A hodge podge of work

I know I have been posting mostly about cooking lately but there has also been sewing gong on in my life.

This tallit is nearly done. This tallit technically has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. I had to produce something that was pieced, but only one layer and could be “read” properly on both sides. I covered the seams on this side with the vintage ombre purple grosgrain.

The reverse has the seams covered with the vintage checkerboard red and black ribbon.

The outer edges of the tallit will be covered with a wide multicolor grosgrain.The ribbon also adds a fair amount of strength to the tallit. Every time my husband sees me working on this tallit he winces and says, “ It’s awfully bright.” it is very bring but I’m not making this for my husband but for a client who wanted this level of bright.

I have just begun working on a tallit for a new client that combines wonderful old textiles with new ones. Here is a preview.

It’s always an honor to work with such beautiful hand work.I’m trying to figure out the best way to attach the crochet lace to the gold background. if you have any brilliant ideas, please share them. There is going to be lots of this lace, four strips of 45 inches long each…so I would prefer not to do this by hand.

I am also working on a wedding gift. I had completed this challah cover a while back but I am jazzing it up for the bride who is the child of a dear friend.

I embroidered around all of the letters.

I am also adding a flourish of couched gold cord.

I think it pushes this challah cover into the realm of the fabulous.

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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...

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 יְהֹ...

sarah in nyc

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