After the election

 We changed the clocks this past Saturday night. The election took place on Tuesday.

 A friend from our community died unexpectedly, so not the easiest week.

I comforted myself by making myself a fast dress.

The dress itself is based on the brillant Mary Brooks Picken's one hour dress.

In the original version the extended sides are gathered into pleats at the hip. I like the look of an asymmetrical hem.

This is what my dress looks like opened out on my dining room floor. I made the dress out of two yards of Michael Stars knit fabric that I bought for two bucks a yard. so for less than the cost of an ice cream cone in my neighborhood I am feeling a little better.

These eight challot are about half way done being baked.

We are eating a comforting shabbat dinner of a beef stew. 

The crock pot is doing it's thing so I can attend to some other tasks.

And now a few small topics that may be no no interest to anyone but me.  

My son was complaining that his leather jacket needed to be relined and perhaps was too worn to wear. I had purchased a circa 1985 Wilson leather with comically large shoulder pads. i removed the pads but the jacket looked silly on me.I suggested to my son that we trade jackets and I repair his old one and he get the Wilson jacket.

I began opening up the lining of my son's jacket so I could remove it and use it as a pattern for a new lining. The jacket felt like cornmeal was leaching through the lining. It felt kind of gross.  I discovered

that my son's jacket was interlined with foam rubber which had turned to dust. I vacuumed out all of the rotted foam and after I stitch up the bits that I had unstitched I can put off doing the actual lining replacement.

When my daughter was an infant I sometimes used to go with her to this playground that was populated by these odd horse sculptures.

Apparently they were created by an Italian surrealist who made them as a gift for one of the public housing projects in the neighborhood. They were recently restored.

It's nice to see them in such good shape. Little kids find them to be delightful to climb.

My son also gave me a pair of his jeans to mend. I probably bought these jeans twenty years ago for my older son. This is the after photo.

The denim had gotten so thin. I reinforced the fabric with running stitches.

Some other bits needed to be covered with rudimentary weaving and some bits were covered by a block of chain stitches.

Each time my son has asked me to mend his jeans he says that it is the last time. that he will ask ne to mend the pants. I am amazed at how well the mending nas extended the life of these jeans.

Wednesday I found a great deal of comfort going through a collection of photos from my hometown here.

If you went under the bridge starting in 1957 and looked to the right you would see the back entry way of my childhood synagogue. 

My childhood home was built on the left hand side of the street about forty years after this photo was taken.

Asd I typed this post,

my challot got baked, and now it is time to light candles.