sarah in nyc

My favorite part of making a tallit is that moment when my client first sees the tallit. That reaction is my real reward for my work. Often clients are delighted. That's great. Cavill was overwhelmed and wanted to take a good long time to inspect and and admire his new tallit. I was really pleased with my work too, so we both really enjoyed that moment. Amazon.com Widgets Cavill wanted to use techelet , that is tzitzit with the Murex dyed strand. cavil was also particular about which method of tzitzit tying he wanted to use. I normally tie tzitzit either in the Ashkenazi tying pattern,7,8, 11, and then 13 wraps between 5 knots. I often use a variant of that pattern where we use half hitch knots rather than simple wraps. I also have tied tzitzit using the sephardi tie pattern of 10, 5 then 6 and fine wraps between the five knots. I had seen variations of tying patterns with alternating blue and white wraps on some websites. Frankly they made my head ache just to think about them...

Sunday we change the house over to Passover. Yes, I know it's early. I grew up on a home where the task of changing over the house was done early so all of the cooking  and all of the baking could all take place before the holiday.  I don't change our house as early as my parents did, and I don't change my house over as late as my husband would like (perhpas the day before the holiday). Amazon.com Widgets I made a matza farfel kugel out of what was left of a box of farfel from last Passover. We are also eating roasted mushrooms and Brussels sprouts using lots of condiments from the fridge for flavor. We also are eating beef. I had time to put in some work on Cavill's tallit. When we had met to design Cavill's tallit, he brought the tallit his grandmother had bought him I believe for his bar-mitzvah. It was never exactly the right tallit for Cavill, but it represented the bond between grandmother and grandson. So while he didn't like the way it lo...

After I posted the last batch of photos about Cavill's tallit someone who has known me since before I was born commented that I was talented. While it is always nice to receive a compliment, I actually don't think that a good piece is really a result of talent, but rather is is the end result after hundreds and hundreds of failures. Amazon.com Widgets So at this point the tallit is pieced, nicely edged and is awaiting the atara/ neckband and the pinot /corner pieces. I'm really excited and want to share some photos. No you are not imagining the hundreds of untrimmed threads. I will trim all of the threads but I was really excited and photographed with all of the mess. Hope you can see past the threads. Yes, the text appears upside down  when the tallit is simply draped and not folded into proper wearing shape. This does look like an error but it is deliberate. This tallit makes me so completely happy. It fits so comfortably into the vernacular of a tr...

I know that often in my work I manage to make too much work. I can take a crazy hodge podge of wild colors and textures that ought to be fighting against one another and get them to play together nicely. Cavill's tallit though is all about restraint. It is just black and white.  Amazon.com Widgets You might think that I would be fighting against the restraints that this simplicity imposes on me, but I really love it. One advantage of thcreating something with a riot of details is that some of the niggeldy technical bits can be hidden underneath all of the glitz and glitter. I had stitched each white panel of text to it's black partner, treating each one like one unit. I then stitched the panels to the main body of the tallit. This side has a clean seam. The other side has raw edges that need to be covered. Just as there is more than one way to skin a cat, there are lots of ways to cover a seam. If i hadn't had a series of long conversations with my client, I might...

Years ago, a European born relative when asked what her daughter did for a living replied " My Deborah teaches retired children." We just loved the possibilities present in that Malaprop. In our family parlance retired children could refer either to children with developmental disabilities or to adult children. Today, our youngest turned 21. I am now the mother of retired children. He is now older than I was when I met his father. The birthday tiara was a 16th birthday gift from his older brother . My youngest has worn it every birthday since. Since today is a big birthday, there is of course a birthday Shabbat dinner. I did not photograph the chicken, but it was made with New Orleans mustard ( a gift from dear friends) and Lebanese pomegranate molasses. Making this dinner I was very aware of the very particular food likes and dislikes of the birthday celebrant. Sweet potato spears  and despite the fact that I am still sick ( Yes, I am now on antibiotics. N...

Yesterday my case of the yucks  had retreated enough so I could get a bit of work done. Amazon.com Widgets This tallit is being made foe Cavill, a rabbinical student. The due date is soon, really soon. My fist task was to cut strips of silk for the stripes. The best way to do this task is to snip a cut into the fabric, and then pull a thread at the center of the cut. The pulled thread leaves you with a line that shows you exactly where to cut. This beautiful silk tussah made the task of pulling the thread difficult. But time on the phone with BOTH of my sisters made passing the time a bit easier. Eventually it was time to start painting the text. Both my home growing up and the Jewish day school that I attended had similar approaches to spirituality in prayer. This approach may be foreign to those more familiar with the world of Jewish Renewal where the attainment of spiritual satisfaction is both more paramount and more public. I was brought up in a tradition where t...