sarah in nyc

Today as I was making the summer stuff in my closet more accessible I realized that magenta is my go-to color in the summer. I actually find that very odd. Because if you asked me my general opinion about wearing pink I would tell you "Yuk! I am not a pink sort of a girl." I think that it might be having grown up just outside of Boston where that Lily Pulitzer aesthetic runs deep. Winters on the New England coast are just so dreary that you need to wear screamingly bright colors in the summer to make up for it. The newest addition to my wardrobe certainly follows in the screamingly bright colors for summer tradition. It is made out of a cotton / lycra from the http://www.fabric.com/ 1.95 page. It had my name written all over it. The waistband is a cotton interlock in deep purple from the same page. I like how the contrasting band gives me a pretend waist. Obsessive followers of this blog may notice a distinct resemblance to this dress. Yes I copied it with some slight adj...

My youngest, like the grandfather he so resembles, does not eat much or care very much about food. So when on Shabbat he began to speak longingly about a meal I had made last year of beef ribs, I decided to make them again for his last dinner before camp. I had a funeral to go to yesterday morning. The funeral home is right near our local kosher butcher shop. Right after the funeral I went to buy my boy the ribs. After I brought home the rack of ribs, I cut them apart and marinated them in barbecue sauce for a couple of hours. my older son made a big salad and I baked those ribs. We sat down to eat that meal. I have never seen my younger son take so much pleasure in eating anything that wasn't dessert. By then end of the meal it looked as if we were a group of cave men. It was lovely to discover something that my boy loves to eat. I hope he has a good time in camp.

I haven't been posting the progress of my sewing student lately. It isn't that she hasn't been progressing, she has. As her skills have improved it has seemed a better use of our time together to design, draft and do the basic garment construction together.My student has been finishing off her garments, finishing off the necklines and armholes and hemming her garments at home, on her own. That has been hugely satisfying to me as a teacher, but it has made posting finished garments a bit more difficult. Last week we had made a bubble dress, that is a tank dress with a band at the hem that gathered the hem. The silk knit we had used didn't have the best recovery in the world, so the dress ended up looking sad and floppy. My student attempted a fix but was not satisfied with the result. There was no more of the navy blue silk knit.The band was damaged by the fix and the un-sewing. Since the fabric was fairly fragile, it seemed to make better sense to just cut the band off ...

Hannah is a neighbor. She went to elementary school with my youngest. The two kids acted as if they were allergic to one another, so I never got to know Hannah very well. Hannah met with me on Monday so we could figure out her tallit. I was so impressed with her. She came on her own. usually a bat- Mitzvah kid will come for an initial meeting with me with a parent. usually the parent serves as an editor of the kid's most wild ideas. Initially, Hanna fell in love with a silver shantung. I'm not talking about a silk with a silvery sheen, but a shantung woven with metallic threads, it looked like tin foil. It was fabulous, but also a whole lotta look. We were finalizing the design when Hanna asked " Do you think that the silve might make me look like an alien?" I answered truthfully. That in fact, it would make her look like an alien. She quickly replaced that choice with a silver-ey lavender. It was so interesting to see her come to the correct answer without being pus...

I have been working on a batch of challa covers. The text in the center comes from the central poem of the Friday night service. In it we are invited to greet the Sabbat Queen/bride. The challa cover makes a great wedding gift ( a bit of shameless promotion there). For those of you interested in the technique end of things, I calligraphed the text onto heavy art paper and then cut the letters out with an X-acto knife. I then used that paper with the cut out letters as a stencil on silk shantung, filling the letters in with a Shiva paint stick. Then with a really fine brush I added what I call "hoo-has" the vine and berry pattern , around the letters using a mix of fabric dye acrylic paint and metallic powder. The border fabric is a piece of upholstery fabric that my friend Sara purchased in France. We have been invited to an engagement party that is taking place on Saturday evening. The groom's parents are good friends. My husband suggested that the challa cover that I ...

My older son does karate about three days a week. Once a week he does sparring. Regardless of if he does fighting or not, karate at his Dojo is sweaty business. I have seen workouts where the floor is completely wet from the combined sweat of the participants. My son gives me his gi, or karate uniform, to wash quarterly. I'm not squeamish, but I refuse to touch the gi before it has been cleaned. Last night was wash the gi night. My son mentioned that his gi was torn and needed to be mended. I know, as well as anyone, that " A stitch in time saves nine." or it makes a whole lot of sense to mend before washing, because the agitation of the machine can cause more damage. But in this case, that gi wasn't going to be touched until it was clean. Our usual drill is to run the gi through the wash twice. By the time the gi came out of the wash, the bi-directional tears under the arms were pretty spectacular. I sewed them up but noticed that the the lever that lifts the sewing ...

