Making a Birds on a Wire Tallis

The day before valentines day I received an order for a tallis. A delightful customer is buying herself a birthday present! Which, incidentally is only three weeks after mine! I just celebrated my 40th birthday too! I have documented the process below.

Step 1) I start with finalizing any design elements. For this design, that usually only involves the atarah. A tallis traditionally has an “atarah” or “crown” with a Jewish prayer on it.  These days many folks chose not to use the more traditional prayer.

This customer has chosen a less traditional but more personally meaningful prayer from The Book of Blessings .

יפתח לבי תזדכך נפשי בהתעטפי בטלית

May my heart be opened, may my spirit become clear, as I envelop myself in the tallit.

It took some time and a couple emails to our Synagogues new part-time Rabbi Susan Elkdosi (congratulations Susan) but she quickly found the Hebrew for me, so I could avoid any typos!

I manipulate the Hebrew on the computer for size and font, then I print it out, tape it together and get to work!

Step 2) I wash the silk with synthrapol to remove any oils or sizing that may be there.

silk hanging to dry

Step 3) Then I iron a piece of freezer paper on each end to stabilize the fabric. I don’t need to stretch the silk for this particular design. Since the pigment goes on very dry, the freezer paper is adequate.

ironing on the freezer paper

Step 4) Then I tape my template to my workspace and start taping the lines for the wire. I do this in several sessions waiting for the paint to dry between overlapping lines. Sometimes I speed the process along a bit with my trusty hairdryer.  This is why anyone in my family who wants to dry their hair has to first go rummaging through my studio! I rarely use it for my hair, which I am content to let nature take care of… probably why it’s always so frizzy!

taping the lines

Step 5) While the lines are drying, I paint the atarah. I know Hebrew is written from right to left, but since I am right handed, I find I save a lot of smudges and re-dos if I paint it in backwards. I tape the computer printout of the prayer under the pre-sewn atarah and use a makeshift light table to see the letters below. The brush I use for this is tiny. It takes a steady hand, so my children are all trained to STAY AWAY from Mommy when she’s painting a Tallis!

Painting the Atarah

Step 6) I paint the birds in the same way. I also paint a couple birds on the bag (shown on the towel in this picture) . I decided to omit the wires on the bag this time. I thought it was a nice touch to just have the birds flying around the bag, waiting to land on the tallis. The paint is navy blue jacquard silk paint. It came out very dark navy. It looks black in these pictures, but really is navy blue!

birds painted

Step 7) Then I sew the pieces together. This includes the atarah, the tallis bag and the corner pieces. I sew an eyelet hole in the middle of each corner for tying the tsitsit. (The sewing details will be the subject of another post.)

sewing

All that’s left to do on this tallis is making the fringe on the bottom, and tying the tsitsit on. This tallis will come with a coordinating wool kippah. Hopefully all will arrive in time for the customer’s birthday.

eyelet

Happy Birthday!

Heirloom Crossword baby blanket

Crossword Baby Blanket

I love Anne Geddes. Particularly her photobook “Pure” which is a powerful testament to the strength and beauty of pregnancy and birth. Anyone familiar with me at all will know that I find everything about the way we bring our babies into this world to be magical, powerful, transcendent. Her book truly captivates this essence.

When I discovered that one of my foster sisters was pregnant with twins, many years ago, I was inspired to design a crossword baby blanket in tribute to “Pure” and birth.  But when I found she had lost her babies late in her pregnancy my passion for this project dissipated. The fact that she was able to move forward from this tragedy speaks to the resiliency and strength of her soul. I don’t know how she did it, I frankly, hope never to find out. But this woman just blows me away. And, happily has two gorgeous daughters who benefit from her strength.

Crossword Baby Blanket

I picked up the design again when I was surprised by the knowledge of our own 4th little soul growing inside me .  Many, many swatches had already gone into the pattern and I pulled them out. I had based my lacework on Debbie Bliss’ “Alphabet blanket” available in her book The Baby Knits Book.  Her lace, however was over 30 stitches wide for each letter. There was just no way to incorporate this into my design. Imagine knitting “INCREDIBLE” at 30 stitches a letter! So I worked and reworked until I was happy with a simpler lace pattern. The result was still an astronomically high number of stitches. There would be no choice but to make the pattern in a very fine lace weight yarn.

