sarah in nyc

Schechter parochet VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL Wednesday evening, I was ready to do what for most people, would be the easiest part of this project, adding the backing. I cut a piece of dark blue Ottoman rayon to size, serged the raw edges and began machine stitching the front to the back. I thought that I had been pretty good about cutting to size but it was clear when I came to the bottom of the first seam that I had badly miscalculated. M y plan was to apply the Ultra-suede border after the front and back were sewn together. I then realized that while I had calligraphed the names of all of the prophets the girls had chosen, I still needed several inches more of border. I chose a few more illustrious biblical prophetic types. In tryuing to undo my sewing, I ripped a piece of the parochet.  I was then both furious and depressed. I quit working for the night and watched a few episodes of Pee Wee’s Playhouse to cheer up. The next morning I was ready to attack the lining ...

Rachel's waves I’m now working on the ocean portion of Rachel’s tallit. I layers three colors of Shantung, a turquoise a blue/grey and a dark green.T stitched waves and then began cutting away layers of the silk. while I was working, I found a length of silk charmeuse that I had dyed in blue/greens. I’m adding some waves in the charmeuse. Once the piece looks oceany enough, I will then satin stitch and cover all of the raw edges. I suppose that there other other ways to build an ocean out of fabric, but this is my favorite method. crossing Broadway Walking on the south bound lane of Broadway after the storm And now for the continuing weather report.  You can see that at 9:00 this morning, that Broadway was still unpopulated by cars, you can see the lone walker walking south.  The cross streets were still unplowed. A little later on in the day I saw parents pulling their little one on a sled, going west. During the night I saw the Chinese restaurant delivery men weav...

Today was the first real snow of the year. We had had a lovely dusting earlier int he week. This was the perfect snow, dry and airy, and it made that great crunch under my boots. This snow still has many hours of activity to it. My last winter living home was the winter of 1977-8. For any of you who lived in Boston at the time, you will remember it as the winter you will describe to your grandchildren. That winter it snowed each and every Friday night and each snowstorm was at least 8 inches, and often more. I did lots of shoveling. Now, I live in an apartment building. the lovely staff in my building shovels the snow. I am so very grateful to them because now, I enjoy the snow without any worries, without any responsibilities.

My youngest hates spicy food. He’s away for the week. I’m taking advantage of the moment and making Jerk chicken for Shabbat. I cheated and bought a bottle of Jerk seasoning at Whole Food. Our guest for tonight mentioned that she can’t tolerate really spicy food, so I also made some pomegranate chicken fir her. Because all of our guest are all of legal drinking age the sorbet for tonight, cara-cara orange and coconut is heavily spiked with rum.  pomegrantae chicken 

http://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/58256 Maggiedoll on http://www.patternreview.com/ followed my sweater tutorial and made this cardigan. I love how she used the basic idea of how to copy a sweater and then made it her own. I love how this method of making clothing gives you the freedom to create what you want, using something that looks nothing like the finished garment as the spark of the idea.

Rachel’s grandparents joined our synagogue about ten years ago as empty nesters. They are truly dear people who have really added a great deal to our community. They asked me to make a tallit for their granddaughter Rachel. Rachel is a spunky sprite of a kid who owns a company making video photomontages for events. Rachel is a kid who goes to Jewish day school and clearly has paid attention in school. Running through the texts was just easy . She’s opinionated- a character that I like a whole lot in a kid. When one’s client is a twelve year old  there is often what I think of as the Malibu Barbie moment. A thematic or color whim, suddenly becomes really important for the client. My job is to direct that Malibu Barbie moment so the tallit will work for my client not just at age twelve but also as they  wear the tallit ten or more years after the bat-mitzvah. Rachel had two such desires. one was for the base color to be brown, because she at the moment is loving blue a...

The supermarket closest to my house was an ordeal to shop at. The prices were mostly better than anywhere else, except for the prices that were jacked up to crazy levels. The aisles were super narrow, so narrow that shopping was not only about acquiring food, but also involved a negotiation with every other customer in the store. The cashiers were nearly all either indifferent or actively rude. Each time I went to the market I would complain. I thought of it the same way that my mother did the little grocery store in our town, the only one that carried Jewish products. My mother called it “Thedirtyfilthydisgustingstore”. My local dirtyfilthydisgustingstore opened a new store two blocks north of it’s old location. Yes, the old location is still in business. The new store is a two level store with an elevator and an escalator. A store employee greets you at the door. The new store is clean and the staff is actually helpful. It’s a little shocking for those of us used to the old store ...

Raya is one of those girls who is so heartbreakingly beautiful as an adolescent and has no clue. Once I saw her walking up Broadway with three male classmates who were all clearly madly in love with her. Raya was completely unaware of their ardor. Raya’s parents were part of our extended social circle. They were such good parents and did such a great job raising their kids that Avi and Beth’s kids made the rest of us look like we were raising  juvenile delinquents.  Beth died about 8 years ago, about a month after Raya’s little sister’s bat mitzvah. Beautiful Raya got married last year. About a month ago, her first baby was born. At the brit- milah/circumcision, Avi asked that the women there, all pass that baby from hand to hand from the back of the synagogue to the mohel. Of course we all wept, thinking about how much beth would have loved to be there,and feeling her presence  and absence so strongly. I made baby Nachman this sweater, in colors that Beth loved. T...

