A 30 minute T- shirt

A few months ago I was shopping in the garment district with some of my sewing buddies we were in one of the hole in the wall stores on 38th Street .As often is the case, there was a box of remnants near the cash register. one of the remnants was a three yard length of a dirty textured white cotton /synthetic blend. I bought the piece for maybe $5. I took it home and washed it and it came out fine. I really liked the puckery knit.

I thought I would make a 3/4 sleeved scoop neck t- shirt. I had made one out of a different bargain white lacey knit a while back , but I had made it too short. That shirt was my first successful attempt at a set in sleeve. I was immensely proud of that sleeve but the short length made that shirt not all that wearable. The puckeryfabric has been sitting in a pile in my sewing space waiting to be made up.

My husband has been working nearly every waking hour for the past few months. I wandered into our bedroom at 11 last night to retrieve that short shirt to use it as a pattern. My husband was hard at work and asked me what I was up to. I told him my plan and told him that by the time that Saturday Night Live was starting, the shirt would be completed. He expressed some doubts, but although I missed the first sketch ( I decided to clean up my mess before watching TV)my shirt was done. The neckline is edged with black velvet fold over elastic, the seams and hems are all serged. I may attempt something fancier at a later time.

I know that this particular shape of t-shirt is not the current style, but I like the way they look on me. Each and every time I get a set in sleeve right I am so completely pleased with myself. Each time I get it right it feels like I won the lottery. The books all make it seem so hard. it really isn’t. I will have to put some thought into how to do a tutorial that makes the process understandable to other people.

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Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to read a batch of recipes and the

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ M

Chanukah

Last night we lit the first candles of Chanukah. We were joined by our dear friends Alfie and Judy. My husband met them during his college years. I am new to the game since we have only been friends since 1982. I made latkes, lots of them. I took the opportunity to use last night as a dry run for the latke dinner with our kids later in the week. Our kids are eaters. My my original plan was to make the latkes in the air fryer but I realized that it would take too long to do the many small batches needed. Instead I baked the latkes in a hot oven with lots of oil on my baking sheets. I made potato latkes. As a kindness to my husband I did the blasphemy of leaving out the onions. I did add shredded carrots for texture and lots of smoked paprika and black pepper for flavor. I made carrot, apple and dill latkes. I also made summer squash latkes with amba powder and sumac. Unfortunately I had baked them at 350 and not 400 which I discovered is the sweet spot for crispy oven baked latkes. Th

sarah in nyc

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