Feathers on my mind and some other topics

Ezra is having his bar-mitzvah on Shabbat B'reishit, the Shabbat when we read the story of creation. After a whole lot of discussion, some of it on Zoom and some in real life we decided that his tallit would be made up of seven stripes (on each side), each stripe representing a day of creation. Because Judaism has a less than comfortable relationship with imagery we decided that the depictions of what is created each day should skew towards the abstract.

I haven't yet made the first day of creation but I have it designed, at least in my mind. Day one of creation, in case you forgot is the separation of light from the darkness.

I had made the stripes for day two of creation,

the separation of the waters above and below the firmament or horizon.

It was time to tackle some of the other days. In my usual manner, I am not creating these strips in biblical order but in the order that strikes my fancy.

I began work on day five, the day that the creatures of the water and those of the sky were created.

I decided to stitch a series of closely spaced scallop stitches to look like fish scales.

I hadn't yet worked out how exactly to symbolize the birds of the sky. I had thought about making lots of feathered bird wings. I threw that idea into the dust bin of discarded ideas.

I then started looking at various images of feathers. I then sketched some out with watercolors.

I wasn't exactly sure how best to translate the sketches on paper to the fabric. Finally, after lots of deliberation, I decided to stitch the quill of the feather using a tiny zigzag stitch and then to paint the feathers themselves using fabric dye.

The feathers are painted in lots of small stages with time for the dye to dry between each layer of color.

Like nearly everything I do there was a stage during the day when my feathers looked like an unfortunate mistake.

I am actually quite pleased with the result.

Progress is being made on the fourth day of creation.

I still have to make up the lights for the day (the sun).

I am working on Ezra's tallit while I am working out kinks in the production of the baby quilt.

A few days ago I posted about a visit to an antique store. I posted photos of several items including this lovely dresser scarf with crochet ends with the unusual woven detail.

Shari Adams one of my sewing pals sent me these two photos of a crochet collar that is part of her collection.

Yes, it is worked with a heavier thread than the dresser scarf, but it is clearly the same pattern.

Perhaps there was a brief fad for this sort of woven crochet work.it reminds me a bit of Battenerg lace (seen below)

where one incorporates thin cotton tape into crochet work.

I was so happy to see Shari's collar.

Earlier this week this photo was on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

It reminded me of a painting that hung in our living room my entire childhood.

My parents' painting was by Constantine Arvenites, a Rockport Massachusetts-based painter. When my parents bought the painting they were told that it depicted the Armenian genocide. They bought the painting because it struck a nerve and reminded them of Jews being driven from their homes.

I hope perhaps, being foolishly optimistic that things won't be completely awful in Afganistan.

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...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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