Challah Cloth

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Difficulty:

Category: Sewing

Type of item: Home Decor

For: Home

Style: Traditional

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Materials

Linen fabric, embroidery threads, metallic thread, glass seed beads.

What was your inspiration?

I embroidered this challah cloth as a wedding present for the sister of a friend of mine. Pomegranates are a common symbol in Judaism, and I liked the look of a pomegranate tree, adapting an image I found online. I embroidered "Shabbat Shalom" ("Good Sabbath") on either side of the trunk, and put the bride and groom's names on top of the twin trunk. The text around the edge is a quotation from the Song of Songs, and I think it was the part about, "My beloved is mine, and I am his." The embroidery is mostly done in chain stitch, with some feather stitch for the border.

Challah is the traditional plaited loaf eaten at the Friday night Sabbath meal, and it is always covered with a challah cloth before the prayer is said over it. The couple is Orthodox Jewish, and I knew that the challah cloth would get a lot of use.

What are you most proud of?

Doing all that solid chain stitch - I'd never take on a task like that again!

Getting the Hebrew text to fit nicely. I don't actually speak Hebrew, and I've been known to make errors when embroidering Hebrew onto a quilt, so I'm quite glad I got it all right this time.

Wrestling with metallic embroidery thread, never a fun task.

What advice would you give someone starting this project?

Patience!