AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

After I wrote my last post I carefully outlined all of the letters on the text panels of Ella’s tallit. I was feeling so pleased about how clean the lettering looked. I was so happy about how nicely the two panels of lettering worked together.

But then I noticed AAAAAARRRGGGHH!!!! two teeny droplets of paint on the fourth row of text between the third and fourth letters from the left.

I put the work away and hoped that I could sleep on a solution to the problem. I woke up having dreamed the two droplets into giants ugly globs of horribleness.

I could pretend that nothing was amiss and hope that Ella and her family wouldn’t notice. But that is pretty dishonest and would leave me feeling guilty. I could redo the lettering, but the paint had dried. I would have to mix up new pots of color, I don’t know if I could match the color or get the letting to play nicely if I started a new.

Instead I emailed Ella’s mom with photos of the blobetts and asked her what she thought. Every client has their own sense of acceptable margin of error. I wanted to know if the droplets fit within that margin.

Happily for me, Ella’s family was OK with the teeny drops. We have all agreed to ignore them.

I had a bit of very minor surgery this morning and planned to work this afternoon. The best laid plans and all that and I had to go visit my nephew in the hospital and act as loco parentis.

After dinner I pieced the front of the tallit. Tomorrow I will line the tallit and hopefully attach the atara and pinot. I don’t dare work tired. I think I have used up my mess up allotment for this tallit.

Comments

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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 re...

Food friday - your grandmother's food processor

My grandmother bought my mother this wooden bowl and a chopping knife, known in Yiddish as a hock-messer, soon after my parents got married. Yes, she also got them a dairy set as well. these wooden bowls and chopping knives were a big part of food prep when I was growing up. meatloaf and meat balls were mixed in this bowl. Chopped liver was made in this bowl as well. Sundays we often made chicken salad for lunch made out of chicken left over from Shabbat chopped with vegetables and mayo. That too, was made in this bowl. When I was in college my parents got their first food processor and the chopping bowls were not used as much. Several years ago, my father asked if i would like the bowls and the hock-messers. I was happy to have them. I like the sheer physicality of chopping up a big bowl of stuff into teeny pieces. While the wooden bowls have stood up well to the years of use, the hock-messers had not. The bladed which were bolted into their handles, wobbled. The blades wouldn't ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog