Skip to main content

The Long Haul

Yesterday I was working on the dress that I’m wearing to the wedding. But one can’t attend a wedding without a gift.

 

I gave the bride and groom the option of either something off their gift registry or I could make them something.  they opted for the made rather than purchased gift. It was a smart choice.

 

The text is familiar to anyone who goes to synagogue on Friday night, it’s

Lecha Dodi likrat kallah

p’nai Shabbat nikabla

Come my beloved to greet the bride

we will welcome the presence of the Sabbath

SAM_3301

I painted the letters on the linen damask. And then I did a crazy thing. I chain stitched all of the painted letters.

SAM_3302

I do not suggest doing this unless you really love the recipients. You may think about chain stitching all of the letters if you were paid handsomely by the hour. Otherwise it’s a really dumb thing to do. I do love both the bride and the groom.I listened to a whole lot of episodes of the Moth Radio Hour and This American Life as I worked.

SAM_3303

I know that the bride loves these colors. I still need to do the borders which will also be gold and white or gold and cream.

This took a long time so you have to look at a whole lot of pictures.

SAM_3304

Today I also delivered a gift.  This is the card that I made to go with the gift.

I’m pleased because drawing has been a slow to develop skill for me.

SAM_3282

This just goes to show you that if you work hard enough at something eventually you get better at it.

 

A few weeks ago my daughter was talking to me about crocheting. I had taught her several years ago. My daughter is a lefty, so I showed her what I do and let her hands figure it out in a way that was comfortable for her. She just completed a blanket and I told my daughter how nice I thought her work was.  I suggested that she might try to learn how to knit.

 

My daughter said that she had tried a couple of times and just couldn’t get the hang of it. I told her how it took me ten years to figure out how to figure out how to crochet. It took me another ten years to figure out how to knit.  I explained to her that I am actually naturally terrible at hand work.

 

I was however, persistent.I was ready to keep experimenting and keep failing until I was no longer terrible. ( This is why I get cranky when people tell me that I must be naturally talented at hand work, I’m actually naturally terrible at it.) I think my daughter may try knitting again at some point.

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 30, 2014 at 7:26 PM

    This is very lovely. I like the gold against the damask.
    It will be interesting to see what you choose for borders.
    Sandy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarah JacobsOctober 30, 2014 at 7:57 PM

    I'm thinking about doing gold scrollwork on white velvet. I will try some and see how it looks

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

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...
2 comments
Read more

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...
3 comments
Read more

Food friday - your grandmother's food processor

My grandmother bought my mother this wooden bowl and a chopping knife, known in Yiddish as a hock-messer, soon after my parents got married. Yes, she also got them a dairy set as well. these wooden bowls and chopping knives were a big part of food prep when I was growing up. meatloaf and meat balls were mixed in this bowl. Chopped liver was made in this bowl as well. Sundays we often made chicken salad for lunch made out of chicken left over from Shabbat chopped with vegetables and mayo. That too, was made in this bowl. When I was in college my parents got their first food processor and the chopping bowls were not used as much. Several years ago, my father asked if i would like the bowls and the hock-messers. I was happy to have them. I like the sheer physicality of chopping up a big bowl of stuff into teeny pieces. While the wooden bowls have stood up well to the years of use, the hock-messers had not. The bladed which were bolted into their handles, wobbled. The blades wouldn't ...
9 comments
Read more