Editing as I go along

When I teach people how to sew, I often tell them to think of their efforts as a draft rather than the finished product. Too often people get so anxious trying to get things right that they become afraid to proceed. They end up with lots of beautiful fabric but very little actually gets sewn up. I would be in that very camp myself, if I didn’t think of all of my work as being in progress and not quit done.

I had made up this dress a few weeks ago out of a lovely drapey rayon knit that my sister in law had sent me in a www.fabricmartfabrics mystery fabric bundle. I wore the dress in Florida and a few times after we got back. The dress felt too unstructured and too floppy. I had also cut the neckline a smidge too low. The dress felt more like a beach cover up than like an actual garment to wear on the street. I love the print which reminds me of onions. The dress had too much potential to declare a wadder.

I decided to add a waistband in a grey rayon knit and to add the same rayon to the neckline, raising it up just a bit and to the hem. The whole dress looks more structured and a bit more grown up and less like play wear. The dress is still as cool and as easy to wear in the heat.

The alterations were pretty quick to do. It makes me want to revisit other garments in my closet, which fit into that close but no cigar, category and see if they can be improved with just a little bit of effort.

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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...

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sarah in nyc

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