baking and sewing

Earlier in the life of this blog my husband sometimes used to wonder about the wisdom of my not sticking just to matters of sewing. He was concerned that by talking about subjects that on the surface seem disconnected from one another it might be confusing for my readers.

Over the years though I have discovered that my readers are not disturbed by the wide range of topics covered here. Ultimately I do think that there is a connection between the designing and sewing and the cooking.

I find that I play with color in the same way that I play with flavors. In both colors and flavors, you can combine two elements that don't necessarily play well together by adding several other elements that act as peacemakers.


I started a batch of challah covers on a strip of pale buttery yellow silk shantung.

The blue and the yellow work together easily.

I gave myself a bit more of a challenge with this challah cover.

I pulled all of the elements together with the red embroidered ribbon and the block printed linen background. (Please ignore the passive voice, I embroidered the ribbon and did the block printing).

Here is the cover without its outer binding.

And now with the binding.

I also want to share two challah covers that were made with the same (or nearly the same centers) but the final pieces are very different because of the fabrics I used to finish off each of the challah covers.

They are both good pieces but are really different from one another.

Earlier today I watched this charming video about breadmaking.

Watch this video on The Scene.

I was struck by the expert who talked about how the goal of a baker should be to bake consistent identical loaves of bread. I realized that my goal is to bake consistently good bread, but I am not a bakery. I have no interest in producing identical loaves of bread. Most of the loaves I produce are delicious. None of them are identical.

I also have no interest in producing identical challah covers. My goal is to produce good work with each one having their own qualities of excellence.  I think that it is possible for people to see that thought went into each and every challah cover. That finding that spot, where all of the elements hang together well, where everything is in balance, is figured out individually for each challah cover.

So I thank all of you who are willing to read this blog regularly.