And one sibling gets the pink sash...

I cheated a bit yesterday. The Challa cover with the appliqued leaves was not quite completed. It was still not backed and was missing it's border. As I looked at it during the evening, I realized that it needed some floral matter in addition to the appliqued foliage.

Sometimes I purchase fabric because I have a specific project in mind for it. Sometimes I purchase fabric because it simply appeals to me. The crinkle purple iridescent poly I used for the flowers appealed to me on a purely irrational basis. I found it in a curtain store on 37th street. it was a magpie purchase. "Shiny! Crinkled! Iridescent! Must own!" At $5/yard two yards was not a bad deal.

I tore off a three inch strip and serged the long ends together. Then I snipped off 3-5 inch lengths of the strip , sewed them into bagels and then gathered the serged edge.. Then I gathered the open end and sewed the flower like purple lumps onto the challa cover. Several of these flowers have a bead sewn into the center.

As, I worked the text of a needlework book I had read during the 1970's kept running through my head. The author was very critical of exactly this sort of sculptural applique so beloved by Victorian needle women. I could see how too much of this sort of work can certainly go too far. But I was thinking "Tough noogies!" Yes, this is a little goofy, but just this side of tasteful.

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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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