How did a Vermonter who grew up atheist come to weave Jewish prayer shawls sold to customers as far away as San Francisco, Denmark and Australia? The multifaceted answer includes falling in love with an observant Jew, said weaver Nelly Wolf, owner of Black Cat Judaica. On a recent afternoon, Wolf, 29, chatted with Seven Days in the upper floor of a historic Peacham barn where she works on her two large 18th-century wooden looms. Each held a partially completed prayer shawl bearing stripes of different colors and varied widths woven from blended wool and silk into a white wool background. Bands in shades of ebony, sable and garnet revealed complex detail work forming tiny flowers and stars. The handwoven fabric will become sacred garments that many Jews wear during worship. They’re called tallitot (plural) or tallit (singular) in Hebrew. Each custom order takes Wolf two days to weave and another several hours to finish with hand-sewn corner and neckband pieces and four hand-spun, hand-tied corner fringes. Since Wolf launched Black Cat Judaica in December 2020, she estimates she’s sold about 75 tallitot for between $100 and $700. The sliding scale is based on the size and shape of the shawl, as well as the customer’s means. Wolf has spread the word largely via her business Instagram account, generating orders from all over the U.S. and beyond. Many tallitot are the first special prayer shawls given to youngsters for their bar or bat mitzvah, the traditional Jewish coming-of-age ceremony. Others, such as a pure snow-white tallit with intricate white-on-white twill patterning, are for weddings. Nelly and Ira Wolf did not wear wedding tallitot at their marriage celebration in October 2021 because it’s not the custom in his family’s Jewish tradition. In sharp contrast to Wolf’s nonreligious upbringing in Guilford, her husband grew up in a Modern Orthodox family in Manhattan. At 17, Ira left city life for the countryside of Vermont and eventually attended the University of Vermont. He remains deeply connected to Judaism and his community, his wife said, though he no longer follows orthodox practices. The pair met through folk dancing in 2018. Wolf had studied textile anthropology at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common and was working at the Marshfield School of Weaving. “I taught Ira how to weave because, you know, we were flirting,” Wolf said with a smile. “It was a way to spend time…