Rainbow tallit

I had thought for a while about making a rainbow tallit, but didn't feel like buying a yard of each color just to make two sets of inch-wide stripes. Now it turns out that while working on other tallitot I had collected all the colors of the rainbow, and so the project was finally on.

These colors are very brave and strong and look striking against the bright white background. The extra-wide atarah makes a strong statement, too.

I have now sold two of these, but I have more of the fabrics and could make another one.

A new experiment

A new experiment for me: A customer wanted print rather than cursive lettering on the tallit. My hand embroidery stitches are better suited to the rounded shapes of the Hebrew script letters, and so I started looking for someone to do machine embroidery.

I sent strips of the yellow fabric to www.kippahdesign.com. She embroidered the strips and sent them back to me, and I finished the atarah and attached it to the tallit. This particular tallit has extra custom embroidery on it as well: The Shema at one hem, and the Bar Mitzvah boy's Hebrew name on the other.

Jewel colors

This was an unexpected combination: Purple, fuchsia, and turquoise on bright white. The Bat Mitzvah examined  my fabrics at length and then pulled these colors out. She was absolutely certain that this was what she wanted. Her mother was not quite sure, but even she now agrees that it looks delicious!

Blue, turquoise, and silver

The Bat Mitzvah picked these colors from my fabric basket. The combination of deep turquoise, royal blue, and silver on bright white make for a very fresh look -- classic in a way, and modern, too. The blue, white, and silver are very traditional, but the turquoise adds an unexpected contemporary twist, as does the way the colors are combined into one wide stripe instead of being separate. This is what I love about custom work. I might not have chosen these colors, but now that I see them, I may use them again.

Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem

I just got a picture of a Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem. The Bar Mitzvah boy gave me a drawing of the tallit he wanted, and I made it to his specifications. I think it looks spectacular.

A change of pace

I have been working a lot with blues and greens lately, and now with the rainbow colors as well. I felt like doing something different, and so I looked into my fabric basket and pulled out something totally different: A raspberry dupioni silk, some iridescent purple dupioni that shifts from pink to forest green, and a piece of silver for a highlight. I had just enough of these favorite colors of mine to make once composite stripe. This combination looks very fresh and feminine on a base of cream dupioni silk.

As a finishing touch, I embroidered the Shema on the atarah in silver.