Blog salad

It's Friday and today there will not be a post about food. In a few hours, we are leaving to spend time marking an important moment in American Jewish history.

My husband,

not all that long after this photo was taken became involved in an experimental Jewish community called Havurat Shalom. This year marks fifty years since that experiment began. You can read one perspective on that experiment and community here.

The article focuses on the author's experience there, which expresses just some facets of the place. But if you are at all involved in living a Jewish life today ripples from the pebbles tossed into the Jewish waters then are part of your own Jewish practice.  The innovative approach to prayer, to thinking about Jewish practice that was part of the DNA of Havurat Shalom certainly informs my work. 

We are looking forward to spending the weekend with dear friends.

Although I haven't posted in several days it does not mean that things have been entirely quiet here.

I framed and matted this watercolor of my mother-in-law painted by my father-in-law soon after they got married.

This watercolor was painted in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1943.

Yesterday I visited one of my favorite places in the city, the African market on 116th street.

I bought some African wax prints and a wrap dress. I fell in love both with the cut and with the fabric.

Two of the fabrics got turned into a wrap skirt ( the first I have made)

For those of you interested in drafting a wrap skirt it is made up of a skirt front and back and an additional skirt front. You make a waist tie and add a button hole to the waistband. This skirt would have benefitted from some darts at the waist. I don't know why this task had been terrifying me for so many years. Now I have something that feels like it might have been worn in the early 1970's when my husband was part of Havurat Shalom.

Shabbat Shalom!