My Summer Project

Last summer I had two commission requests.  They were both for High Holiday Torah Covers.  The requests were based on Torah covers I had made previously for a local synagogue.  

 I was so busy and consumed with my Mini Mosaic quilts and products that I was hesitant to accept these commission.  But one commission came from my favorite Rabbi's synagogue in Maryland.  He travelled all the way from MD to our place in the Poconos to marry my son.  How could I say no?  I couldn't. 

 The other request was from a synagogue in Germany.  They had found my Judaic work via the Internet.  We e-mailed back and forth a few times.  Frankly, I was hesitant because of my other commitments.  The woman who made the request was in the US visiting her daughter.  I tried to put her off.  I thought my fee would discourage her, but she was still interested, so I suggested we talk about what she envisioned. That phone conversation and this woman touched my heart and made me cry.  I could not control my emotions when  she recounted her journey about how she came to be involved with this synagogue that was built on the ashes of a synagogue that was burned to the ground by the Nazis.  About how she taught Russian Jews who left the Soviet Union in the late 1980's and early 1990's thanks to liberated emigration policies learn about being Jewish because they were forbidden to learn about their religion in Russia. How could I say no?

So, my summer project has begun. I will set aside my other projects, until I complete these Torah Covers, 5 of them. Every Torah that is used during the High Holidays need a special, plain(ish) cover.  The High Holidays start the evening of  September 9 th this year. 

I am starting with the covers for Germany since I need to ship them with plenty of time. 

And so I begin. I will share my process as I go.

The Torah covers are made from  white, off-white and cream colored luxurious silk dupioni.  I am a quilter, so I make them as if they were quilts. They need to last for many years.  Most Torah Covers are not made this way.  Lots of them are made from velvet or satin.

Step #1 for me is to quilt the top section with pomegranates - a very meaningful symbol.

I designed the quilting on a piece of paper that is the same size as the top section of the cover.

I placed a piece of clear Solvy over the drawing and traced it with a yellow soluble marker. Then I pin the Solvy to the silk.  Why did I use yellow? The Solvy is removed after quilting by tearing it off.  If there are any remnants left, it will disappear into the gold thread that I use for quilting.

After layering the silk with very low loft batting, muslin and the Solvy pattern, I free motion quilt with variegated rayon thread through all the layers.

 

I could never color within the lines:

 but the yellow lines were really a suggestion, so I didn't have to follow them exactly.  I could never quilt a balanced pomegranate design without it.

The next step is to remove the Solvy.  Frankly, it is my second least favorite step.  (You'll have to keep reading my blog for the summer to see what is my least favorite step in the construction!) I rip it off, trying to get off as much as possible.  This is what my discard pile looks like:

 It's nice to have a buddy cuddled up next to me while I'm doing this.  Now, I will use my very pointy tweezers to remove the last little bits and bobs that are still located in the tight quilting designs.

This is when I think that there should be a better way, but I can't think of it!

From Paper To Fabric

The first step in preparing the fabric for the Pomegranate torah cover is to prepare the background.  My idea is to use a subtle sky-like background, instead of the plain white dupioni silk.  A subtle sky would enhance the feeling of a pomegranate tree.  To achieve this, I decided to hand dye the silk with special dyes developed for silk.  I used a combination of blues and red.  First the silk was dampened so that the dye would flow and and the colors would blend.  The dye was brushed on with sponge brushes.  After drying, I was very pleased with the result.  I love that the rough slubs of the silk, which is my favorite part of the dupioni, came out darker.

 The curly vines were then cut out of the green silk dupioni from the pattern that was previously prepared.  The silk was first stabilized with a fusible interfacing to give it body and keep it fom fraying.  It was ironed onto the background fabric with a fusible web, that is like a heat activated glue.  It then took 2 days to stitch down all of the vines with a machine blanket stitch.  I used a rayon thread for the stitching, because I like the resulting sheen.

The next step was to prepare and attach the pomegranates and leaves.  I used a combination of silk dupioni and a silk/cotton fabric that I hand dyed for the outside of the pomegranate.  The inside is white silk.  The number of pomegranates used was 7 to symbolize the seven species representative of Israel's fertility as mentioned in the bible.  The blanket stitch was done using gold metallic thread.

The next step in preparing the torah cove is the quilting.  Several decisions have to be made before proceeding with this step.  The first one is to pick the batting.  This is the layer of the quilt that will determine how puffy it will be and its drapability.  The next decision is the type/color of thread and the final decision and the most difficult to choose is the quilting design.  I chose to use "Wam and Natual" batting - a blend that is 80% cotton and 20% polyester to give the cover a little stiffness and body once it is quilted.  I chose a blue rayon variegated thread for quilting and an overall pebble pattern fo the quilt design.  I chose this quilting design to epesent the seeds and the flesh inside the pomegranate.

So I layered the top on the batting and pinned it in place so that it didn't shift while I was quilting, and started stitching.  And stitching, and stitching.  It reminded me of a mulch pile.  Have you ever had multiple yards of mulch delivered? You bring over wheelbarrow and wheelbarrow full of mulch to your beds.  And the pile never seems to get smaller.   It seems like the mulch will last forever.  That's what it was like quilting.  It took me 3 entire days to cover this entire piece with "pomegranate seeds".  But it was certainly worth the effort.

The next step is to hand stitch the "inside" of the poms with some veins and seeds and then turn this piece into an actual torah cover.  Stay tuned.