sarah in nyc

Both of Linda’s parents were born in Europe. Lester, Linda’s father was born in a little country town in Austria.  Lester was an intensely sweet man. If you met him on the street he would be sure to send you off with a  little word of wisdom, like a benediction. Lacy, as those who loved him , called him, spent WWII in Shanghai. Linda’s mother, Herta, grew up in Berlin. She  is worldly and sophisticated and has a great raunchy sense of humor. Herta is over 90 and she sends me really dirty jokes by email.  If you have ever gotten a forward of a really dirty joke from me, I probably got it from Herta.  Herta is a smart cookie. when we were both serving on my synagogue board I usually  would find out Herta’s opinions on serious matters before voting. Even if I didn’t agree with her,  she always had an important to conscider point of view.  Herta too spent the war in Shanghai. Herta and Lacy didn’t meet until they both arrived in New York after the wa...

Well, last Saturday night I wore my gold lame’ dress. This was a more at home sort of an evening. My youngest, as I have said before, is a skinny guy.   He had out grown many of his boxers. Some of them I had made for him when he was eight. Given that he is nearly 15, it seems reasonable that he needs to have his supply replenished. I used an older pair as a pattern. For the sake of speed, I made these with no side seams, laying the pattern out on the fold of the fabric. I then re cut the front to allow more room for my son’s “parts”. Most of the fabric arrived in Fabric Mart mystery bundles. The orangey floral is a rayon knit and feels soft to the touch. The blue stripe is a cotton poly knit with a little more poly than I would prefer. I finished one more pair out of that fabric after I took the photos. Last night, I couldn’t remember where I had purchased the yellow flannel print. I did remember that it was made out of Nick and Nora pajama fabric. Nick and Nora produce...

Marshmallow trees on Broadway VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL   I’m always struck by how the stuff we add to cake and cookies usually has he language of cold weather-- icing, frosting.   Last night the snow was accompanied by thunder and lightning and even hail. When I woke up this morning, the tress across Broadway looked like my son’s favorite breakfast cereal, Frosted Mini Wheats.   I know th...

A gift VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL The beautiful  pearls, a gift to me  from my daughter. She bought them for me at the pearl market in Beijing. My daughter bought me half a strand so I could make gifts for myself or for people I love. the dark beads glow red when light shines through them. Another gift was made today, but won’t be shared here.  Most of today was an exercise in frustration with various bits of technology being difficult, and otherwise behaving badly. Not every day is a glorious one.

Today, Rachel came over to tie her tzitzit with her mother and her grandparents.  I had put the  tallit on my dressmaking dummy so Rachel could see it as soon as she walked in. Despite the fact that there were some differences between what we had agreed  on in our initial meeting, and what I actually ended up doing, Rachel could see that  the changes I had made were good ones, that in the end, made the tallit a better one. After the tour of the tallit, we got to work tying the tzitzit/ritual fringes. I went over the meaning hidden in the numbers of wraps and knots. Most girls know the knot we use for the wrapping from making friendship bracelets. Most girls know the wrap we use as "Chinese staircase". Rachel had clearly done her time in camp. As soon as  I said, "Chinese Staircase" she was off and running. Then I went to teach Julie, Rachel's mom, Grandpa Larry and Grandma Marilyn how to do the knots. Grandpa Larry was having some troubles, until his daughter ...

Food Friday- cranky edition VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL      For dinner this week we are eating a beef soup and meat balls made with a vegetable slurry. My youngest will eat nearly anything if it is served slathered with barbecue sauce. I pureed an onion, a monster sized carrot, a giant parsnip and a potato and cooked them in the microwave. Then I mixed the vegetables with two pounds of meat, a ton ...

My synagogue is holding a fundraising event this Saturday night.  Yes, I do have other clothing that I could have worn.  I do however make my self clothing as a reward for getting work done. Working on a garment will often help me get the cobwebs in my head that are keeping me from properly completing my work. My friend Sharry sews. Like me, Sharry lives in an apartment and has limited storage space.  Several weeks ago, a friend of Sharry’s died. Her friend was a reporter, a world traveler and loved fabric. Sharry inherited lots of wonderful fabric. Being a generous woman, she also shared some with me. one of the fabrics was this vintage gold lame’. I thought it was a hoot.  I grew up in the land of preppie where gold lame’ was somewhat suspect, as something worn by women of loose repute. In the late 1960’s a proper lady might wear a gold lame’ shift, to say,, her synagogue benefit. One would need to wear a bouffant hair do with the dress. I thought that it mig...

Hurray!!! I finished Rachel’s tallit. All that is left to do is tie with tzitzit/ritual fringes with her. I like the tallit as a whole and all of the smaller elements that make up that make up the entire tallit. Some of the things that make me happy about the tallit are the ribbon I embroidered to border the stripes. Aside from the fact that it looks terrific ( which it does) I’m really thrilled to have a sewing machine that sews metallic thread without complaining or breaking the threads. I was able to embroider yards and yards of ribbon without any thread breakage. I’m also really happy with the fuse-able tricot that is reinforcing the silk. It’s nearly weightless , but adds just enough body to make the silk feel really luxurious. The interfacing will also give the shantung enough support to help it last several years longer. I’m really happy that Rachel’s mom and I were able to convince Rachel that brown would just not be as successful as a base color for the tallit. It w...

