Odds and ends for the end of the week.

Starting off this Friday post with this lush rendition of the beginning of kiddush.

Earlier this week I got a surprise in the mail. My friend esther sent me two of the pretty blue dotted napkins pictured below.

She has chosen the fabric from one of my favorite home dec fabric suppliers, Fabric Guru. I talked Esther through how to pattern match across curtain panels. The napkins were her thank you. I love using these napkins. It makes me feel like I am hanging out with Esther.

A friend gave me four plastic bins filled with fabric. The fabrics are an interesting mix. There are off cuts of delicious soft suiting wools. Some people might be receiving some luscious scarves in subtle colors. There are a couple of small pieces of wool coating in charcoal grey. There are several off cuts from drapery projects in satin. I am now the owner of several cuts of denim in a few different weights.

One of the fabrics felt like a blast from the past. it was a champagne colored upholstery velvet. It is the sort of fabric that I would hate on furniture. That fabric was calling to me though. as soon as i saw it I thought that it would look great as an asymmetrical wrap skirt.

I am about to start a couple of projects but the supplies haven't yet arrives so I have a bit of free time.I made the skirt that I saw in my head.

I am not sure if the suede loop and ties (also from the plastic box stash) will be the final closure but it will do for now. A bit of yellow striped drapery fabric from the same stash serves as both the waistband facing and the the internal ties. This skirt reminds me of an elegant skirt that my older sister wore in high school. The upholstery velvet was surprisingly easy to sew. I am not sure how it will launder though, the underside of the fabric is slightly rubberized. I have already worn it once.

I have had to do nearly no cooking this Shabbat because most of dinner was waiting for me in the freezer. I just made some gazpacho today...we will be drinking our vegetables tonight.

Someone has planted the side yard of the church on 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue with

charming abandon. I just love how unstudied it looks.

It feels like a bit of the country here in Manhattan.

Sewing is Cool Again showed up in the New York times. Glad to know.

Shabbat Shalom to all of you.

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...

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

Search This Blog