Sewn while waiting for paint to dry

I was doing finishing touches on a piece. I was waiting for the paint to dry and the making dresses itch had to be scratched.

I had done my version of retail therapy…buying a mystery bundle from Fabric Mart. This time about half of the fabrics that arrived in the bundle were fabrics that I never ever would have chosen. This green knit is one of those fabrics. It screams 1968 to me. ( not groovy hippie wear but the sort of dress that responsible adults wore)

Clearly I have been influenced by watching the later seasons of Mad Men. It is vaguely like what my cooler secular studies teachers might have worn when I was in elementary school ( but of course with sleeves).

I more or less used my easiest dress in the world diagram to make this dress. The yardage wias a bit shorter than I would have liked…so the cowl is less deep.

I was prepared to hate this dress. What is there to like? double knit? in a kind of ugly color? I have been won over. I like this dress. it looks and feels good on. As I type this… a visual memory floats before me. Miss Palmer, known in our school as Mean Miss Palmer, the regular substitute teacher wore a similar dress with a white acrylic sweater the first time she was our substitute teacher in first grade. Despite this memory of the sadistic Miss Palmer, I plan to wear this dress often.

And while still waiting for paint to dry…

A soft jersey knit from Kabbala Man is now a dress that reads as fancier than what it is.

A lace print on a lavender ground. the neck and armholes are still unfinished.

I will play with them later…but the paint is now dry.

Comments

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...

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog