retail therapy--my way

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 I would ever choose. But I realized that if I edged it in black it could work for me. I decided to add a black waistband piece in addition to the neckline and arm hole binding. The completed dress has a much more va va va voom vibe that I had intended. making a dress like this on the serger is a real instant gratification sort of an experience. I think that the vintage clothing sites would call this a wiggle dress. When I wear it, I can pretend that I am an extra in Mad Men. It seems like a good dress to wear into the spring. I had intended it to be a wear around the house sort of a dress, but it seems to have wanted to be come a dressy dress.

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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...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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