Chuppah Poetry: Final Verses!

All the elements in the chuppah work together, integrating meaning and feeling, like words in a poem..the top, the sides, the corners, the appliques, the colours, the fabrics, the textures….

 

Those yards of edge -sewing thirty two ribbons… all done! The ribbons will hang over the poles at the four corners of the chuppah. They signify fringes, as on a prayer shawl. I am going to knot some of the extra long ribbons, to recall the knotted fringe. The ribbon fabric came from fragments of silks left over from the main work and also from months of eco printing experimentation. If the fragments were too short, I joined them to other fragments, mixing colours too.

 

 

In a funny way, the ribbons make me think of the Maypole we danced around as children…Thirty two 72″ + lengths of silk organza, two and three inches or sometimes one inch wide; silk chiffon and silk habotai edged with a narrow zig zag stitch in cotton thread, with yellows in the bobbin and blues on top… making greens here and there by a bit of “optical mixing” and creating a satisfying raised texture…

 

The zig zag is short and narrow, making a pretty finish to the silk, I think. I used a lot of variegated thread- a range of blues and turquoises and another of greens with brown.

 

 

Below, the ribbons are paired with a stack of sixteen eco printed fragments that are to form part of the side panels. I have read that natural dye colours tend to harmonise, no matter the shade. I do agree.

The small rectangles are edge stitched also. They make new colours when they are layered one upon the other. This characteristic of colour shifting and mixing due to the textiles’ transparency is one of the reasons I chose organza and chiffon for the chuppah. The Bride loves this feature.

 

Below are two pics of the small rectangular fragments before and after they were edged with stitching. The transparency adds so much surface interest, shifting forms as well as colours.

 

And this is what the rectangles became:

 

A bundle of four eco printed fragments, each appliqued with a small Mogen David (Shield of David, also known as Star of David), was stitched together with the rectangle set on point.

Here is the collection of the four sets of four small rectangular panels, making sixteen panels in all, to be added to the sixteen side panels, making a total of thirty two silk panels for the sides of the chuppah.

 

The little black buttons are vintage crocheted snap fasteners with loops so that the bundle of four fragments can be sewn to the side panels of the chuppah.

One part of the crocheted snap is sewn to the bundle of fragments, the other to the chuppah, as below:

The two parts then snap together as usual. The parts are made by starting a row of crochet in the holes of the snap….with very tiny stitches!…. then crocheting around a small wood ball, then closing the crocheted cover with a crocheted loop to attach to one side of the textile. Ingenious, exquisite little vintage furbelows.

Thirty two, BTW, is a significant number in Jewish sacred numerolgy. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet may be assigned a numerical value, The Hebrew letters “lamed” and “vav” have a value of thirty two when taken together. These two letters signify ” heart” hence their place on a wedding canopy.

That is what this canopy has thirty two panels, thirty two small Star of David motifs and thirty two ribbons.

Tomorrow the Bride will come to town to see the chuppah in person and to have a fitting with the milliner for her wedding headdress. Only a few weeks left!

Next post: the Avoidance Activities when work on the chuppah was not going well…I had intended to post on that today but was able to make chuppah progress instead!