sarah in nyc

LOVED the refashioned sweater. I mailed it Friday, and it arrived today. She loved the color. Loved the ruffle. I love making people happy. This Eileen Fisher silk sweater began life as an aggressively happy geranium pink wide v-necked sweater. The pink would have worked in a county club. It did not work for my sister. The shape of the sweater and the neck was hugely unflattering. My sister and I are built fairly similarly. It looked awful on me. It made me look super-wide. First I dyed the sweater using a purple dye. It calmed that chipper pink right down. I can pretend that I knew exactly the color that would result. I didn't but, I had the feeling that anything would be an improvement. I was right. This mauve is lovely and will look good on my sister. My sister didn't give me any instructions about what she wanted. On the one hand, freedom is a nice thing. On the other hand, I actually like having lots of parameters in my work. All those limitations are actually really h...

Usually, when my photo is taken I am awash in a sea of double chins, or my face is really shiny, not cute and glowy but as if I just finished running a marathon, or my mouth is doing something really weird. This isn't just my neurosis shining through, but it is something my husband is quick to admit as well. He, on the other hand is hugely photogenic. Our friends Renee and Jack got married a few weeks ago. It was a second wedding for both and was just a blast with tons of very sweet grandchildren walking down the aisle and tossing rose petals. ( and a belly dancer as a nod to Renee's Sephardic heritage. ) This photo was taken at their wedding. This is probably the best photo taken of me---ever. This is a less than ideal photo of my sweet husband, but there are thousands of photos of him out in the universe looking fabulous. The dress is one I made last year out of crinkled rayon purchased from Kabbala man on 35th street. The bodice is based on a Kwik- Sew night gown pattern. I...

This week we attached the bottom two tiers of curcular ruffles to the dress. Since the first tier went in perfectly, I assumed that the second would as well. I was wrong. So a bunch of unpicking later, we pinned the tier and my student sewed it . As she was working I realized that a normal sewing teacher woud not have a beginner sewing a knit to a woven so early in the learning process, but since I hadn't told my student that this was potentially difficult she did fine. For the bottom tier, I showed my student the magic of quarter marking. We marked both the dress and the chiffon ruffle and it was really easy for it to come together. I have been using a large piece of sidewalk chalk for marking. the chalk was left over from my now 18 year old's fifth birthday party. My student commented , " The great thing about marking with chalk is that the marks come out so easily. That is also the terrible thing about the chalk." My student is going to zig zag around the hems o...

The text for this atara/neckband comes from the biblical story of Samuel. The boy, Samuel, is called by God in the night. Samuel thinks he is being called by his mentor, rushes to him and says " (Here I am) because you called me". I wrote the text out with ink on cardstock using a square tipped paint brush. I then cut the letters out using an X-acto knife. I used the cards with the cut out letters as a stencil. the color was shiva paintstick applied with a stiff stencil brush. I'm loving the wide letters. The actual color of the silk is a deeper maroon. I had already stencilled the Florentine grille design. I love how using the stencil results in such risp lettering.

Sara Beth is the girl friend of the son of dear friends. All of our sons should have girl friends like Sara Beth. She is smart, kind, beautiful and funny. She also asked me to make her a tallit . During the summers she works in a Jewish camp in Georgia. The tallit needed to be comfortable in the Georgia heat. She felt that a scarf shape would be easier to manage and keep on her body. The Torah mantle I did in memory of my father was around when I met with Sara Beth. She loved the beading. She also loved the look of the tallit I had done for my older son, a black tallit that my son wanted to look like "outer space". I had hand embroidered stars for the stripes. The fabric we chose for this tallit is a rough woven silk, called "Silk Linen" by the folks at www.supersilk.com . In planning the tallit I had thought that I would double the silk in making the tallit . Yesterday I cut the yardage and realized that the two layers would just be too hot for Georgia summer...

My friend Tamar was celebrating her birthday today with a get together of several women friends for lunch. I debated a bit about what would be a good gift for Tamar and finally decided on a scarf. Tamar is one of those women who is not a red head, has the coloring of one. The slightly off colors that look terrific on redheads look great on Tamar. So when I found this strip of not quite sea foam green shantung, I knew it was exactly the right color for Tamar. The scarf needed a bit of embellishment. I cut a stamp out of a dollar store plastic eraser. I poured a bit of bronze and some blue fabric dye onto a paper plate and got to work. I stamped three rows of design up and down the scarf. After setting the color with my iron, I serged the fabric into a tube , turned it right side out and then top stitched the result. I have lots of beads left over from the Torah mantle and decided to try to add a beaded fringe. this was a first for me. I did two different beading patterns, one on eac...

