sarah in nyc

Now that I have finished  the twins tallitot, as attested by this finished corner piece, it is now time to get back to Yoni’s tallit. Yoni’s tallit is a little complicated. It is expressing several ideas from his haftarah.   There are striped representing rocks. I already completed those.   Now I needed to make two leafy stripes. First I dampened the silk. Then I began laying down layers of color.  I let this first pass of color dry over night. I ironed the painted leaves to set the color and then set down more color. It’s getting there, but clearly it isn’t quite enough. Yoni wanted a dark forest green.  I needed to add more color. I also realized that the strips would be vastly improved if I floated a layer of lighter color between the leaves.   I used the now colored water from this painting effort to paint the background. Every once in a while I would add a bit more paint to the water. As I filled in the backgroun...

I’m incredibly pleased by how this tallit is progressing. This particular tallit has been all about building up each of the elements layer by layer.   Yesterday, I pieced the stripe into the dyed silk. Isabel had wanted the seams covered by the blue and gold military braid. it was a good choice. Isabel mentioned that she wanted the silk around the pomegranates left as it was. I kept telling her that I thought I might paint the background a light blue.  Isabel was right.   I may add a few more stripes of the braid both above and below the painted stripe. I have some additional painted pomegranates and bells. I will make two of the pinot out of the bells and two out of the pomegranates. I still have to make the atara/ neckband . I am beyond pleased with how this tallit is coming out.

Yesterday Kira came by to finish tying her tzitzit. She had made a first visit last week but was nearly cross-eyed with exhaustion. Luckily, she lives in the neighborhood so it was easy to reschedule for a time when she wasn’t falling asleep on her feet. Kira wisely decided that her tallit really did need an atara. I made s simple one painting the same scrollwork  motif that I had painted on her pinot /corner pieces. I also stitched on silver sequins on both ends for a little bit  of extra oomph. Kira DID NOT want more text. I like having a bit additional light near the face. She was really pleased  with the result, both of the atara and her tzitzit tying. Last night was the eighth night of Chanukah. Earlier in the week we had given our kids Amazon gift cards. This is what my youngest bought for himself. I think he will actually get a good deal of wear out of them. He plans to wear them as street shoes.] A couple of people wrote to me b...

Most tallitot begin with taking the first cut into  a piece of silk. This one is no exception. I had to do the usual cut and pull a thread to help me cut a straight line along 72 inches of slippery silk. Either I have gotten better at this, or this heavy weight silk just makes the job easier but after 72 inches I wasn’t a bit cranky. My eyes didn’t even ache.   Today I began the first layer of dyeing.   The color will be far less spectacular once the silk dries. The speckles are caused by large grains of salt. You can buy a teeny jar from the silk dye company marked “silk salt” but any large grained salt will do just fine. The larger the grain the more pronounced the design.   I have used everything from regular table salt to large sugar crystals or even uncooked rice. They all work.   I find that layers of thin dyes built up create a visually exciting surface with real depth of color. I hate colors right out of the jar. I hate looking at...