My pond bottom dress, or hooray for Fabricmart

My last knit bundle from http://www.fabricmartfabrics.com/ included this printed mesh knit that looks like the bottom of most of the New England ponds that I have known. For some perverse reason, I just fell in love with the fabric.

It was too sheer to wear on it's own. A previous Fabricmart bundle included a tan knit that was a lovely soft fabric but in a truly unflattering color. It made the perfect lining for the dress. I used a fitted RTW tank top as the basis for the dress. I lay the pond scum fabric out folded in 1/4 the long way. I folded the top in 1/2 and cut around it until hip level, then I just approximated my hip shape and cut accordingly. i used the cut out pond scum dress and the pattern for the lining. I sewed the shoulder seams and side seams of the dress and the lining.

Then I put the lining inside the pond scum dress, serged the two together at the neck and armholes. I then turned those seams and top stitched using a three stepped zig zag. the lining is about 8 inches shorter than the dress.

I have been making lots of simple sheath dresses lately. I realized today why. RTW sheath dresses never fit me. If the bodice is flattering, then the skirt fits like a sausage. If the skirt fits, then the bodice is huge. I'm going on this dress making binge for a couple of reasons.

I'm currently working on a couple of client projects that take a real level of concentration.

For me, garment construction is a nice way to release tension. I am also realizing as i pull out the spring and summer clothing , that these are the garments I was wearing during the whole period around my father's death. Some of those garments are so laden with the sadness of that time, that I would prefer not to wear them.

One of the customs around mourning is not to wear new clothing. One of my sisters and I have discussions about this all the time. we decided that clothing purchased at a second hand store is not new at all. Clothing purchased from an off price store with really old stock, also not new. I decided that if I make it, it is also not technically new, but falls under the category of grief therapy.

What do you think?

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...

Food friday - your grandmother's food processor

My grandmother bought my mother this wooden bowl and a chopping knife, known in Yiddish as a hock-messer, soon after my parents got married. Yes, she also got them a dairy set as well. these wooden bowls and chopping knives were a big part of food prep when I was growing up. meatloaf and meat balls were mixed in this bowl. Chopped liver was made in this bowl as well. Sundays we often made chicken salad for lunch made out of chicken left over from Shabbat chopped with vegetables and mayo. That too, was made in this bowl. When I was in college my parents got their first food processor and the chopping bowls were not used as much. Several years ago, my father asked if i would like the bowls and the hock-messers. I was happy to have them. I like the sheer physicality of chopping up a big bowl of stuff into teeny pieces. While the wooden bowls have stood up well to the years of use, the hock-messers had not. The bladed which were bolted into their handles, wobbled. The blades wouldn't ...

sarah in nyc

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