My friend Liz teachers art at Long Island University in Brooklyn. Liz's medium is ceramics. When I was in my early 20's my husband had bought me a wonderful pair of earrings made by Liz. I used to wear them to parties, they were my special earrings. A few years later, Liz walked into the synagogue office where I worked and introduced herself. Liz was a little surprised at my reaction to hearing her name, "Liz Rudey the artist?? Wow!! I love your work!'. We were in the same baby group together a few years later and have become fond friends. This semester,Liz was teaching an honors class in collaboration with a feminist scholar.The class was a multi-media exploration of Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party" The class was both an opportunity for the students to explore feminist texts and the women who were part of Judy Chicago's piece as well as an opportunity for the young women in the class to create their own "Dinner Party" installation based ...

One of the blogs that I read regularly, is http://www.littlegreybungalow.blogspot.com/ . I'm not into cats and there are regular postings of cute cat pictures.  But she has regular postings of illustrations and directions from vintage sewing and hand craft magazines from early in the 20th century. Several postings came from this publication, put out in 1949. In this 80 page magazine format publication are excellent directions and diagrams for about twenty differnt garments for women as well as several outfits for kids  and some good home dec projects. If you go on the little grey bungalow site, and click on the sewing postings,you can access all of the wonderful photographs from the book. The clothing projects were designed by Francis Blondin, author of  The New Encyclodedia of Modern Sewing. The Wise Encyclopedia of Modern Sewing by France Blandin by France Blandin I'm a big fan of Ms. Blondin. She is a smart cookie with a breezy writing style and an excellent ...

We are now at the weeks of the year, here in the Northern hemisphere, with the shortest Fridays.  It's nice because you have a long Saturday evening to go out,but you have to get all of your stuff done early on Friday. Usually, I'm pretty organized and I have all the food that needs to be cooked in the house on Thursday. Not this week,through a series of miscalculations, our cupboards were pretty bare this morning and I had more work to do on the cow invitation. My scans were at too low a resolution. I stupidly dumped all of my work, so I had to re draw and re scan all of the elements of the invitation. My computer was unable to edit the images at such a high resolution so I drew, scanned and emailed each element.  Yes it was pesky, and no I still had no food. I ran out mid morning, bought two chickens and threw them in the oven with a spice rub. Once the chicken was done, I  added potatoes and Swiss chard to the chicken juice and cooked that until it was...

Zoe is the younger sister of one of my daughter's friends. The girls met in baby group and became friendly again while they were in high school. I mostly remember Zoe as a teeny little girl in a stroller. Working with Zoe was a blast. Zoe's Torah reading tells of the Exodus from Egypt. One of the verses says " ( and the Exodus) was in the middle of the night". Zoe loved that line. I do too. there is a table song that is sung , by not all that many people, towards the end of Seder, and that line is the chorus. Like many liturgical poems, it is a run though of Jewish history. In this case the poem refers to all of the many miracles that happened to the Jewish people in the middle of the night . I have a particular fondness for that poem/song, not because we sang it to such a lovely melody, but because my father used to howl it in the very same way that his grandfather did. My father would chant/howl it using the very same Polish accent his grandfather used....

This is a draft of an invitation I have been working on for the past couple of weeks. The bar-mitzvah is for the week in which we read about the red heifer. In Hebrew, that Shabbat is called Parashat Parah, or the Cow Reading. Aaron's parents have a sense of humor, and so the big cow. I just designed the party card. The Saturday night event is taking place on a boat. So I did a picture of the cow in a sail boat. It made me laugh out loud. the contrast of the slighly depressed cow in a sail boat with the invitation text was just too funny.

Usaully, I design a piece and then I make it. In this case, I designed the lettering for the Chanukah bags that my friend Marky made  for her  grandchildren. I was so delighted to see the photos of Marky's hand work. The photos of Marky's work are followed by the sketches I emailed to her. Marky was also sweet enough to send me a copy of the email her son in law sent her as a thank you. He was blown away that Marky ( who isn't Jewish) was able to produce bags with Hebrew lettering. Three cheers for the magic of the internet!!! It's so cool to live in the future.

Two batches of vegetable filled latkes were fried and eaten. I think I have had my fill until next year. Our display of Chanukiyot looks a bit de-populated with out my daughter's and older son's.  They are both lighting theirs far away. My daughter called last night, delighted with her sweater, and promises to send me photos of her wearing it. My friend Marky did a beautiful job with the Chanukah bags and with her permission, I will post the photos soon. Yesterday, I did my usual post - Shabbat Services visit to the library. I have been noticing a much larger selection of crafts books. One of my sewing list friends said that libraries keep track of books checked out frequently, and use those lists when they do their purchasing. I took out two sewing books, not so much because I was interested in them, but because I wanted to be sure that more books get purchased by the system. I ended up being delighted by The Encyclopedia of Sewing Machine Technique by Nancy Bednar a...

Tonight is the first candle of Chanukah. I am not a big fan of latkes, but I decided to do right by my family. My youngest once went three years without eating a fruit or vegetable. He will now eat vegetables medicinally. I made this batch of latkes with a parsnip and about half of a celery root along with the potatoes. It tastes like latkes, and not like a healthy faux version. Sort of Healthy Latkes 3 medium sized potatoes 1 medium parsnip 1/2 a celery root Shred potatoes and parsnip in food processor. Use the large grinding blade for the celery root. Put all vegetables in a bowl of water for several minutes ( to keep potato from turning that weird pink color). Line a colander with a dish towel. Put vegetables into colander then squeeze out all of the moisture. Return to bowl then add 3 eggs Break into bowl. Add a few tablespoons of flour and lots of salt and pepper. Fry in olive oil. Drain on brown paper. My older son also used to reject vegetables...