My student is making this dress to wear to a special event. Often, my student will start the design process by going fabric shopping in my work space. She fell in love with a black rayon jersey knit. I don't blame her. I made two dresses out of the same fabric. It feels divine on and has a great drape. Then my student began to sketch a dress with three tiers of ruffles.We drafted and constructed a tank dress out of the rayon based on my students measurements. We planned to suspend the ruffled tiers from the tank dress. My student did a great job of binding the armholes with cross grain strips of the rayon. The results were tidy, a nice testament to her progress over these weeks. We has lots of discussion back and forth about the tiered ruffles and what they ought to look like, and what their placement ought to be, should the tiers start at the neck? or further down on the bodice? I showed my student a dress I had made using circular ruffles at the hem. she loved the restrained loo...

I know Ella from synagogue. She is ten or eleven and is one of those kids who is already complete. You don't get the sense that her personality will undergo any drastic changes between now and adulthood. That personality is well grounded and slightly quirky. A couple of months ago, Elle and her mom came up to me in a rush at services, Arnie , Ella's stuffed security bunny was in of a bath. I talked them through how to do it ( wash and dry Arnie tied up in a pillow case to reduce the chance of abrasion) Arnie survived her bath, but was in need of some plastic surgery. Some patches of her fur were worn out by love . Love had also deflated Arnie's plumpness. Ella brought Arnie over for surgery. First we repaired the bald spot on Arnie's face. Ella cut up three pairs of my pantyhose to re stuff Arnie. I carefully cut Arnie on her shoulder seam. Ella re stuffed Arnie's belly, and her right arm and then sewed it all back together. After we examined our work, Ella men...

My youngest shaved for the first time. Instruction was provided by his older brother. I love how my youngest can turn to his older brother for sound advice and instruction. My older son just inherited one of my father's shavers. he passed the gentler, easier on tender skin shaver to his younger brother. Minus the shadow of fuzz, my youngest actually looks younger. But he feels much more grown up. And now on to the last days of Passover. Today I made something that my kids adored, Cheese Pan Cakes. Basically it is cottage cheese, yogurt, an egg, some matza mael to bond it together, a bit of sugar, vanilla, a dash of salt and a bit of sugar and some fresh orange peel. The glop gets fried up in a frying pan in small pancake in silver dollar sized blobs. Passover is hard on my bread loving boys. I'm glad to be able to make them something that makes them happy.

It's Passover. This is what is currently on my pantry shelves. Last Monday I got my house all kashered for Passover, got a bus to Philadelphia and got our pal Bill's house ready for Passover. We shopped Monday night at the giant kosher for Passover department at the Acme Supermarket in Bala Cynwyd along with Bill's kids. Tuesday I began my marathon Passover cook fest . Bill's kitchen is not all that well equipped but Tuesday I made, chicken soup, matza balls, 4 chickens, a carrot kugel , hand chopped charoset , and hand grated horseradish , quinoa , a potato kugel and my first ever passover cake - a chocolate cake and meals for the kids. Wednesday I made, three more chickens, meat balls, an orange cake , chocolate sauce for the orange cake, cole slaw, 6 lbs of tilapia and the pesto sauce that went on the tilapia , and fruited quinoa ..and meals for the kids. Wednesday late afternoon, the rest of my family showed up and we did seder with Bill and other friends...

The Bar Mitzvah is over. I wanted to reward myself for all of the hard work that went into pulling off the event. http://www.fabricmartfabrics/ . was having a 20% off sale. I bought a knit fabric bundle. You don't get to choose the fabrics that you get in exchange for getting the fabrics at a terrific price, even before you figure in the discount. I'm willing to take a gamble. This lace printed jersey is probably not something that I would choose on my own. That is actually one of the great things about those Fabricmart bundles. For me, the bundles are like one of those cooking shows where you get a random selection of ingredients and have to make a complete meal out of them. Occasionally I have hated one or two of the selections in my bundles. More often than not, I end up making my favorite clothes out of fabric that I never would have chosen on my own. I loved the feel of the lace printed fabric. However the both the print and the color seemed very much not like something ...

Sara Jacobs' tallit is done. Yup, the same name, different spellings. Sara loved the blessing that Jacob gives his grandsons, Menashe and Ephraim. That has been incorporated into the bedtime prayer and also has been set to music by various composers. So it is a beautiful text that Sara connects to strongly. Sara wanted the imagery of winds to feature in the tallit . Google Images yielded up a terrific image of plover wings . I cut a stencil based on that wing image and used it on the corners as well as in the body of the tallit . The wings are upright, recalling the wings of the Cherubim in the Temple. Sara loves the color combination of pink and brown. It's here color theme for her bat mitzvah, so her tallit is pink and brown. the text Sara loves so much is on her atara . The atara is bordered in a pinky brown metallic rayon. The atara is sewn on to the tallit with gold bugle beads and iridescent seed beads , just to give a bit of flash to the tallit .

is mostly gone. Some, we ate ourselves. Some we gave to friends and neighbors. I just gave two large containers one filled with cholent the other with taboule to my friend who is delighted not to have to cook. Tomorrow or Friday I plan to make a huge bread pudding to bring to the pot-luck kiddush on Shabbat.