sarah in nyc

Photos of the tallit. Because frankly, yesterday's batch were not very good. Actually, the photos were terrible.I hope that this batch of photos gives yu a better sene of what the tallit looks like. I hope that Sara Xing and her family will be as happy ans I am with the tallit.

Forgive the poor picture quality, but my camera is having trouble taking pcitures of the tallit. Black AND shine seem to totaly confuse the camera. But apologies aside, here is Sara Xing's tallit. It looks incredible in real life. The 40- momme black silk was far easier to sew than I had anticipated. I was terrified that I would make a terrible mess of it. The neckband, as per Sara Xing's wishes ismade up of strips of the fabrics used in the tallit in rainbow order. Have I mentioned what a totally smart kid Sara Xing is??? The text Sara Xing wanted on her atatra /neckband is " Mi Ani?" "Who Am I?", Moses's initial response to the divine call. So apt for any kid on the cusp of Bat Mitzvah, even more so for Sara Xing. I do still need to do the eyelets for the tzitzit/ ritual fringes. I added beading details at the atara corners just to have a bit of sparkle from the front. Tomorroe evening Sara Xing comes to tie her tzitzit and pick up her tallit. I ...

I suppose that I could pretend that each time I touch fabric, what comes out is prefection itself. But the reality is that I make mistakes all of the time. I mean, all of the time. Take Sara Xing's tallit, as an example. Some pieces of the tallit came together just so easily. Piecing the scenes, was frankly, a piece of cake. Not one curse passed my lips as I was making them. Cutting the black silk has been hard. In order to get the cutting line exact I have to pull a thread and then cut along the line left by the missing thread. Unfortunately, the silk is woven out of so many fine strands of silk that it is really hard to see that nearly invisible line so I can cut it. If I pretend to have x-ray vision it helps a bit. Attaching the black silk "frames" around then pictorial scenes I ran into trouble of my own making. For years I had struggles with a lemon of a serger. My repair guy helped me avoid troubles by fixing the blade in the on only position. The serger was like ...

One of the things that I have been working on teaching myself over the past several years is making clothing with out a pattern. My late mother in law used to tell us how her mother who worked in the garment industry here in New York used to be able to just look at a garment and then just cut freehand into fabric and make dresses for my mother in law and for her little sister Yetta. That, to me, seemed like the coolest thing in the world. I asked my mother in law if she learned how to cut garments that way. And she said " My mother once said that she would teach me. She started and then grabbed the scissors away and said , ' You will never learn!' " So my mother in law never did learn how to make clothing without a pattern. My friend Paulette told me that her mother in the West Indies was sent away to a neighboring island to a school to learn how to do the same thing. Unfortunately, Paulette's mother is dead, and Paulette never learned this precious skill from her...

Usually when working on a piece that takes as much care as Sara Xing's tallit, I will make myself something fast, mostly to relieve the tension of doing such careful and fussy work. This dress is sewn out of a synthetic jersey that I bought from Kabbala Man. I don't know his real name. But he works at one of several stores in the garment district. he listens to the Psalms of the day chanted in Hebrew over the PA system of the store in the mornings. He studies Kabbala when there are no customers in the store. ( There are stacks of the Zohar, one of the traditional kabbalistic source texts, in Hebrew next to the cash register) For a long time, Kabbala Man was selling out of a store called H+M fabrics on 35th street. During the summer, he moved down the street to a store called Benoni, meaning middle in hebrew..but it is also a Kabbalistic concept. I have also seen him in a store called Modeani ( I give thanks ( to God)) Farics in the stores where he works is usually marked way d...

I know, I posted the pictorial panels yesterday. I had thought that they were done and just needed to be bordered in the luscious heavy black silk. I was wrong. This is also why work always takes me longer than I expect. I end up making unplanned for improvements along the way. The pieces take longer-- and it is so worth it. First of all, baby Moses needed simple facial features. The fastest way to add those was via Shiva Paint Stick and a stencil. The little round mouth stencil was courtesy of a hole punched with a standard hole puncher. The eyes, Exacto knifed out of the same piece of paper. Voila... Moses has a cute baby face. Then I noticed that I hadn't covered the outer edges of the panel in fabric . So I cut watery shapes out of shantung scraps. My clever buddies at the Creative Machine list taught me the brilliant trick of using a glue stick to hold down fabric for applique. No, you don't need to use a fancy made for fabric only glue stick available at a premium. R...

This is the "Burning Bush" side of Sara Xing's tallit. Sara wanted the basket and the bush made out of the same fabrics. I pushed her idea further by being sure to repeat many of the same fabrics in both images. Most of the leaves are made out of silk shantung. Some are made out of Chinese brocade, a nod towards Sara Xing's birth heritage and some out of a great stong red linen. The base of the tallit is a 40 momme black silk charmeuse. If you have never experienced 40 momme silk this is what it is like. China silk is the equivalent of skim milk. A 19 momme silk is pretty wonderful and is like heavy cream. The 40 momme silk is like sour cream. I spent most of yesterday cutting it. You need to use the pull a thread and cut method. A little hard to see where to cut on black. So the going was slow.I am a little terrfied of sewing it but I will just have to plunge in. The "pictures" have to be framed in the black silk and then I will construct the body of the ta...