I found a beautiful, simple cotton that knits up soft and clean and shows the stitch definition beautifully. The original design was done as a patchwork.  Many little squares would have to be blocked and sewn together at the end. But who wants all that sewing? I scrapped it again and decided to make the blanket in one piece. Of course, that meant almost 250 stitches! Well, knitting and pregnancy seem to go hand in hand, and I decided that this was just the way to go. The blanket gradually grew with my belly. But in my pregnancy drained state, I kept making mistakes.

stitch markers and flip chart

After several errors and many rows painstakingly backed up, I developed stitch markers and a little flip chart that helped me to keep track of the letter I was working on at the time. This helped immensely. At 7 months gestation, I was almost done with the project, when I realized I had a rather large mistake in the letter “R” in the word “PURE”. Well…. we can’t have a lopsided “R” in “PURE”… that just won’t do at all… so…Much to the horror of my friends, I frogged almost 2 months worth of work.

On my due date I had the whole blanket finished. But, it really needed some kind of edging to make it shine. So I picked up all the way around the 234 stitches and 385 rows to make a simple border.

I finally finished the whole thing, weaving in the ends about two days before I went into active labor with my baby boy. He was 3 weeks late. He was waiting for his blanket, I suppose.

I am selling this pattern as a kit with everything you see here. It comes with all the alphabet stitch markers you will need as well as the flip chart and full directions. I am also including 8oz of the lace weight cotton that I used. I was fortunate to get a large quantity at an excellent price and am passing this on to you. I wind the yarn in a huge skein, so the only ends to weave in will be your cast on and cast off tails.

You can get the kit at my etsy shop: cozycoleman.etsy.com

I Design My Patterns for the People I Love

Almost all of my patterns are designed for people I love. I have decided to name them accordingly. I like the way it feels. It’s simple. I’ve changed the name of the fingerless mitts on Etsy accordingly they are now “Joy“. They are for a young fashion-conscious friend of mine who suits her name and I hope the gift brings her as much as she brings me.I got distracted from “Liv” (which will have a cross), by “Ellie“ who wants striped and cabled mitts, but then that led to… 

“KISS“ (Keep it Simple Stupid) mitts. The goal is to make a simple striped pattern that even a cavewoman could do (or at least a brand new knitter). Mimi taught me to knit when I was 7 years old (I’ve been knitting for 30 years now!! When did I get so old?), so I just don’t remember… I think casting on was hard… and knit stitches… oh purl was tricky too… stripes forget it! a feat I couldn’t possibly attempt…

I just tied the yarn together to make the stripes, I was hoping to incorporate the knots as part of the design, but so far I just don’t like the way they look. Too Sloppy.

Midnight Musing…

I was up to 3 am last night (well, this morning really as my literalist son would point out.) I just couldn’t sleep last night, too many ideas running through my head. Designs and paintings I only wish I could execute as they appear in my mind’s eye.

…Like that skinny Candy Apple Chic with pink pigtails and red striped stockings at the Woodstock Fair…

…and that last evening, just as the fair was closing with a hint of dusk and the hot air Balloons Over the Fairgrounds…

…or Rapunzel’s tower that was left standing when the old mill building was being torn down…

So many projects floating around in my head…

…the picture of Princess Mehetabel. I simply must paint it..

I just couldn’t wait on that one!

…Oh and Liv’s Cross Mittens (she wants her fingers covered!) payment for modeling and because I’m just so fond of her. I think acrylic, washable and the wool was too itchy. Comfort over fashion for her, smart chicky. …

Ellie wants some too, with Pink and Purple and Teal stripes. I think a worsted weight for her and candy stripes. Vertical, not horizontal. A nice soft wool, the other was too itchy.

Then there’s Tiny’s Sweater I never did finish. I need to remake it, forgot the leash hole and I vaguely remember Tangy wanted it in Red! If I keep it simple I can get it don fast.

Oh yes, this morning the Press-Pot cozy was a priority.

Then there’s the hat that goes with “Joy” the Little Star Mitts it needs a visor and it would be so darn cute. I want it stiff and washable, so cardboard is out, maybe a recycled milk carton. I see experiments on the horizon.