Here’s a nifty way to add stripes to a zippered tallit bag. I recently created this tallit bag of heavy gabardine for a client, and added stripes of blue Dupioni silk to match the corner pieces that were on the tallit (I wish I had a photo of the tallit to show you, but alas, no).

In this post, I won’t go into the full instructions for the bag but focus specifically on the technique for the fabric insets.

On the right is the back piece for the tallit bag — no stripes there. On the left are strips of gabardine and silk to be sewn together. I made the strips wide enough to allow for 1/4″ (6mm) seam allowances where the strips meet each other.

You’ll notice that the silk strips have pieces of gabardine underneath them. The silk is much more lightweight than the gabardine, so I backed each strip of silk with a piece of gabardine. You could baste the silk pieces to the underlying gabardine to hold them together, but I just laid them on top of each other and treated them like one strip of fabric.

Sew the pieces together, right sides of the fabric together. On the left in the photo you see the the wrong side of the fabric after the strips have been sewn together.

Press the seam allowances away from the silk insets.

Working from the right side of the fabric, I top stitched the gabardine close to each seam, sewing through the seam allowances underneath, for a nice finish.

With the striped insets finished and the back piece, lining pieces and zipper in hand, the tallit bag is ready for assembly.

This technique is a great way to personalize a tallit bag and coordinate it with the tallit itself. And you might even be able to do it with fabric left over from making the corner pieces.

Maria Bywater is the author of Sew Jewish: The 18 Projects You Need for Jewish Holidays, Weddings, Bar/Bat Mitzvah Celebrations, and Home. She teaches hands-on Judaica sewing workshops.