sarah in nyc

Earlier this week, or perhaps it was last week, I had cut stencils for the lettering on Mimi’s tallit.  I applied the letters using oil paint sticks in a mix of copper, gold and blue. The letters didn’t quite stand out enough from the deep blue o the silk so I then painted the outlines with a fine brush. it’s better, but still not quite right. So now, it’s onto the next step. I underlined the silk with cotton flannel, and am satin stitching around the letters with the dark bronze metallic thread. the thread is not really a sewing thread but a lurex thread meant to be used in a knitting machine. The thread is persnickety but the results are worth the additional effort.  I now have four letters completed , but you can see how much better the letters look with the metallic stitching. When I work, I often have music or the radio going in the background. It keeps me on track. I often find that the music threads through my work. This is especially true be cause I often listen t...

My youngest inherited this backpack from his older brother who had gotten it as a freebie, or in the parlance of our household, “ A fleebie”.  Unlike most fleebies, this was actually an excellent, well designed backpack.  Unfortunately, after nearly two years of use, the main zipper broke in , as my son reported to me, four different ways. We looked at backpacks in the store while we bought my son new sneakers, but none of the backpacks in the store suited my son.  So I knew I had to settle into the pretty unpleasant job of replacing the zipper. For those of you who don’t sew, zippers are usually installed in things like backpacks early in the construction process. It is much easier to install zippers before the bag is constructed. I ripped out the old zipper with it’s four failed areas and began to attempt to sew the zipper in by machine. I got one side installed mostly by machine and then had to resort to hand stitching. If I were a nicer mother, I would have pic...

I come from a family that has had lots of breaks/feuds. I grew up only knowing a very few of my relatives. Over the past dozen years ago I have connected with lots of relatives that I had never met, or met only once or twice in my earliest childhood. Regardless of what the issues may have been between the older generations, I have found most of my cousins to be pretty delightful. Yesterday, I met one of  my first cousin for the first time.  He’s probably about twenty years older than I am.  I may have met him once in 1964. After a minute or two of conversation, my cousin slid his thumb into my field of vision. Like me, and like my mother, and our grandfather, my cousin has a paddle thumb.  Neither my cousin or I have  paddle thumbs quite as spectacularly wide as my mothers, but there it was.  I loved how my cousin slid that thumb into my field of vision. My mother has done the same thing to  other people with similar thumbs. That man is really...

Before I began to sew clothing for myself, I owned a large wardrobe of simply cut clothing in black. I used to spice up my wardrobe with fun sweaters, jackets and scarves. Since I have begun making my own clothing I find that I get seduced by fabric. I now own dresses in all sorts of colors.  The bright orange paisley that reminded me of a dress my sister wore in seventh grade is now a dress. The silly cotton sateen print of abstract cocktail glasses is now both a skirt and a dress.  The giant floral print, that too is a dress, as is the green and magenta scarf print and the giant blue circles. As I write I’m wearing a skirt made out a a magenta Marimekko floral mixed with a quilting cotton of pink and orange concentric circles. You can’t live only wearing amusing prints in outrageous colors. A girl needs some basics in her closet. I had made a batch of dark knit delightfully boring dresses four years ago, but they are getting tired. So here is a completely boring dress...

A few weeks ago I went into Metro Textiles.  Kashi greeted with his usual, “Why don’t you come in more often?" “. As I looked around, I really had no plans to buy, I really just wanted to go in to see.  Kashi pointed out a fabric to me, he said,  “I think this is really you.”   Usually that is a sign for me to run for the hills. I can’t tell you how often someone will point out something to me that they insist is so me , and it feels a little like when someone introduces you to a really weird human being on a blind date.  I wonder if that garish monstrosity is really what they think of me.  So I was skeptical. But Kashi was right. this mix of graphic black and white with  the skinny strips of color is in fact really me. I bought the fabric and sewed it up as soon as I got home. I had seen a dress in a Burda magazine with a  surplice front panel. The dress came together quickly.  I love that the print makes it look more complicated th...

My youngest has been sick for the past few days. He’s had a fever, a sore throat and has been feeling yucky.  When he woke up yesterday, I asked him if I could make him eggs for breakfast because  they were soft and would go down easy. He said that he wanted a muffin. There is a bakery across the street from our apartment. I could have gone downstairs and bought him the corn muffin he wanted, but  it seemed easier to bake than to get dressed. I opened my copy of Joy of Cooking. Joy is perfect for those  all American classics.  I would not turn to Joy for a recipe for flanken or blintzes, but it is the place to find a recipe for muffins.  In looking at the recipes I realized  that like many recipes that are old fashioned and were once memorized, the recipes all  worked in a way for a home cook to remember the recipe. Muffins work by a rule of two . for the dry stuff two  cups flour,  (I used a mix of semolina and white,. I ha...

