Finishing off a busy week

Wednesday, Esther and Frank came by to pick up the pieces I had completed for them. My task was to somehow turn a collection or fitted early 1960s Ikat dyed silk blouses and a length of beautiful inky black heavy silk shantung into two wall-hangings that somehow memorialized Frank's mother's life.

My work tends to be centered on words, on Jewish texts. This assignment was something of a challenge. The two wall hangings was to be made for Frank and his brother so the pieces needed to be similar but not identical. The two needed to be somehow of equal value so that neither brother would feel like he had gotten the short end of the stick.

As I worked I loved what I was doing---but I wasn't sure if I had created two pieces that were deeply pleasing to me and to no-one else.

The work proceeded slowly because each piece needed to be in balance both with itself and with it's mate.

The red hand quilting added a percussive beat to the pieces.

I was nervous about what Esther and Frank would think. They were both delighted. I was relieved. we spent a long time looking at the two pieces and talking about the choices I had made.

Frank will be taking better photos of the wall-hangings and sharing them with me. After many attempts I can tell you that these were difficult pieces to photograph. I am glad that someone with Frank's experience and expertise will do a better job than I have.

I was hugely relieved that they were happy. After Frank and Esther left I decided I needed a little reward. My initial thought was to go buy myself something pretty. But first I went on a bit of a busman's-holiday and recovered one of our couch cushions.

One of the back cushions had gotten really frayed. I have a stash of different upholstery fabrics that would work. I made a choice and with a mix of machine and hand stitching the job was quickly done.

My husband admired my efforts and mentioned that the arm of the sofa also needed a bit of attention. He was right. The fabric had gotten threadbare and the padding under the upholstery fabric on the arm had gone flat. Inspired by articles in my news feed about which movie star had gotten facial fillers and fat implants in their cheeks---I cut open the arm of the sofa, and added a filler of bits of quilt batting and then stitched up the hole.

I then needed to cover the threadbare bit (that now had a big length of sutures) with new fabric. For that I needed my staple-gun. I reached up to the high shelf where the staple gun lives and the heavy duty staple gun slid out and landed on the bridge of my nose. I have had my nose broken before (by my lovely children). It wasn't as bad a break as the one caused by a sweet toddler clonking me on the nose with a small toy piano thirty years ago. My husband tended to the cut. I sat with various icepacks and then got back to work.

Again with a mix of hand stitched and the dreaded staple gun, the job is complete.

Last night I tied tzitzit with Terry on her tallit.

I realize that I stupidly didn't take enough photos of this tallit completed. You can see it tomorrow at Ansche Chesed when Terry reads Torah.

I grew up in a house where meat for Shabbat was purchased weeks in advance because we lived a distance from the kosher butcher. Given that Fridays were often professionally busy for a rabbi, food was often cooked in advance as well.

So I felt slightly transgressive when I walked out of the house at two in the afternoon the buy the chicken for tonight. As I walked home after buying the chicken I was mentally going through what we had in the freezer and fridge to flavor the chicken. I remembered that I had put a bag of beautiful cherries in the freezer because when I had purchased them I had forgotten that we were going away.

I took out a large bunch of those cherries, washed them and then defrosted them and the soft defrosted cherries were easy to pit. I added some hawaj, black pepper and smoked paprika to the pan and put the chicken in the oven to cook.

The result was pretty wet so I added some oat groats to the cooking pan because that was the grain I had on hand. My first choice would have been basmati rice-- but what can you do?

A couple of hours later....

It looks and smells awfully good. I did taste a couple of cherries and the flavors melded well. I would peg this as vaguely Middle Eastern, a kind of fantasy take on Persian cookery made by someone who hasn't eaten a whole lot of Persian food.