sarah in nyc

 This past week had created more opportunities for me to be out and about so this post is basically a roundup of things that caught y eye during the week. Tanta Marcia and I met for dinner at Ayurveda, a vegetarian Indian restaurant a few blocks away. Eating there feels like eating at your Indian Bubbie's house. There isn't a menu. You eat what they serve you and they will feed you until you are full. Sometimes the food is really delicious, and other times it is not. When Marcia and I went out to eat on Sunday the food was kind of terrible but they serve the food with such love for their customers that it is hard to get terribly annoyed at them. My grandmothers were both terrible cooks so it really does feel like a meal with a Bubbie. Being with Marcia was as always a treat so than more than made up for the food. The views of the sunset were also wonderful. Monday we met out-of-town friends for dinner. We had seen them last in person just as the pandemic hit and they escaped th...

 Apparently, Google, the owner of the Blogger platform is discontinuing Feedburner. Some of you have been getting updates about new posts through Feedburner. If I were a bit more up on these matters I would have figured out a different system for you to get notices about the activity here. So, I am doing nothing. I have gotten several invitations from companies I know nothing about  asking me to use their subscriber services. If you have suggestions about a service to use that works and isn't a scam, let me know. Otherwise, just stop by. I usually post at least once a week and usually more often. I have been working away on the baby quilt. For those of you for whom reading this blog is not the most important thing in your life, (meaning everyone) I will give you a bit of background. My client is the aunt to be for a baby boy due to be born this August. My client's mother died last year. The mom was an extraordinary human being and was a fabulous grandmother to my client's c...

Just a quick post because I need a nap before Shabbat dinner. Today's dinner is all about remote collaboration. My friend Alan, the excellent challah baker, was sad because his kitchen was too hot while his challot were rising. While I was commiserating with him on Facebook about the frustrations of baking challot in the heat of the summer while cooking other things--I managed to drop a bunch of whole coriander into my challah dough and had to fish it all out and toss it in the trash. I then ground up some dry coriander. You can also see that I glazed my challot unevenly. I know that the folks eating at our table will not complain. I do know that Alan and I will be grumbling as we taste our challot tonight. We KNOW what has gone wrong. Hopefully, all of my fretting will be internal and I won't be tormenting my guests. Our older son is joining us. I asked him what sort of chicken he wanted. He suggested the awesome gochujong and Molasses mixture that I had made a while back. Unf...

 Right now I am working on two projects that on the face of it have no connection to one another, a baby quilt and a creation-themed tallit. However, both of these projects are getting me to use the same part of my brain. My work tends to be more symbolic and abstract rather than pictorial. The baby quilt is a memory piece and I am creating iconic books and toys from the childhood of the expectant father. So far, I have built a car, and a fire truck out of clothing that had belonged to the late grandmother of this not yet born baby. Yes, all of the loose threads have pulled to the back and knotted off. I am also building some books. The Snowy Day is nearly done. I have to add the other lights to the traffic light, and perhaps refine the face a bit. I am also nearly done with this  take on the Mr. Man books. I will be making a few more of those because they are less labor-intensive than Ezra Jack Keats's lovely work. Part of my challenge is just creating the fabric collages. Th...

 This has been a week of experiencing loss. This week I learned of the deaths of two friends from the sewing universe. Anne van der Kley died earlier this week after a long battle with congestive heart failure. This photo pretty much sums up who Anne was. She was entirely larger than life in every sense of the word. Anne had a career as a nurse before she became well known as a fiber artist. Anne's medium was a serger a machine that was developed as a utility machine for the garment industry to both sew and trim garments at the same time. If you look at the side seam of y.our t-shirt you will see a serged hem. Anne pushed sergers to create art. Anne published several books and was a popular teacher for sewing conferences. I never took any of her classes but we had become friends through a sewing discussion group that I have been part of for more than two decades. We had gotten together during some of her visits to New York for some garment center adventures. Ann's publicity pho...

 This beautiful photo was sent to me this morning. Even if you didn't know that this photo was taken in Israel or who the young woman in the photo is or who made the tallit it would still be a photo that would make you stop for a moment to admire all of the glowing beauty in the image. I met the young woman in the photo soon after she moved to New York as a little girl.  There are some children who emerge from the womb with their personalities the same from the moment they are born until they die. Other kids are still as moldable as plasticine needing life to help form them.  I saw Ella for the first time during High Holiday services when she was rushing up the aisle with some friends wearing a hat, carrying a messenger bag, and wearing sturdy shoes. She was a girl on a mission. She was stunningly completely her adult self inside the body of a child. By the time it was time for Ella to get ready for her bat-mitzvah she and her parents and I were already friends. We met to...