I’m now about 1/3 done piecing the day side of Mimi’s tallit. Yes, the silk in the photo needs pressing.   The night sky is dyed and the color is set.   The night colored silk will be underlined with the teddy bear flannel. With the flannel under the dark silk the two halves of the tallit will weigh the same.  I still have to wash the sugar and the salt off of the silk.  Experience has taught me how to anticipate problems.   Here is the sketch of the tallit so all of this can make some sense. the light section of the tallit  will be made up of the silk shards.  The dark of the darker silk.

The family from across the hall is coming for Shabbat dinner.  let me correct that, the male members of the family are joining us. The female members of the family are on an adventure. In my back and forth with the dad about what to cook, it became clear that his kids, particularly the younger son are still at that boring food stage of life.  I have planned my menu accordingly.   I made egg noodles from scratch.   I used semolina flour. Working noodle dough is quite different than bread dough.  rolling noodles is not for the meek. It’s one of the reasons I have good arms. with enough practice, rolling the dough certainly gets easier.   This is about 1/3 of the batch drying, before they get boiled. I rolled out the rest of the noodles after I took the photo. We are also eating .   That’s spicy eggplant for those of you without Smell-o-vision on your computer. It’s vaguely Middle Eastern in flavor, if you don’t include the ...

Today I dyed the night portion of Mimi's tallit.   I guess I can call it “wet night” , the dye is still fairly wet in this picture. This is layer two of the dye job. The shine of the charmeuse  throws off light so colors appear lighter than than actually are. I have also been working away on piecing the day portion of the tallit. While the dye was wet I sprinkled layer #1 of the dye with salt and dribbled rubbing alcohol over the surface to make the sky look like outer space.  The salt gathers up the dye, so you get a more intense spot of dye underneath each grain of salt. The alcohol pushes the dye away so you get a lighter spot beneath it. I added both sugar and salt to the top layer of dye. I like creating the sense of looking into deep space.   Sometimes when dyes are out, it makes sense to dye other things that need some color.  My hands tend to get cold.  When my hands get cold, they hurt. I like to wear the sort of thin gloves women use...

Although I grew up in the United States in the 1960's my childhood experiences were not typically American.  My parents were deeply moved by the establishment of the State of Israel.  They decided to raise us as Hebrew speaking children, in Quincy, Massachusetts. As you might surmise, the Hebrew speaking population of Quincy was small.  It would be a fair guess to assume that while I was growing up the Hebrew speaking population of Quincy was maybe ten. We were a family of five. My parents had to create a Hebrew speaking oasis in the City of Presidents. Aside from the difficulties my parents had learning every day Hebrew, not academic , prayer book Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew, there was also the issue of how to create a vibrant cultural life for us kids in Hebrew. We owned lots of children's books from Israel. we had several thick books of poetry and stories in Hebrew printed on soft porus newsprint. My father used to read to us the adventures of t...

then it is easier to do it.   My student came for her second lesson today. She had decided to make a circle or infinity scarf for her mother out of some beige crinkle  silk chiffon she had seen in my sash.   The color was not my color.  It had arrived in a Fabric Mart mystery bundle.  I would assume that most sewing teachers would not give their students silk chiffon to play with on their second lesson. My investment in the fabric was  $1.5o per yard. I was happy for my student to make he mother the scarf out of it.   First I taught her the how to pull a thread so she could cut a straight line in the fabric. Yes, it’s pesky and boring, but it’s the easiest method to cut a straight line.     Then I had my student sew a French seam on the join of the circle scarf.  It sounds fancy, it looks fancy but it isn’t all that hard to do.  Here is her French seam.   Next, we discussed how to edge the scarf.  ...

Like most people my age, I read the Homer Price books at some point in grade school. Homer Price  Aside from loving the adventure with the doughnut machine, one detail in one of the books really stuck with me as a child. In case you want to re-vist this childhood treasure One of the characters was an older woman who had crocheted herself a dress in “robin’s egg blue”. She used to add or subtract from the length according to the current fashion. I loved the idea of the color “robin’s egg blue”.  I was also  completely blown away by a woman making herself a dress and adding and subtracting to it as she wished. Just before Passover, my friend Welmoed was visiting. She was on a mission to purchase  fabric for a dress for an occasion. I joined her for a bit on her quest. Several bolts of  robins egg blue open work  fabric were at Kabbala-Man’s. I loved the J. Jill vibe of the fabric. It also came in a color that catalog would call celery.  I chose th...

  Sunday, I began working with a new sewing student.  I taught her how to run my sewing machine. She made a Barbie pillow/bean bag and a sleeping bag for Barbie.  My student has a little sister. you can see the sleeping bag and pillow rolled up together  ready for Barbie's adventures.  Yes, you are seeing beautiful top-stitching. I know top stitching is not part of a usual first sewing lesson, but my student seemed up to the task.  She has good hands.  I’m excited to see what she will be making.   I don’t think my student had realized that if she wanted to she could learn how to make clothing. Once she realized that she seemed REALLY excited. next week we will make  a Mother’s Day gift for her mom. I’m not telling what we are making, in case Mom is a reader.   I finished a gift for a friend. it’s a scarf I had dyed a long time ago. I used lace as a stencil and spray painted.  it’s a lot of look for not a whole lot of wor...