Tallit Bags Revisited

I apologize in advance to anyone who has visited our previous site because they would already have  seen these pictures, but I wanted to get them published again.  A lifelong passion of mine has been needlepoint, and when my mother was dying of cancer she asked me to finish a small bag for my son Nathan's Bar Mitzvah which at the time was 7 years away.  I promised her I would, and after she died I put it away and didn't think about it for many years.  Cleaning closets one day about a year before his Bar Mitzvah I came across it, but couldn't bring myself to finish it.  Instead, I started a tallit bag (for the prayer shawl) which Nathan helped me design. 

It has lots of symbolism, and secret meaning.  Nathan is the base of the tree, and we, his parents and grandparents are the roots.  The leaves become candles in a menorah which lights the sky.  There are 18 stars (Jewish stars, by the way) which symbolized 'chai', or life.  The rainbow and sun are part of a lot of my work - usually in the colours which I chose.  In addition, his hebrew name and birthday are on the bag, as well as my secret message to him done in tone on tone blue.  It is a very large, and he has used it proudly since his bar mitzvah.  I should say, that after I finished that bag I did finally finish the one that my mother started, and he keeps his tfillin inside that bag.

The second bag was done for my husband, who had been using the same bag for so many years that it was falling apart.  It depicts a large Jewish star with a tallit wrapped around it, and a scene that he and I hold dear to our hearts because it is a place where we have spent many wonderful vacations together.  There are also the same symbols here - the 18 Jewish stars, a sun, a rainbow, as well as his name and birthday in both English and Hebrew.

The third bag was completed for a dear friend who loves Vancouver, the sun, the mountains and the water.  The large Hebrew 'shin' which holds these symbols is also special because it has 4, not 3 heads.  I really enjoyed working on this one because of the colours and the subject.

The last bag was designed for my brother in law - his bag was also a mess, even worse than my husbands.  I stuck with a Jewish star theme here, but the pattern of the background is all "Chai" using the Hebrew lettering.  Also the sun radiates out of the star.  The name "Budd" is designed using the logo of the store which he and my husband own.  He really loved the surprise of getting this - I never told him I was working on it, but when it was completed I just left it for him on the seat of his car.

The last bag is for my brother, and is only half complete.   I'll post pictures of this one at a later date.