Work of the week

Despite not having posted in several days, it doesn't mean that I haven't been busy.

I re-covered a set of dining room chairs for  my dear friend known in this family as Tanta Marcia.


The  Queen Anne dining set had come into Marcia's life through marriage. I had to marry the traditional style of the dining chairs with the contemporary couch and the rustic Oriental rugs and get all of the colors in the room to play nicely.

A couple of weeks ago I helped Marcia select the fabric from one of my favorite internet home-dec retailers ( fancy stuff at cheap prices!!!). I do admit that I was a little bit bossy but clearly this was a good choice for the room.

  I came over after dinner earlier in the week armed with my fabric shears, a screwdriver and my staple gun. By the end of the evening all of the chairs were covered.  (Ignore the passive voice, I covered all of the chairs)

 I have also been working away on the sparks of divine light tallit.

Once again, my camera's brain has been scrambled by all of the different sorts of glimmer,  Both the fine straight stitched rays and the thicker rays have been machine embroidered using a fine silver metallic thread. The hand stitched rays  are made out of a blue rayon thick thread/yarn that has been wrapped with a silver lurex thread.

I dyed raw silk tussah with lurex threads for the atara/neckband.

I want the atara to convey the act of creation so I added some metallic threads to refer to the Divine.

It's subtle but will show as the wearer moves.

I also began work on the ribbons that will hide the ugly seams.

I have found that layering stitches created a rich effect.

You can see where I am going.

Once again it is Shabbat in our house this evening.

A visit to a kosher supermarket yielded lots of meat in cuts I normally don't see.

I did not buy this whole brisket which was big enough to use as a baby blanket.

I did buy several packages of beef neck bones which has been turned into this,

a big spicy stew.

The rest of my meat-haul will be turned into meals for Rosh Hashanah.

I am serving

Roasted vegetables  made with a faked za'atar made with sumac and thyme and home made noodles
which started the day looking like

and after some rest or the noodles and a bunch of rolling out looked like this before they were boiled.

I am looking forward to Shabbat and looking forward to getting the task of finishing this tallit done before the holiday.