sarah in nyc

All ten kippot are done. Amazon.com Widgets Those of you who care about zero waste cutting will be happy to know that nearly every inch of Grandpa's tallit was used in making these kippot. A friend from one of my sewing lists talks about inchage of fabric  (as opposed to yardage). There were a few small odd arches of fabric left, but my calculations were right, ten kippot was all that could be made out of the tallit. No two are identical. Each is trimmed a bit differently. I made good use of some of the vintage ribbon and metallic yarns and threads in my stash. Each kippah is tipped with a button at the top, again vintage buttons pulled from my stash. This project has used parts of my brain that I tend not to use very often. I hadn't expected to enjoy the kippah making quite as much as I did. Sometimes it is interesting to work within very narrow parameters.

A cousin we all love a whole lot has just moved to New York for grad school we are delighted that she will be nearby and even happier that she is joining us this Shabbat. Amazon.com Widgets Our larders were pretty bare. it was time to make a trip to Costco. I made the trek yesterday. One of my favorite thing about living here in New York is how instead of just living with " my own kind" I am cheek by jowl with all sorts of people.  Part of that joy of cheek by jowl-hood is in the foods we eat. A Jamaican born babysitter once brought home a fruit from home that she bought from one of the pushcart fruit guys on the street. She called it Genep and it is a variety of citrus, it's about the size of a cherry with a big seed and not much fruit. We buy it every year when it is in season. We turn dried hibiscus blossoms into tea in the summer. My kids used to have me buy yogurt in sabor Latino.  The shea butter sold in tubs at the cola dollar store keeps our skin soft. S...

When a beloved grandfather is no longer alive having a bit of his presence at a grandchild's bar-mitzvah can be a really important thing.As I mentioned in my last post, there is one grandfather and nice grandchildren. My clients suggested that I make kippot for the rest of the grandchildren out of the tallit. If you go to a synagogue there are usually baskets of kippot at the door. many people when they plan a bar mitzvah will also get kippot made.those kippot usually cost a couple of bucks. I knew that if I made kippot out of Grandpa's tallit  I couldn't just charge a couple of bucks. I don't have a factory set up. Each piece would need to be not stamped out by machine, but hand cut and hand pieced together. I knew I had to charge an actual significant amount of money for each kippah.  I found a place on line that will make kippot out of fabrics that you provide for a relatively small amount of money. I suggested that my client call and see if they could mak...

One of the things that I am really proud of is I have a reputation for taking on projects that are sort of out of the box.  Amazon.com Widgets The woman who asked me to take on the  kittle project  realized part of the way through our initial meeting that perhaps I might be able to help out with some projects for her son's upcoming bar mitzvah. The bar-mitzvah boy's grandfather died right around the time the boy was born. The bar-mitzvah boy was named for this grandfather. My client and her husband wondered if I could turn somehow add something of Grandpa's tallit to the tallit they had already purchased. Clearly it is easier to integrate a treasured textile if that textile is part of the design process from the beginning. Never the less I was ready to think about how to think about this problem. The coloring of the new tallit is intense, a midnight blue and peacock green. There was also the issue of how to share bits of the tallit with the other 8 grandchildr...

I remember eating with my family as am elementary school kid at either the now defunct Harold's or the more recently defunct Rubin's and seeing Pu-Pu platter on the menu. I thought that the term was one of the funniest things I had ever read. I was clearly still of the age when bathroom humor was really funny. My family didn't eat in Chinese or Polynesian restaurants. This was in the 1960's, before that sort of "international" cuisine had hit the Boston Kosher food scene. But just thinking of the term Pu-Pu platter was enough to give me the giggles for years after that first sighting on that menu long ago. Although I am much older I am still fond of the term and have been known to serve my kids a random bunch of stuff on a plate and call it a Pu-Pu platter. I have learned that if you give something a cool name it makes it better. Clearly, I brought the right kids home from the hospital because they think the term is as funny as I do.(One of my sons say...

If both time and money for this kittle were unlimited I would be embroidering the text by hand in white silk or embroidery floss in large block lettering on the beautiful white patterned shirting that I bought to make this kittle.  The embroidery would have enough dimension to be visible and that kittle which exists just in my head would be magnificent. Unfortunately, this kittle needs to be ready this Rosh HaShanah and not in a few years. Amazon.com Widgets A kittle, much like a First Communion dress needs to be white, to give an impression of whiteness. This platonic ideal is wonderful. But if I am calligraphing white text on white ribbon the result will look like absolutely nothing, a little like the Emperors New Clothes.  I had noticed in my internet searching of kittles that some of the super fancy deluxe ones are embellished with silver lace. I used that as my cue and mixed up a pale silvery dye/paint mixture for the lettering. I was taught a long time...

A kittle, for those of you who don't know is a Jewish ritual garment. It means a little coat and is related to the housecoats worn in Germany by men of means. Think of it as sort of a smoking jacket. Amazon.com Widgets A kittle is purchased for a young man before his marriage and is worn during the wedding ceremony. It is also worn on High Holidays, and when one is leading seder. When one dies, a kittle is put on over the shrouds. Generally kittles are worn by men but in egalitarian communities like mine, they may be worn by women as well.  Kittles are not worn in every Jewish community.  Neither my father nor my husband are kittle wearers. One of my sisters wears a kittle on the high holidays, but not on Passover. I don't wear a kittle. I was asked to create a special kittle for someone as a surprise. My client and I thought that it would be nice to decorate this kittle with text from the High Holiday prayer-book rather than just with lace.  Yes, I do find it fa...

This is probably a DIY of semi limited usage, but it makes it possible for me to wear a wrist watch. Amazon.com Widgets Several years ago I developed a nickle allergy. Over the years it has gotten progressively worse. Eventually even the buckle on watchbands were impossible to wear once the brass or gold plating wore away. I came up with a solution that is fairly quick to make (around ten minutes) and looks to my eye pretty chic. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to purchase a giant wheel of  inch and a half wide elastic for either $5 or $10. My elastic watch bands last for a a few months. They get yukkier in the heat of the summer and tend to last a bit longer in the winter months. You need a length of elastic that is about the same size as the length of your wrist. Thread the elastic through the little watch band holding bars on either side of your watch. This should take about a minute.. Adjust the length of the elastic so the watch is ce...