

Sometimes working on a tallit feels less like sewing and more like construction work. The "Not Mets" orange and blue tallit is no exception. I have been working on constructing the stripe which are being made out of four different colors of silk shantung. The four colors are also four entirely different qualities and weights of fabric. If you were someone taught to sew by a home-ec teacher, you would know that this is not a good thing to do. You are supposed to sew fabrics of similar weights one to another. I am self taught, so I am going to pretend that I don't know this piece of sewing wisdom. One of the major reasons for this feigned ignorance is the fact that it is impossible to find four colors of shantung in the same weight. While the Shantungs that I purchased, are probably not hand woven, the tangerine colored silk feels like it was made on not quite mechanized looms made with silk threads that were not particularly closely inspected for uniformity. It looks a wh...

I have a tallit due at the end of January. The silk for that tallit still has not arrived so I decided to begin work on a tallit that isn't due until the end of the spring. The late spring tallit is being made out of a fawn colored charmeuse. The stripes are being made out of what I call "crazy stitching". I had first seen crazy stitching in an article by the brilliant Bird Ross in an old issue of Threads magazine. In the article Bird Ross described a brilliant way to make a reversible vest. She sewed the vest and the lining together right sides out. She then covered all of the raw edges with squares of fabric set on point and folded over the raw edges. After securing all those fabric squares, she then stitched over those now triangles ( diamonds folded in half) with multicolored threads zigzagging back and forth. The vests are great. I have made several of them. But that multi colored wild stitching technique is something I have used over and over in my work, not just...

The woman I making the Psalm 104 tallit is a repeat client. I had made her this tallit bag a long time ago. I remember working with my client, but I had no recollection of the bag itself. Yesterday she sent me photos of the bag. I had zero recollection of it. Yet, I have fond memories of the fabrics. Those I remember well. I am more than a little astounded at the amount of labor that I put into the bag. The bag is a riot of embellishment techniques. I see lots of applique and reverse applique, not to mention the beading. I also see the distinct influence of Bird Ross. I think I had seen an article by her in Threads magazine ad was blown away by her work ( that's the reason for all of those nifty squares at the edges of the piece). I see that the bindings were hand dyed. I think that visually my work is more sedate these days. I don't know if that is always a good thing. I am self taught. At the point that I made that bag, I was really confidant in my skills in embellishing fab...

It snowed all day today. Mostly it was light fluffy beautiful snow. This is the view from our living room window. We walked to Staple's to pick up a couple of reams of paper and then to Barnes and Noble to browse. While my youngest read comic books I read through most of a book about Adrian, the designer. Several years ago, Threads Magazine had a terrific article about Adrian. That article made me want to learn a whole lot more. The book was good, but not focused on what I wanted to learn. The Threads article was more design and technique oriented. this book was focused more on movie history--Nice stuff, but not really what I wanted to learn. I'm afraid that I have turned into a complete textile geek.