This spring I did a tallit making workshop at my synagogue, Ansche Chesed , in Manhattan. Participants studied texts about tallit , and then chose text for their neckbands and corner pieces. The students selected silk and painted their neckbands. The tallitot will then be constructed. We will come together to tie the tzitzit . These photos are from Miriam's atara /neckband and pinot / corner pieces. The text reads " And I will place my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them." The calligraphy is mine, Miriam then outlined the letters in dye. More pieces from this project will appear in the coming weeks.

A store front that for several years was a ten dollar store has changed hands a couple of times in the past year and a half or so. After the ten dollar store was shuttered, it was briefly a store that sold clothing that looked like ten dollar store clothing, but sold for about twice the price. Given the fact that one could purchase the same garments for $10 a couple of blocks uptown, not surprisingly, that store quickly went under. There is now a new tenant in that storefront. I went in for the first time today. They certainly carry a surprising array of goods. The goods are set out in large cardboard cartons with hand lettered signs with the prices. Today they were selling, boy's pajama pants, Women's bras, men's bathing suits, dress pants for fat men, shower curtain, tab top curtains and packages of color coordinated wash cloths sold by the dozen. I wonder how long it will take before this store goes under.

Today I edged the old shul tallit with bronze metallic middy ribbon. The ribbon gives a tidy edge. I like working with it because it has a fair amount of body and doesn't slide around a whole lot. I had gotten a huge cone of 3/4 inch wide ribbon several years ago at Tinsel Trading. I use it a a ton, not only because I have so much of it, but also I like how the bronze is a lot less flashy looking than a regular bright gold. The corner pieces were to have Samuel's answer when he was called by God., Hineini , "Here I am." In Hebrew, that word is made up of four letters. I played with several ways to lay out the word, in a tight circle, in a diamond. I finally hit on the idea of repeating the word in each of the four corners of each pina/corner piece. I drafted a three inch square and calligraphed the words. Then I tweaked the edges of the letters with a fine tipped pen. Finally, I cut out the letters using an X-acto knife. I'm using a maroon velveteen for the pinot....

Our oldest left for China today. She will be teaching English first to middle school kids for four week. For four additional weeks she will be teaching English teachers who know how to get kids to pass English tests, but can't really speak English. I'm delighted thatshe got this fellowship. I'm just so proud of her. But I will also be missing her terribly this summer.

Sara-Beth came to pick up her tallit and tie the tzitzit today. She was very happy with her tallit . As someone who has spent lots of time in summer camp, the half hitch knot used to tie the tzitzit was familiar to her from her friendship bracelet making childhood. She chose to use silk for her tzitzit . The silk Sara- Beth chose looks a bit like butcher's twine, but it has a beautiful sheen. Did I mention that she was happy? I also gave her her engagement gift. A challa cover made out of a melange of silks. the text comes from the Friday night services.

Erin on www.dressaday.com did an entry today about her many pairs of penny loafers. I think I have owned two pairs of penny loafers in my lifetime. What I do wear on my feet is cowboy boots. This is my collection of cowboy boots. This is actually the bulk of my shoe collection. You may wonder why this Boston-bred New Yorker wears cowboy boots. The simple answer is comfort. I have wide feet. Finding women's shoes that fit my feet and don't depress me isn't an easy task. While the default width for women's shoes is a B, the default width for men's shoes is a D. I wear a D. I suppose I could wear lace up oxfords, but that would be simply depressing. These boots are all men's boots. The cowboy boots look fun , work well with skirts and feel good on my feet. Because my foot is a relatively small one for a man, I can usually find boots on sale. because men tend not to go for flash, I can usually get a funky pair. Life in cold weather is good. I'm now tran...

I like productive days. Yesterday I sewed the pinot , corner pieces onto Sara-Beth's tallit . I also sewed the eyelets by hand, ( I love the way they look). In addition, I did the lettering for the a tara /neckband. The text that Sara-Beth chosefor her atara is a wonderful one. It comes from one of the Psalms we recite every morning, "(God) counts all of the stars and calls them all by name". I like that every morning I get to re-think the work on this tallit as I chant those verses. I also love how each element in this tallit , the tallit itself, the corner pieces and the atara all reflect the verse. They aren't identical but they all work well together, ( kind of like my kids). The atara is made out of a black tussah silk. It's got a heavy horizontal weft and the fibers themselves have the slightly rough texture of a raw silk. It's a subtle but nice contrast to the slubby rough textured even weave of the rest of the tallit . Sara-Beth, I think, had expec...