fruits of my adventure with Elizabeth

Last Wednesday I got together with my friend Elizabeth, who I met through http://www.patternreview.com/. Elizabeth has a much more precise and careful approach to sewing than I do. It's always nice to share ideas and to run around in the fabric district with a fellow sewer.

We had planned to meet at Greenberg and Hammer. Both of us had notions-ey purchases to make and since we were showing up form different directions it's comfortable place to poke around while waiting for a friend to show up.

I got there a bit early and was looking through the latest issue of Threads magazine which had an article about working with rectangular godets. Elizabeth showed up and we both bought interfacings for different projects, needles and threads. Elizabeth also needed some zippers. It's a nice place for poking a round with nice staff who can also walk you through the intricacies of different sorts of interfacing.

Most of the folks at http://www.patternreview.com/ love shopping at Metro Textile. I had never been. Elizabeth took me to metro. Metro is run by Kashi who came to the states from Iran after the Revolution. The store is run a bit differently than most of the other stores in the district. You tell Kashi what you are looking for , and then he brings you a bolt, or a selection of bolts that he thinks might strike your fancy.

His range of fabrics is pretty wide. He carries a wider quality range than Kaballa Man, with more high end fabrics than Kabbala Man carries. I'm not in dire need of fabrics so I tend not to buy unless I need it for a client or the price is amazing.

Kashi had several bolts of cool looking Missoni-like fabric. I loved it, but really didn't need it at $6.00 a yard. I did want come of the drapey grey jersey. i have a Norma Kamali skirt int he same fabric. It will be nice to make a top to match.

I was about to make my final decisions, when I found the remnant bin. I found some luscious suedes and a length of that Missoni fabric, for $2. I bought it along with a lurex knit.

Elizabeth had some good ideas about how to lay out the dress, and today I made it. The rectangular godet was sparked by the look in the Threads Magazine. The dress feels very much like a memento of a fun day in the garment district.

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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