sarah in nyc

Well,Thanksgiving happened.   And we all missed our dear Shawna. Shabbat Shalom!

This Shabbat our food is all provided from the depths of my freezer ( beef stew, chicken soup challah and frozen vegetables) so there won't be much about food.  My older son has been using our kitchen to  cook the meal that he is bringing to a potluck Shabbat dinner tonight. It feels like the old days.The kitchen smells great but not through my efforts. Since we are heading into cold and flu season I thought that you may enjoy hearing this Yiddish song. We sang this a whole lot when my kids were little.   Another appropriate for the season Yiddish song. On the sewing front I have been working away on lining the leather motorcycle jacket. Unlike sewing in fabric, once you sew in leather the needle holes are permanent. If you add a new set of needle holes you have weakened the leather. I hand stitched a back stitch ( a really strong hand sewing stitch) in strong red crochet cotton ( it was the only color I had on hand)into the existing holes that had held the lining in plac...

 Well, we have just passed the glorious days of fall that make your heart beat faster because the changing trees are so wonderful. The grim, grey and cold days lie ahead of us. While many trees are now bare, some still have some foliage. It has been such a warm fall though, that while the leaves are falling, and the mums are dying, the begonias are still blooming. Yesterday I stopped by the thrift store.  I saw this top in a familiar print.  I bought this fabric in 2007 (while my mother-in-law was dying) and made myself a dress out of it. After a particularly stressful hospital visit I went to the store I call Kabbala Man in the garment district and purchased an insane amount of fabric for 1.99 per yard. I managed my stress during that time by making dresses, lots of them. I was especially fond of the dress I had made out of this dotted fabric. I have been doing work and not just admiring nature  and visiting the thrift store. I made a new fog stencil for Nini's tall...

 Sunday we did part one of Thanksgiving shopping with our dear friend Charley. We made the trek to Bingo (the frum answer to Costco) in Monsey. Their Brooklyn store is ten miles closer but the travel time to Monsey  is less and the trip is less irritating because of Brooklyn traffic. We are doing Thanksgiving with Charley. One constant on his Thanksgiving table is brisket. My job is to cook the brisket. Last year, the brisket came from a fancy local kosher butcher. I almost fainted when I saw the price on the meat. Charley joined us for Passover and had brisket I had sourced at Bingo. Despite it not being polite to share the cost of the food with your dinner guests I did share the cost of the brisket with our dear friend. He suggested that we make the trek to Bingo. There are many wonderful things to buy at Bingo. The produce is beautiful, really beautiful. I didn't take photos of the produce. I was distracted by OTHER things. I was distracted by the green marshmallows. I love...

 Usually I end my Friday posts with some music videos. Today I start my post with one. My parents used to sing this song often on long car trips. my earliest childhood was filled with many car trips to visit my ailing grandparents. I am not exactly sure why this has been my earworm for the past while but I decide to look it up. The melody is an old russian military march, the words רְשׁוּת הַדִּבּוּר לֶחָבֵר פָּרַבֶּלוּם רְשׁוּת הַדִּבּוּר לֶחָבֵר תַּת-מִקְלָע בְּעַד אַחִים טְבוּחִים בַּגֶּטוֹ, שֶׁלֹּא הִגִּיעוּ לִגְבוּלָהּ – נִתֵּן – רְשׁוּת הַדִּבּוּר... בְּעַד סְפינַת גּוֹלִים נוֹדֶדֶת שֶׁלֹּא הִגִּיעָה לְאַרְצָהּ – נִתֵּן – רְשׁוּת הַדִּבּוּר... A rough translation is  It's time to give the floor to our friend  Parabellum the right to speak to our friend the sub machine gun on behalf of our brothers slaughtered in the ghettos that didn't get to arrive at our borders on behalf of the ship bobbing on the ocean that hasn't been allowed to dock on it's shores The song w...

 There are times when the design for a tallit comes together in a quick hour. There are other times when a client and I will talk for months  or even years until the design for their tallit comes into focus. The design for Nini's tallit has come together over a long, long period of time.  If you think of each individual's life as being an orbit of sorts --there are some people who travel in nearly exactly the same orbit that we do. Nini and I have only been in the same physical space a few times but aspects of our lives have intersected over and over again over the course of our lives. Had we grown up in the same city, we surely would have been good, good friends. We share many beloved friends.  Nini actually spent the formative years of her childhood in Halifax and knew my dear friend Shawna. Although Nini moved to Philadelphian in middle school the place where she feels the most at one with herself and the most connected to God is in Nova Scotia.  So, Nini and...