sarah in nyc

 The snow began slowly this morning. Unlike the weather people, I thought that this would be a big nothing. Now it is evening and I declare this to be a real snow. We have enough food for the next several days. I spent the day taking care of household chores and also working on Tim's atara. The air conditioner that is at my left shoulder now is nicely capped in snow. Stay warm. it's good weather to drink hot cocoa. My father had a bad back. Growing up, snow shoveling fell to my my mother, my sisters and me. After we had cleared the snow off of the back steps, the car, the driveway, the side walk, the front walk and front steps we would comeback into the house. My father would have a pitcher of cocoa waiting for us. This wasn't an envelope of Swiss Miss but Drostes Cocoa simmered on the stovetop with milk, sugar and vanilla.  The cocoa was always served in this hand thrown Italian ceramic pitcher. I can't look at this pitcher and not remember the feeling of filling my co...

I have been working on an an atara. The silk for this atara began life as a ivory dobby woven silk. The atara needs to be a deep blue. There are many ways to dye silk. I like adding color in thin layers. When you do you get a much richer and more interesting color. Yes, it does take longer.. Each layer of dye needs to dry before you add the next one. So here is the silk after three layers. it needs to work with the wool you see at the bottom of the photo. A few layers later... it is just about right. This atara needed text.. First I painted the text onto paper. The text is "  and you should do them (the mitzvot) with all of your heart and all of your soul". There must be two dozen ways to transfer lettering to fabric. Lately, I have been loving this particular old fashioned method. I traced the lettering above onto white cotton batiste.  Batiste is a smooth evenly woven semi-sheer fabric. I used the pencil lines on the paper to align the letters on the cotton. Then I safety p...

  It has been a busy week and I unfortunately hadn't had time to post.  So here goes something of a catch up post.  I had my annual physical and was really moved to see this magnificent building on the same block as my doctor's office. Sadly the building is no longer being used as the musician's union building and has been taken over by a local hospital. This made me think of my friends who are musicians and how sad it is that the great era of unions is no more. I finished my work on the pinot that Darone created for his wedding tallit with three corners made to honor his twin sons and wife and this wonderful New York skylike that he made for himself. Darone and his family came by last Sunday afternoon to tie the tzitzit together.    I was a bad blogger and took no photos. I guess I preferred to stay in the many lovely moments and not pull myself out by taking photos. As anticipated, there were a few tears, but perhaps a few less than I anticipated. The past and...

  For the first time in many years we had a big snow followed by now just over two weeks of below freezing weather. This means that the snow hasn't melted and the department of sanitation has created occasional snow mountains like this one.  In fact, it has been so cold that weather that hovers right around freezing feels almost balmy. This photo is here for no narrative reason but I did love the dramatic light. In the department of sad news.... One of my local thrift stores is closing. When my kids were at the age when every new raincoat got lost on the first day it was worn to school this store provided new ones . This store was the source of Charvet dress shirts for men, and a hand knit pringle short sleeved cashmere sweater for me and just countless articles of clothing over the years. We have been invited to a friend's for Shabbat dinner. I baked our challot yesterday, six regular sized challot and four small ones. I spent a good deal of this week finishing of the pinot t...