sarah in nyc

And DONE!!!!

My neighborhood was built mostly between 1880 and 1929.  There was basically nearly no building from the stock market crash of 1929 until the 1980’s. There is relatively little Art Deco architecture in the neighborhood, not to say that there is none. On a recent ( that is, this morning) walk I found these examples. This botanical fantasy is from the entryway of a public school. The building across the street from the school uses similar yellow brick and more restrained neo-Egyptian motifs. The two buildings make good neighbors. Just at the corner, you have this. I love that all of the elements are intact. I think that the building escaped renovation because the address was less than fashionable for many decades. The porthole theme continues in the first floor windows that I was too thoughtless to photograph.

Well, the last stretch of Sukkot begins tonight. As much as I love cooking, I have been dragging my feet all day. Never the less, I have two chickens in the oven  ( with smoked paprika, black pepper and onions), the challah dough is on it’s first rise and my noodle dough is resting. During the week though I made some progress on the matza covers. I realized yesterday that making matza covers during sukkot has a bit of a Christmas in July  sort of a feel.  I have three in progress. I had taken this photo before I sewed the elements together for a blog post I didn’t have time to write. I suppose that if I were a different sort of a girl, even making batches as small as three matza covers I could manage to make them look more or less identical. I am not that girl though. So the results each have their own personalities. This one is ready to line and assemble. I have run short of water fabric so have added some turquoise wool. The outer border is periwinkle colored silk...

One of the fun benefits of having a blog is keeping track of the stats. No, I’m not the NSA, but I’m able to see what countries my readers are from.  Usually most of my readers are from the US and Canada. Because I have sewing buddies that I know through some internet sewing discussion groups who live all over the world, when I see that I have a reader from New Zealand or from England I can guess who it is ( Hi Anne! Hi Sandy!) Sometimes though, a post takes on a life of it’s own.  This post seems to have struck a nerve in the sewing world and it has been reposted in a variety of places including on a Swedish sewing board. That post seems to have created interest in both Romania and the Ukraine. I now have a steady stream of readers who come from the land of my ancestors. My mother’s family comes from either side of the border, my grandfather’s family from what is now Kosogorka, but was known in those days as Frampol, in the Podolia province of the Ukraine, just outside of ...

Because I had sold my only copy of this matza cover, it was time to make some new ones for my stash. I really like the design. my lettering has improved a whole lot since this was made several years ago. The center of the matza cover is made out of a quilting cotton that is no longer in print. Now that I have access to really beautiful silks and wools, it seems like a waste of time to make challah covers and matza covers in quilting cottons.   The stone path through the water is the major focal point of the matza cover, so I had to figure something out. I’m also trying to figure out how to do work in less obsessively labor intensive ways. When I actually sit down to figure out how much I make per hour, it can be pretty depressing.   I decided to try painting the rocks. I pulled a piece of  ivory wool/rayon broadcloth out of my stash. my tallit is made out of this wool as is my son’s. This is what I came up with. Rocky enough for you? I then cut strips ou...

The fast left all of us functioning on low speed today. So a walk in Central Park seemed like it was just the right level of excitement for today. I took my camera along today. I realized as I took pictures that one of the reason that the park is photographed so much is that it’s just so incredibly photogenic. Here is the Upper East Side taken from the west side of the reservoir. A fast snap and it looks like it came from a tourism brochure. I particularly love the many bridges in the park. So I took photos of the ones we passed today. Last week we saw Cleopatra's Needle from the roof of the Met. This week we were at ground level. I know, the sky looks so great it looks like it was painted by a scenic department. We also passed some sort of a jousting class. We stopped to watch this jazz trio performing under a big tree. They were fabulous.   I’m sure that I have seen this exact photo of the El Dorado by someone else. The park just seems to set itsel...

I have never had a post generate as many hits as Easiest dress in the world did. There were a bunch of request to have a photo of me in the dress. So here it is. A slightly closer view of the neckline. The weather is supposed to turn cool, so I made a little jacket to go with the dress. You can make one too. yes this is easiest to make in a knit. You can make this in a woven as well, but you need to make sure to leave enough ease so you can do things like move your arms. This is the schematic for cutting. I used my pink sweater as a guide for cutting. I wanted the sleeves to be wider, so I cut them wider. This is what you get after cutting.   Then I cut open the front. Be careful that you only cut one layer. Cut a neck curve. Finish the raw edges any way that makes you happy. Wear.

So much of the experience of Yom Kippur is  about the music. I have included some selections of music that I hope gets you in the mood for t'shuvah. This is a fairly unadorned version of  El Nora Alila  This version of the same melody has a full orchestra, yet it conveys much of the feeling of singing in synagogue when everyone is singing . I love watching the audience singing along at the end.  This piyut/ liturgical poem is one of my favorites This rendition of selichot is entirely terrific. Ben Zion Shenker was a wonderful  composer and an even better davener. This is old time Jewish services at it's best.  If you can't make it to services, just listen to this.   http://youtu.be/Nz9VClcqqmA For a selection of seasonal music  zemer reshet  and another completely different selection from  the Piyut website . I was trying to find the version of  כבקרת רועה עדרו that I grew up with but it seems that...

In the heyday of  Yiddish theatre Shakespeare's plays were regularly advertised as being “ farteiched und fabessered”, translated and improved.  That wonderful expression is used to describe anything that is slightly improved. So I would like to show you two pieces that have been farteiched und farbessered by me. I had completed this challah cover earlier this summer. The text comes from the Shabbat Z’mirot, the liturgical poems that are sung sung the Shabbat meals.  This text reads “ This day for Israel is light and joy.” My friend wanted to purchase it for her niece's bat mitzvah. The niece loves pink and baby blue. I told my friend that I would over paint the challah cover so it would read as pinker. I think that the pink actually improves the piece. I never would have thought to add it on my own. This is why I love working with clients. Their requests and needs usually push me to do better work.   This matzah cover was also pert of that same...