Little bits of sewing

Navah is one of the few people here in New York who knows me from childhood. She and her husband were several years younger than my parents. They were the cool grownups in my childhood memories.

I am wearing the blindingly white tights, Navah is wearing a cool peasant inspired maxi dress

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Navah has been needle pointing tallit bags for her husband, her son and her grandchildren. I would guess that the first of the bags was in the planning stages when the above photo was taken.( This was the great hey-day of needlepoint. My own adventures in needlepoint began right around this time.

For the last several years I have been providing the lettering for Navah's tallit bags.

This time after completing her bag Navah asked me to also construct the bag. While I had done lots of needlepoint from the ages of 11 to 18 or so, finishing off needlepoint was not something I had done before.

I found several sites that explained how to finish the piece off and create the bag, they all seemed to suggest using piping. Making piping was also new to me.

I used heavy yarn as the filler for the piping and some suiting that I had made a skirt out of a few years ago as the outer fabric for the piping.Piping is actually a less terrifying enterprise than I had thought it would be. Here is the bag complete.

And here is another shot of the piping because I am so tickled that I could actually do it.

I also repaired and cleaned an ark curtain from my synagogue yesterday. The piece was designed and made about 25 years ago by two women I really admire, one of whom was my calligraphy teacher, and was made in memory of a dear friend.

The piece is problematic in a variety of ways. there were some tears that needed to be fixed and it was quite filthy.

I figured that I would clean the piece by putting it in my dryer with a damp towel. The schmutz all ends up on the towel and the piece ends up clean.

I first did the mending that had to get done.

I discovered much to my chagrin that there wasn't quite enough seam allowance between the underlay and overlay of the appliqued Ultrasuede. I did the best that I could. i also noticed that the sewing machine that was used to sew this piece HATED working with Ultrasuede. There were lots of skipped stitches.

The piece is now hanging up in it's place. I can say that it is clean. I am not so happy with the results. I weighted the piece a bit and perhaps the magic of gravity will do it's job.

I also have had a dress itching my my head for the past couple of months.. I had purchased a cool Missoni type knit that was mused by the dress designer Shoshannah. I wanted to make it into a dress.

I got a little playful during the process and ended up with this.

I think I had seen some Missoni dresses that played with the directions of the knit. I may add a bit more to the short side of the hem.

It's one of those dresses that sits on the fence between looking cool and arty and a crazy mess. I will see what it feels like on.

Barukh Dayan HaEmet - Blessed be the True Judge

In 1986, when I first began working for my synagogue, one of the volunteers was a teeny little Austrian woman. Ida was so little and cute, you could swear you could just put her in your pocket and carry her around. Ida also babysat for a little girl in our community. When I saw the two of them running around together and laughing as if they were both four, I knew that when I had kids, Ida would babysit for my kids. In order to be sure that Ida would take care of my oldest, I told her I was pregnant at the same time I told my mother. Soon after my oldest was born, Ida was ready. She was silly, but she was also Austrian. She had her rules. She would care for a child only until they could walk. She felt that she was too old to chase children. She would work only twelve hours a week. The baby had to be fed, dressed and ready to go out when she showed up. Ida's rules made sense. It taught me, and my oldest, the value of having a schedule. Ida and ...

Two funerals and a birthday

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sarah in nyc

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