Rachel's tallit and bag - nearly done VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL Rachel had wanted a black and white checked border next to the wave.  I tried. I just couldn’t make it  work. Instead, she got a black and white pieced bias stripe border. to make up for the lack of checkerboard I added a row of stitching in a nifty checkerboard stitch in gold.  The outer edge of the stripe is made up of black middy braid to which I added the wave stitch. Unlike most pieced tallitot/prayer shawls the design is on the underside of the tallit as well. this tallit is particularly small, but Rachel is a small kid. She would look silly in a tallit that was much bigger. The bag was fun to make. I first fused black shantung to needle punch  interfacing.Then I stitched waves freehand using a chartreuse rayon thread. I added more delicate waves with a multicolored metallic thread. I used a chunk of dressmaker’s chalk ( thank you Anne!) to sketch out the letters for Rachel’s name. I ...

Marc Jacobs Jacket VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL I found this Marc Jacobs jacket at my local Salvation Army. it was my size and set me back $10. It’s a little sweet for me, but it might be fun to wear on Passover. This jacket makes me wish that I was a red head.

The Solomon Schechter school is sharing it's prayer space with Minyan Hadar, an independent Jewish religious community.A few years ago I was asked to make this Torah mantle for Minyan Hadar. One of the things that really distinguishes Minyan Hadar is the deep relationship they have with the words of the traditional prayers. So, in creating this piece I  asked the members of the community to tell me the biblical verses that linked them as individuals either to community or to Torah. I painted each of those verses onto the the silk shantung of the mantle. It's a quiet piece. The mantle looks beautiful with the parochet. Several of the verses they chose came from the Sh'ma.I painted those verses into the center of the mantle into a sort of "breastplate" I loved being able to see these two pieces, not designed together, working so well with one another.

Schechter parochet, complete and in place VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL I brought the completed parochet/ark curtain to the school yesterday. The girls were excited to see the finished parochet. They loved seeing how close it is to the rough sketch we had come up with together in September. Although I am not in love with the ark, I do love how the placement of the ark in front of the windows, with Central Park’s trees visible looks so beautiful with the parochet. The view outside of the window frames the parochet in a wonderful way. The girls begged to touch the piece. I take that as a good sign. My friend Liz had mentioned that she wanted to eat the couched trees. I do hope that the kindergarteners don’t actually start licking the parochet, but I’m glad that people respond in such a viceral way.

Or as they called in in the old days, a smoke ring. It’s easy to put on your Mad men style with a short infinity scarf. You can also just sew the ends of a scarf together to get the same look. I guess you can channel your inner Joan and wear  your smoke rings with two little brooches holding it in place. I wouldn’t attempt the headscarf unless you weren’t planning on moving your head—ever.   This brochure came my way via my friend Vivian’s mom. Vivian is clearing out her parent’s apartment.  I ended up with some wonderful textiles that I will share as I process them.  I love brochures like this one that get you half convinced that knowing how to wear a scarf might just change your life for the better.

Last night, Zoe came by with her father to pick up her tallit. before my client shows up, I always worry about the finished piece.  I know that I like it, but will my client? did I do a good job understanding what they really wanted? Zoe walked in and began saying “Oh my God!” over and over again.  It was clear. she was really , really pleased as was her father. we tied the tzitzit/ritual fringes using the more lovely half hitch knot rather than the more ordinary simple wrap. I prefer the half hitch method because when you wear the tallit, that spiral of knots adds another dimension to your experience of tzitzit. After we tied the tzitzit, Zoe them put on her tallit with the blessings and of course, sh’hechiyanu. I had gone to Costco earlier in the week. My daughter was going to Israel and the one thing my son wanted was a bag of dried blueberries.  Tonight’s dinner is entirely Costo made. The chicken is stuffed with chestnuts ( a bag of shelled with an Israeli label bu...

After stitching and cutting away layers of silk for the stripes on Rachel’s tallit,I have begun satin stitching all of the edges with gold metallic threads. I do this hand guided machine embroidery for two reasons.  Firstly, it seals the very shreddy raw edges of the silk shantung. The gold embroidery also packs a visual punch.  Rachel’s tallit will be pretty narrow. I plan to have the stripe on both the front and the back of the tallit. It’s easier to create one long piece and then to cut it up rather than piecing it all in small bits. I need to get some soft interfacing for the body of the tallit. I hope to get that tomorrow. I’m pretty happy with my progress.

I had thought that I was finished with the parochet/ark curtain. But when i put it on a rod the whole thing flopped in a really horrible way. I removed the hanging sleeve and then stitched the front to the back along the top third of the piece. I used silver metallic thread in the sky and quilted the two layers together. The back is no longer pristine, but that is better than having the parochet droop like dirty laundry. I resewed on the hanging sleeve  by hand and also took some teeny stitched into the face of the piece, i hope not very obtrusively to further keep the top from flopping. I'm also in the home stretch for Zoe's tallit. The atara/neckband looks wonderful. I am going to have to re-do the corners for the third time. I am not happy. But I do think that I figured out a solution for the corners.

Two summers ago, when we were in Santa Barbara visiting family, we were introduced to Art from Scrap http://www.artfromscrap.org/ . Art from Scrap accepts donations of random materials that people can buy to create into art works. My youngest bought himself a “Miss Hawaiian Tan “trophy that e later used as the inspiration for a truly hilarious Purim costume. I bought leather pieces some of which are now belts. My daughter chose remnants of rayon. We had thought that we would turn them into pillow cushions for her dorm room. We never quite got to that project. But in organizing her room we found the scraps. My daughter thought that the rayon might make some nice pillow cases that would look nice with her duvet cover. I was happy to obliged.making the pillowcases on the serger is really quick work, like 5 minutes per pillow case. I used an existing pillow case as my pattern. To make a pillowcase 1-measure and cut one piece of fabric 2x the width of an existing pillow case and the ...