On week bajillion of lock-down

I know it has been a while since I have posted. I haven't been doing nothing. One of my big activities has been obsessively reading the news. I remember my Brooklyn born cousin telling me when i was a kid that she makes sure to read the front page of the New York Times every morning to be sure that the world hadn't come to an end while she was sleeping. This was one of those weeks when it truly felt like the world might come to an end while I slept.

Aside from feeling terrible about the state of the world, I have been taking care of household related stuff. One of my sewing buddies used to describe her "Tu-it pile". The things that eventually she would get to it.

In my tu-it pile were two items (that I tackled).

One was a grey knit tank top I wear when I work out. It had a hair dye stain right in front.

I block printed leaves over the stain and then just kept printing so the leaves looked intentional.

At some point before my mother died I bought her a purple cotton cardigan in a pleasingly weighty knit. The cardigan had fabric covered and embroidered buttons. Unfortunately the buttons were not of the same quality as the sweater and had begun breaking because they were made out of flimsy plastic.

I am someone with a large and eclectic button stash. After poking through only one jar, I was able to find five matching buttons that fit the buttonholes.

Despite last night's steamy heat I even modeled my updated sweater for you, my dear readers.

Those of you who are sharp eyed may notice that my hair is shorter. I lopped off a couple of inches and even layered the front. I have had better haircuts, but I have defiantly had worse ones (some much worse) as well.

Just before the lock-down my friend Carole had invited us for what seemed like a wonderful evening a mid week dinner with just three couples including Carole's sister in law, my dear friend Esther and her husband.

Covid 19 put an end to those plans. Esther and her husband have been working away on clearing out her parents in law's over stuffed home. Esther's mother in law had sewn pretty seriously and had also collected lots of fabric. I am leaving out all of the other things that she collected, and like many people with dementia clutter reduction is just about impossible.

Esther and her husband have the patience of saints and have been slowly working away at the task. I have been the recipient of many sewing treasures over the years.

Today's mail brought me a small collection of vintage sewing and craft pamphlets.

is a folder filled with mimeographed directions for simple embroidery stitches which are easier to learn how to space and size if you practice on gingham. It feels like the sort of embroidery course you signed up for for a small amount of money and got one installment per month.

Each lesson comes with directions for how to form the stitch

as well as some ideas about how to decorate STUFF

Looking at the illustrations this series looks like it was designed for young girls.

This beautiful little booklet is probably from the late 1930's and is a quick overview of hand and machine sewing techniques.

Esther also included a brochure for an inflatable dressmaking form. Since most dressmaking using a dummy involves a fair amount of pinning,

I wonder how useful this innovative tool actually is.

The real treasure that Esther sent me is this booklet.

This is the American version of the more famous British Make do and Mend.

I love the pledge at the beginning of the book.

The book then shows you how to mend sweaters and other garments. There are several chapters on re styling out of fashion or ill fitting clothes .

One of the ways women managed

to stretch their fabric rations was to wear a simple dress and then switch out accessories, like collars and dickeys.

I suspect that this booklet was written by the brilliant Francis Blondin. Several of the projects also appear in her wonderful sewing Encyclopedia which was published around the same time.

The booklet is filled with ideas of how to remake men's garments, particularly dress shirts and suits into clothing for women and children.

Crochet could also be used to make the simple more stylish looking.

But clearly in some cases that chic is in the eye of the beholder.

A leaflet from the era suggests ways to use of old wool coats.

The patterns look like they are child sized.

While I really did miss the dinner. Getting the goodies that Esther had planned to give me that night really did cheer me up.

The candied orange peel I made tonight will cheer up my youngest.

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...

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...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

sarah in nyc

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