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?

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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