FURY WREN

Splendid Fairywren (Malurus splendens), family Maluridae, order Passeriformes, Australia

(names, top-left to bottom-right: Marin, Voix, Dirt; Bixby, Dosie, Triptan; Negi, Olivine)

from top-left to bottom-right, we have: Bixby, Dirt, Olivine, Negi Quickly, Mott, River, Layzer, Jumbles, AC Marin, Triptan, Dosie, Voix

(names, top-left to bottom-right: Marin, Voix, Dirt; Bixby, Dosie, Triptan; Negi, Olivine)

i'm doing beyt tikkun's zoom services! you can sign up as a member on a sliding scale and get free access to their stuff

I just found a random article about it, but I'm sure there's YouTube videos too. Just make sure there's no shatnez and you're good!

And I haven't read it thoroughly but this website also has some info I found useful:

Both Hadar Cohen and Zhydovka make GORGEOUS custom tallitot. Since those are custom commissions, they are going to take longer.

And @furywren makes beautiful tzitzit. I've ordered from them before and had a great experience!

the two artists you mentioned are great- I can add some more info about them + a few more cool tallit makers to check out:

Hadar Cohen: comforting and drapey, variegated colorblock designs. custom orders only.

Zhydovka: at the intersection of natural & glam. custom orders only.

Elly Bovarnick: lovely floral & vintage vibes. custom orders & ready-to-ship.

Kol Atzmotai: crunchy and colorful, natural dyes and block-printed designs. custom orders only.

Advah Designs: traditional design with modern colors & styles. ready-to-ship.

Alder & Alder: textured, cozy, and colorful. custom orders only.

Leah Bry: hand-painted watercolor designs & landscapes. custom orders only.

Not My Brother's Kippah: delicate & shimmery chiffon tallisim. ready-to-ship.

i also put together a couple zines about DIY tallit making! features include:

actual measurements for materials

sephardi & ashki minhag

citations with sefaria links

you can check them out here:

for xanuka this year, i made a little electronic chanukiah that i want to share! i know i’m not the only person who can’t do flame-based candles for some reason or another.

this chanukiah is an online simulation that you can run in any web browser, and it is, in my grandiose and objectively correct opinion, better than any other electric chanukiah out there right now.

lots of electric chanukiot do a decent job at emulating the visual appearance of a flame-based chanukiah. the goal with this project was to emulate not only the 🕎visual appearance🕎 of a chanukiah, but also the 🔥ritual experience🔥 of lighting the candles and watching them burn.

some neat features of the ghostie arduino chanukiah:

- candle representation: each candle is represented by a stack of LED lights, and you can make the candles any color you want! if you can express it with a hex code, it’s a valid candle color. there’s also two bonus gradient patterns.

- lighting the candles: you press a button to light the shamash, then you light each candle that you want by moving a slider that lights up its light sensor.

- watching the candles burn: after a candle is lit, the top LED begins to flicker like a flame! and after that, the candle slowly and semi-randomly begins to burn down- the top LED goes dark, and the next one in the stack begins to flicker, and so on, until the light goes out at the bottom of the stack.

- clean up: all the candles will burn out on their own over the course of 30-ish minutes(plus or minus like, 20. i should really optimize the burn pattern a little, lol). after that, you can stop the simulation and reset it for the next night.

it works great on both mobile and desktop, so put it on whatever device you want. a note for mobile users: instructions for use are in the “code” tab, on the top right!