sarah in nyc

Sunday we change the house over to Passover. Yes, I know it's early. I grew up on a home where the task of changing over the house was done early so all of the cooking  and all of the baking could all take place before the holiday.  I don't change our house as early as my parents did, and I don't change my house over as late as my husband would like (perhpas the day before the holiday). Amazon.com Widgets I made a matza farfel kugel out of what was left of a box of farfel from last Passover. We are also eating roasted mushrooms and Brussels sprouts using lots of condiments from the fridge for flavor. We also are eating beef. I had time to put in some work on Cavill's tallit. When we had met to design Cavill's tallit, he brought the tallit his grandmother had bought him I believe for his bar-mitzvah. It was never exactly the right tallit for Cavill, but it represented the bond between grandmother and grandson. So while he didn't like the way it lo...

After I posted the last batch of photos about Cavill's tallit someone who has known me since before I was born commented that I was talented. While it is always nice to receive a compliment, I actually don't think that a good piece is really a result of talent, but rather is is the end result after hundreds and hundreds of failures. Amazon.com Widgets So at this point the tallit is pieced, nicely edged and is awaiting the atara/ neckband and the pinot /corner pieces. I'm really excited and want to share some photos. No you are not imagining the hundreds of untrimmed threads. I will trim all of the threads but I was really excited and photographed with all of the mess. Hope you can see past the threads. Yes, the text appears upside down  when the tallit is simply draped and not folded into proper wearing shape. This does look like an error but it is deliberate. This tallit makes me so completely happy. It fits so comfortably into the vernacular of a tr...

I know that often in my work I manage to make too much work. I can take a crazy hodge podge of wild colors and textures that ought to be fighting against one another and get them to play together nicely. Cavill's tallit though is all about restraint. It is just black and white.  Amazon.com Widgets You might think that I would be fighting against the restraints that this simplicity imposes on me, but I really love it. One advantage of thcreating something with a riot of details is that some of the niggeldy technical bits can be hidden underneath all of the glitz and glitter. I had stitched each white panel of text to it's black partner, treating each one like one unit. I then stitched the panels to the main body of the tallit. This side has a clean seam. The other side has raw edges that need to be covered. Just as there is more than one way to skin a cat, there are lots of ways to cover a seam. If i hadn't had a series of long conversations with my client, I might...

OK, I know it's not quite getting ready for Passover time, but it is time to start thinking about it. My shmurah matza is here in the house. i am working on working through the last of the grains. This is the last challah that we are baking until after Passover. Amazon.com Widgets We have finished the last of the honey. My son mixed the dough for this batch, I suggested using maple syrup. It wasn't quite sweet enough, so I rolled more maple syrup and spices into each strand of the challah.  There is very little left in the freezer. I decided to make meat balls. I recently figured out (after thirty years of marriage) that my husband thinks of meatballs as a first course rather than a main dish. He was willing to eat them as a main dish this week and not complain. He is a good sport. Our fridge is relatively empty. So now we can start getting ready for Passover. As part of the general clean up that goes along with the Holiday I pulled out a denim tab...

Soon after I moved to New York in the fall of 1982 my parents came to visit me. My mother took me to buy something she felt every household needed, an iron. We walked to  the now defunct RCI appliance store on the corner of Broadway and 98th street and my mother bought me an all metal Sunbeam iron. It cost something like $30, which was significantly more than my mother expected the iron to cost. Amazon.com Widgets Since that 1982 iron purchase, I have purchased several irons.  I sew for a living and do lots of ironing.   After a while irons start spitting water out of the steam holes and need to be replaced. Black and Decker seems to have bought out the Sunbeam small appliance division a long time ago. nearly all of my replacement irons were essentially the same model my mother bought me in 1982, but with the Black and Decker label. Lots of people who sew seriously also own fancy irons. I once bought a fancy iron. I hated it . It was cantankerous and spit s...

Years ago, a European born relative when asked what her daughter did for a living replied " My Deborah teaches retired children." We just loved the possibilities present in that Malaprop. In our family parlance retired children could refer either to children with developmental disabilities or to adult children. Today, our youngest turned 21. I am now the mother of retired children. He is now older than I was when I met his father. The birthday tiara was a 16th birthday gift from his older brother . My youngest has worn it every birthday since. Since today is a big birthday, there is of course a birthday Shabbat dinner. I did not photograph the chicken, but it was made with New Orleans mustard ( a gift from dear friends) and Lebanese pomegranate molasses. Making this dinner I was very aware of the very particular food likes and dislikes of the birthday celebrant. Sweet potato spears  and despite the fact that I am still sick ( Yes, I am now on antibiotics. N...

Yesterday my case of the yucks  had retreated enough so I could get a bit of work done. Amazon.com Widgets This tallit is being made foe Cavill, a rabbinical student. The due date is soon, really soon. My fist task was to cut strips of silk for the stripes. The best way to do this task is to snip a cut into the fabric, and then pull a thread at the center of the cut. The pulled thread leaves you with a line that shows you exactly where to cut. This beautiful silk tussah made the task of pulling the thread difficult. But time on the phone with BOTH of my sisters made passing the time a bit easier. Eventually it was time to start painting the text. Both my home growing up and the Jewish day school that I attended had similar approaches to spirituality in prayer. This approach may be foreign to those more familiar with the world of Jewish Renewal where the attainment of spiritual satisfaction is both more paramount and more public. I was brought up in a tradition where t...

This past week I have yet another bout of what my friend Marla calls "the yucks". The yucks  is a snotty sinusy cold that just lays you low. I spent most of the week on the couch hacking away and watching really dopey TV. For most of the week i had the brain power of a single cell animal. Eventually I had the brain power of a fish. At this point I am happily mammalian.  Amazon.com Widgets Last night was Purim and I made it to services along with my gang. Perhaps it was all of the excellent top shelf booze my friends shared with us last night, but I am much better today. I finally got a bit of sewing done. I wasn't sure if my brain could be trusted with client work, but I did want to get my hands working again. I made a set of napkins--with mitered corners, to replace some that had seen better days. Purim food tends to feature foods hidden within other foods, just as Esther had to hide her identity in the palace. Typical Purim foods, aside from hamentas...

Before I begin with the actual content of today's posting I have a message for the woman who emailed me a couple of days ago from the "email me" box to the right. Unfortunately, you put in a bad email address. I attempted to email you four times and each time the postmaster  returned the message as un-deliverable. So write back. I will be happy to discuss making you an atara for you grandfather's tallit.  So now, on to my actual post. I work out most mornings. Usually as I do my weights or run in place on my rebounder I have something on the TV from Netflix. This week I have been watching The Great British Bake-Off. Amazon.com Widgets I love how completely kind the contestants are to one another. I am also completely charmed by the baking categories I have never heard of, like a picnic pie or was it a loaf? I am still not entirely sure what a Victoria sponge is, but I did learn something in the pretzel baking segment, that [pretzels are boiled with baking soda...