Collection:  The Five Scrolls

Others in the set:  Esther: Chapters 1-4 and

Esther: Chapters 4-8

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• Needlework by Ilana Limoni

• Illustrations painted by Lindy Tilp

• Main illustrations were inspired and adapted from Leah Sosewitz’s “Haman’s Sons” found here

• Text from the Complete Hebrew Bible found here

• Completed in 2016

• It took about one year to make

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Materials and technique:

• Petit Point Canvas made from cotton with an 18 mesh mono weave (i.e., 324 stitches per square inch)

• Threads are silk, cotton, wool and metallic fibers,

         plus different kinds of beads are embedded

• Technique is a variety of stitches

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Size with and without frame:

• H: 92” (233.7 cm)   W: 36¾” (93.3 cm)

• With frame: H: 92½” (234.9 cm)   W: 37¼” (94.6 cm)

 

Process in general:

The first phase of creating a scroll panel entailed Ilana free form stitching in petit point the Hebrew text onto the canvas, referencing a graph of the Hebrew alphabet she created.  Chapters and verses start at the margin, with a new chapter also signified by a larger first letter.  Since Hebrew is written from right to left and the verses have different number of words, the left side of each panel had small blank spaces to be filled with simple drawings.  Furthermore there was less text in this panel than the others, which created additional space at the bottom.   With age it was getting more challenging for Ilana’s artist to paint onto the canvas.  Thus, she painted the illustrations at the bottom and merely sketched the top picture and graphed the smaller images to be used for the other open spaces.  Ilana’s daughter Tami used the sketch provided to draw the scene at the top.  In the second phase, Ilana stitched the artwork that was painted and she determined where to free form stitch from the sketches the additional drawings.  Also, Ilana designed the border and used the same one for all of the panels in this set.

 

Other comment: 

The scene at the top is of Haman’s ten sons hanged; this was punishment for plotting to kill every Jew in all the lands of Persia. The scribe pictured at the bottom of the canvas signifies that this is the final panel in the scroll collection, as it shows that he has reached the end of the parchment.

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For variety, Ilana embedded beads into the Esther panels.  This is the first time she incorporated such material into any of her needlework.

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