Light and fading light

Progress is being made on Sarah's light themed tallit.

Like every other big task, creating this tallit is made up of lots of small tasks. For each text strip/stripe I need to cut the silk and edge it so it won't ravel away. Each strip is embellished in some way either before

or after I paint on the lettering.

The ribbon borders for the stripes are assembled and embroidered.

When I first started sewing I found metallic thread to be a bear to sew. Metallic thread tended to break or crack while I attempted to use it with my machine. I used to use a special metallic thread needle and use silicone drops on the thread to lessen breakage and cursing. I don't know if I have learned to intuit all of the intangibles that make sewing with metallic thread less of a bear, like machine speed and thread tension or if the sewing gods have simply decided that I have put in enough time at the task and have given me a pass. Most of the time I can get through long periods of time with all of the various metallic threads playing nicely.

I loved using this stencil that arrived a couple of days ago. Now I have to decide if I will paint the text on top of the stencilled design or just leave this as a decorative stripe.

Autumn is creeping in.

Now, another moment to talk about objects that become imbued with meaning.

We had been using this bottle

to hold olive oil in the little cabin we rented this summer. The bottle is now empty and I washed it out. My husband suggested that we can recycle it. My husband then asked if this bottle of whiskey was a gift from our late friend Fred. It was. So we will find a use for the bottle and remember our friend Fred each time we use it.

Soon after my friend Shawna shared her terrible diagnosis with us I made her a batch of the chicken soup that she has eaten at my Seder table for years. It is a soup that takes several days to make and strain. I knew that I couldn't make Shawna better but I could fill her body with the love and care and my hopes for her recovery. A couple of weeks later Shawna's dear husband dripped off a batch of goodies for us including chocolates in this tin.

The chocolates are long gone. Shawna died a year ago.

This summer I stored coffee for the cabin in this tin. I found myself saying hello to Shawna every time I picked the tin up to start my day.

There are more tasks to be done on the tallit as as soon as I am done typing-- it is back to work for me.

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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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