sarah in nyc

  A while back I had repaired two pairs of boots using a bit of leather that I had on hand and some barge glue that I had purchased for the task. The dark pair at the bottom of the photo also had some rips in the heel area. The boots are so incredibly comfortable but the rip at the heel made the boots look really shabby. My fabric stash is sort of like the state of my brain, meaning awfully messy. But the other day a leather skirt that I had purchased at a thrift for the sole purpose of mending, emerged form the chaos that is my fabric stash.I traced the back heel piece onto newsnapaer and cut it out to be a pattern for this mending adventure. I plunked my newspaper pattern onto the suede side of the leather and traced around the newspaper with a pencil.I then cut out the piece using a pair of scissors and then repeated the process so my two boots would match. I spread the barge glue (it's rubber cement but stronger) onto the back of the leather piece using a very specialized tool,...

 No,, I am not yet done but I have begun assembling the various and sundry parts. This is the right side of the tallit. From right to left you see hand embroidered fog as well as some oil paint stick fog. Above that is the foresty bit made out of machine embroidered fir trees. The tree stripe is bordered in Nova Scotia tartan. Near the top of the photo you see the "wrong" side of the tallit. Below you see both side by side. Whoever sits behind Nini at services will see  these two stripes of water, the river above and the ocean below.   I love how the river stripe captures the sense of the movement of water. I love seeing both sides of the tallit interacting with one another.  I have on more stripe to add on each side of the tallit. The entire tallit will be bordered in bias cut strips of the  Nova Scotia tartan. I have had a pretty clear idea of what this tallit would look like. At this point, what is going on in my head is becoming visible to those who don't re...

 A few years ago I bought a cotton quilt (cotton batting covered in cotton broadcloth)  for us to use during the summer. Truth be told, we use this quilt year round because my husband likes sleeping under a big pile of blankets. A week or so ago I realized that there was a big tear in the quilt about an inch from the edge. about four feet's worth of tear. If my mother owned this quilt she would have tossed it. My husband always sees the good side in people and also in objects. Why should one toss something that is nearly good?  I live with my husband and not with my late mother so I knew that I needed to come up with a way to mend this quilt.  My husband has lived with me for a long, long time so he suggested that I fix the tear using my serger or perhaps machine stitch the tear to a long strip of cotton. Neither one is a bad suggestion. I have been doing a whole lot of mending these days and I have come to learn that aside from fixing a tear mending needs to not be ...

 Often when I cook chicken I will assemble an array of spices to rub over the chicken and by the time dinner comes around or by the time I sit down to write a blog post I have entirely forgotten exactly what got put into the chicken. This week I took a photo of what went into the chicken so I could give allof yo.u an honest reporting of what went into it. It's ground dried lime, black pepper, coriander, cayenne pepper and a bit of mild Jamaican curry which is high in turmeric. I am not exactly sure what I was going for but I suspect that it will taste good. The chicken was cooked a few hours ago, I cut it up and I will add either cider vinegar or lemon juice to the pan when I warm the chicken for dinner. We are also eating roasted potatoes and mushrooms which are not yet fully cooked and asparagus which still has to be blanched. I just finished embroidering the letters for Nini's atara. Clearly there is lots of thread picking and clean up that still needs to take place. Perhpas...

 First of all, the wedding tallit in use as a chuppah. I can't even begin to tell you how pleased I am. Yes, I love the tallit that I made, but I really love this couple and wish them many, many years of happiness together.  They were so kind to one another during the entire process of making this tallit. it bodes well for the two of them. There has been a whole lot going on around here, (not even including the rockets from Iran), so I haven't had the mental focus to post. So, prepare yourself for a hdge-podge of a post. Here goes: We have done a few local adventures, including going to Roosevelt Island. We hadn't been since Covid. there has been more development on the south end of the island. It is nice to get a different perspective of the East River. The day was beastly hot and muggywhich cut down on our exploring time. After we headed home on the tram we stopped off at a Japanese supermarket, because why not??? I liked howthese frozen treats didn't try to over-prom...