Craft: Terrific Teddy Tallis!

Hello everyone! I’m very excited to share this teddy bear tallis craft with you!

Let’s get started!

Supplies you’ll need include:

Sticky fabric glue
twine-like string
scraps of felt
a strip of your choice of white fabric/material for the shall (size will depend on the size of your bear).
sewing needle
embroidery thread in colors of your choice
a ruler
markers (optional)
fabric scissors
You will also need to have basic sewing knowledge. We will be doing some embroidering and backstitching.
a pen

This project can be time consuming, so you may want to make a little progress on this craft each day.

Step 1: Take the strip of white fabric and lightly draw corners on all four sides.

Step 2: Lightly mark the center of every corner with your pen. Then cut small holes according to the markings you made.

Step 3: Embroider the corners you drew with your choice of embroidery thread, or you may outline the corners with a marker. Stitch a looping/lacing stitches around the holes you cut in the centers of the corners to prevent them from fraying or unraveling.

Step 4: Cut the twine-like string for the tzitzits. You will need three pieces of string that are the same size and one piece of string that is much longer than the other three strings.

Step 5: Begin tying the tzit tzits. I am not an expert at tying tzitzits so I used this helpful, informational video to help me to tie them correctly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FehK2VPVlWE

Be sure to add the tzitzits to all four corners.

Step 6: Cut out a small strip of felt for the neck prayer piece. The length and width of this strip is dependent on the size of the tallis.

Step 7: Write the tallit prayer on the neck piece. As this is a model of a tallis, and its parts are very small, you may find that you only have space for the last line of the prayer. That’s ok! I was in the same situation when making this craft! I used this picture to help me to write the last line of the prayer on the neck piece. This is the last line of the prayer that is said when donning tallit.

Below, I have written the last line of the prayer on the neck piece:

Step 8: You may now either outline the Hebrew letters with your favorite marker, or embroider over the letters you wrote with pen. I suggest that you use a backstitch to embroider the letters because it will be the easiest stitch to use for the minute lettering.

Step 9: Use the sticky fabric glue to attach the neck piece to the desired spot. Be sure to tuck in any excess threads when gluing the neck piece to the shall.

Step 10: Add stripes or any other details you would like to the tallis. Be creative! For stripes, I cut four small blue strips of felt. Then, I glued two strips to each side of the tallis.