A follow-up and more Keeper of the Textiles


I did end up making beaded tassels for the corners of the challa cover. The bling in the corners made the whole thing look truly finished. The piece got picked up today. I packaged it up in kraft paper on a board so it looked all professional. I also included a translation and transliteration of the text so the presenter could look smart. it's always good to make your clients look good. My client was very, very happy.

When I brought the challa cover down to the doorman to be picked up, the latest installation in my being Keeper of the Textiles was being delivered. The photo above is just a detail of the border. This rug was in the dining room of the house I grew up in.  Each room and hallway had it's Oriental rug. This rug was my favorite.

I loved the wonderfully ornate border and the really beautiful center medallion. Because my job was to sweep under the table after meals, I had an intimate relationship with this rug. The pile on this rug was so thick that you couldn't use a regular broom, you had to use a short handled broom to sweep the rug. My face used to be close to the carpet as I swept.

I shared a room with one or the other of my sisters growing up. Our house was a quickly built post WWII house with none of the hide-aways that I craved. Some of my friends lived in houses built in the late 1800's or early 1900's. Their houses always seemed to have odd little corners that were perfect for a child to sit hidden away and muse. For a period of time, I used to pretend that under the dining room table was one of those charming corners in an old house and I would lie under the table and trace out the design of the medallion of the rug with my finger. I also remember playing card games with my sisters under the dining room table, in particular, long games of War probably played during the long summer Shabbat afternoons.

One of the things that I always regretted is that this rug with it's exuberant pattern was always hidden by the dining room table. When my mother closed up the house this fall  and moved to her new digs, she offered me this rug. I really wanted it, but  I was concerned that the clear bright pastels of the rug, which were my favorite colors in childhood, wouldn't go so well with the spicy colors in my living room.

Nevertheless, I arranged to have the rug cleaned by my mother's local rug cleaner. Steve from Low Overhead Carpet and I bonded through our many phone calls. The work on the rug was delayed because Steve's dad had a heart attack. I wasn't exactly rushing to have the rug delivered, because if it wouldn't fit in my living room, I wasn't sure where it was going to live, and I was terrified that it would look terrible with all of the curry and reds in my living room.

So I put down the rug pad myself (Steve sent a great thick pad) and then two porters from the building did most of the heavy work moving furniture and unrolling the carpet. Much to my surprise the sweet Easter Egg colors of the carpet don't look terrible with the spicy colors on the walls and furniture.

When my youngest came home from school he took off his shoes and walked in circles on the rug commenting on how thick and comfortable the rug is. So there it is, another piece of my childhood here on Broadway.

Comments

  1. That's so wonderful, Sarah. I would like to take off my shoes and walk in circle on it, too!

    ReplyDelete

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