My days are filled with this and that….

I was invited to exhibit my work at this conference What to Wear- Women, Clothing, Religion. I’m really excited. It’s a good fit for me. Much of my work is made for women.

When I was asked to exhibit at the conference, I came up with this piece, a head covering to wear while lighting Shabbat candles that is covered with the prayer recited by women with special requests from the divine.

Several years ago I came up with this.

Arba kanfot, Tzitzit for women. Yes, it is a very limited market, but it’s my market.

Anyway, I needed to make some more sets of Arba kanfot. I decided to use a silk camisole that was a hand me down from a neighbor. I liked the camisole because the construction was so cool. It was cut in two sections, but not as one might expect with a front and a back, but rather two entirely differently shaped wedges that fit together to make the garment.

I cut apart the camisole, copied the pattern pieces onto newspaper and then cut them camisole out of peach colored silk charmeuse. The two pieces nestle against one another and spiral around the body forming the garment. I was entirely pleased with myself that I had engineered the camisole. I was trimming the piece with lace when I realized that while I had made a niftily engineered camisole, the construction had made the piece entirely unsuitable to be a set of arba kanfot.

I know this does not look like a camisole, but it turns into a cute one.

Arba kanfot need four corners. This garment is adorable, ( and wrinkled) but can’t be used for arba kanfot.

I cut out three other sets that are now in various degrees of doneness. Photos will follow as they are completed. I’m having a blast putting cool fabric together.

As I have mentioned before, I’m a member of a couple of different sewing discussion groups on the internet. I like how often these virtual friendships slip into the real world. I had mentioned on one of the groups the process of transforming the men’s dress shirt for my daughter. One of the group members contacted me. She had just retired and had a load of professional clothes to give to my daughter. I picked up the elegant garments on Sunday. The bag of goodies inclused several suits as well as some blouses.

One of the blouses was an Orvis silk broadcloth short sleeved shell with one button at the back of the neck. The silk was beautiful. I knew my daughter would not wear the blouse as is. I have been thinking about the cutaway shoulders of about twenty years ago. I had re-watched the movie “Broadcast News” last year. In the last scene, Holly Hunter wears a black and white polka dot dress with cut away shoulders. Those cut away shoulders just looked so good.

I attacked the blouse with my scissors, serged the raw edge turned and topstitched. I’m happy with the look. If my daughter likes the blouse then it is hers, otherwise I have a new cute silk blouse from my friend Sue. Thank you Sue!!!!

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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