Saturday 7 June 2014

Torah Stitch by Stitch


Torah stitch by stitch is a cross stitch project conceived by Temma Gentles. She suggests that is for those who are interested in engaging with the words and spirit of the Torah with purpose and rigour.  Her goal is to produce the entire text, with the help of volunteer stitchers from around the world.

My portion is an excerpt from Exodus and so I created an illustration that I hoped would appear to reference those who had left Egypt and were now walking through the desert.  

My husband suggests that they are not so much trudging through the hot desert as dancing.  This works for me too.

It was a great pleasure to participate in this project.  I love the largeness of the goal!! To reproduce the entire Torah!! and see it all in stitches, the notion is truly awesome.  I did find that reproducing the letters exactly was very rigourous, but in a positive way.  And then having the space to create my own illustration was so creatively challenging.  I haven't worked in counted cross stitch since I was a child and learnt how to do it from my grandmother.  This brought back those memories in a very lovely way.

8 comments:

  1. Fantastic, Daniela! I'm working on a portion too. I love what you've done with the sweeping Exodus!!!

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    1. Daniela, the work you put into the project is amazing. counted cross stitch is so hard to do.
      Sandy

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  2. This is fabulous. I am part of a group that's working on a portion. I'm not sure we will get to the illumination.

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  3. Love it.

    Elena

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  4. Daniela,

    It is absolutely gorgeous. Your husband is right, having them dancing. Remember the song of Miriam as they made it across the sea.

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  5. thanks so much to all of you for your kind words. I hope the word spreads so that every corner of the world is represented with a stitcher doing a 'stitch by stitch'. It was lots of fun.
    daniela

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  6. Wonderful! I love the illumination, very appropriate and also fun. I too have finished a portion and found the project challenging and worthwhile.

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  7. Daniela, How did I miss this posting?! I just discovered this project, which as you know is now half done and on exhibit in Toronto. I am hoping to contribute although all the text is already farmed out. I will put together an illumination or border. I love your illumination. Mindy

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