Jeremy's Kippa

The Kippa has been painted to match the Tallis bag, although it more resembles than matches. I liked that it wasn't an 'exact' set, as it left more room for me to be creative.

Since the Trebizond threads had been such a struggle for the Tallis bag, I decided to chose other threads for the Kippa. I matched the Trebizon to Splendor and Needlepoint Inc., using Trebizond only for the details that needed more height. The result of the 'mix' is very tactile and interesting.

The last remaining detail was how to make the bird more realistic. Jeremy came up with the solution. He suggested that I add some metallic and some beading and it was the exact solution that I needed! I love needlepoint by committee!

Jeremy's Talles Bag

Jeremy's Tallis Bag - I enjoyed working on Jeremy's Talles Bag when I could move forward, but often I needed to move backward (rip) due to the difficulty of the Trebizon silk. Trebizon loves to go into knots at the back of the work. I found that I could remedy this by 'stranding' the threads into 3 ply. The silk then resembles 'flat' silk, but it was slow going! . . . .

Why use Trebizon? It has vibrant colour, a dense loft and great shine. This contrasted well with the velvet, Krienik metallic and Splendor.

The other difficulty I found, was that the canvas has been painted with dark outlines around the images. I decided to use Northern Lights silk, made by Needlepoint Inc., 2 ply, outline stitch for those areas and I'm pleased with the result, and my gift to Jeremy for his lifelong use.

The designs are painted on 18m brown Zweigart mono. The Tallis Bag measures 11.5" x 14", and the Kepah measures 7" diameter. This gorgeous design by Lillian Chermor, can be found on her website in her Judaica Collection. It is available exclusively through Alex Para Needlearts.

Photography of completed cushion by Michael Kirschenbaum
Photography of 'work in progress' by Chris Barnes