sarah in nyc

Sunday, I tied the tzitzit for Charlie's tallit with his family. Most of the families I work with are lovely and have a nice relationship with one another.  Amazon.com Widgets His family just takes nice up a notch or two. For me there is something so gratifying to see family working together tying their tzitzit. At the beginning they are all very focused at the unfamiliar task. But soon , as they relax into the task and their hands get used to the work they start to banter and joke with one another. They were all happy with the work I had done. Tying the tzitzit also give them time to get to see the work I have done up close. Charlie's mother had clearly done her time making friendship bracelets. She was fast. As always, we ended with Charlie saying all of the intentional prayers before putting on his tallit, said the blessing and sh'hechiyanu. The next day I helped another familym tie tzitzit on a tallit that I didn't make but consu...

Charlie's tallit is finally completed. Amazon.com Widgets please excuse the wrinkles, I promise that the tallit will be well pressed when Charlie and his family come to pick it up. I adore the pinot.   I love that despite the fact that there are so many textures and techniques used in this tallit, the tallit has a calm feel to it. And now onto the cooking. I had an appointment this morning. My son got the chicken going (honey mustard, because we have a young dinner guest this evening).  My son trusted me with the task of chicken removal., but before he went out for his bike ride he discussed the flavoring for the pilaf ( the chicken juice from last week's curry and date chicken) with me, and how I should make the kale. He also weighed in on my sister's chicken flavor question( Pomegranate molasses works well with black pepper and mustard and less well with za'atar.) My son left me to make dessert,an orange almond cake.  I dried...

If I were a smart businesswoman I never would have decided to spend my life making Judaica. If I were a smart businesswoman I never would have decided to make Judaica the slow and old fashioned way, each piece created unique rather than just creating designs and have them made in a factory somewhere where labor is really cheap.  Amazon.com Widgets And even given that, there are times when I am practical and choose to do the tasks related to making my work in ways that make sense time wise. Charlie's tallit has not been one of those practical moments. Perhaps it is how much I adore Charlie's great ant and uncle. Perhaps I was just charmed by Charlie and his relationship with his parents and younger brother. I also lay some of the blame for my flight from reality on my dear friend Bill who mentioned seeing some of my hand embroidery on the atara I had done for his friend (also named Charlie). Bill talked about how pretty the atara was and how he looks forward to seeing i...

I suppose that if I were smart I would have embroidered the letters for Charlie's atara/ neckband by machine. I was thinking about what a great kid Charlie is. I was thinking about the great dynamic between Charlie and his parents and his little brother. I was also thinking about how much I love Charlie's great aunt and uncle... So I decided to hand embroider all of the letters. This is not a rational decision. It is an interesting mental exercise following the outlines of the letters from the underside of the atara and then forming the stitches on the front of the piece. There is something sort of zen-like about doing the work. Embroidering the outline of the letters takes a great deal of focus, filling the letters in takes much less focus. I play mental games with myself to keep working. I work on random bits of the letters all over the piece. It allows me to pretend that this isn't quite as much work. Each stitch catches the light. the end re...

My husband will sometimes  ask me if it makes sense that the focus of my blog is so unfocused. Shouldn't I write exclusively about my work rather than all of those detours about cooking or walking down Broadway or living with my family? Amazon.com Widgets I realize though that all of the elements of my life sort of bleed into one another and all of that stew of my life goes into my work. My youngest has been home for winter break and returns to college tomorrow. While he has been home I have mended several pairs of his pants. While mending I have been thinking a whole lot about how mending fuses layers of fabric and thread and restores broken fabric. It's a task that is related to weaving and to felting. Usually it is a task that is completely utilitarian. It is possible though to use the same techniques in a decorative way. I had pieced this for the atara /neckband of Charlie's tallit. This was attractive but I had some worries about the ability of the silk to ta...

There are many things that are wonderful about living with adult children as opposed to living with toddlers.  Today I was grateful that I could wake up, put together the challah dough and then go back to sleep. Amazon.com Widgets My older son took care of the rest of the meal. He made chicken, roasted root vegetables and made okra. My son shaped the challot. I glazed them and baked them. This meant that I had time to edge Charlie's tallit, and bake dessert, lemon squares that will be cut into squares once the pan is cool. Shabbat Shalom!

After I met with Charlie and his family just after Thanksgiving, we each had a copy of this sketch, a basic diagram for his tallit with reminders for me about size and the design. We had decided on a wool/rayon blend for the main body of the tallit and a soft wool and Lurex blend for the stripe. Charlie also chose a beautiful black, metallic gold and white wide gros-grain ribbon to border the stripes.  Charlie wanted the colors in the atara/ neckband to refer to the colors in the tabernacle( blue, turquoise, purple and red). Very soon after we met  I started piecing silk for the atara. The time had come to actually assemble the tallit.  I cut all of the wool to size.  I suppose that if I had an assistant I would have given my assistant the task. However, I do every bit of work involved in making all of my pieces.   I have found that my doing each of the tasks required in putting a tallit together I often makes design decisions exactl...

Here it is. Clearly I need to press it a bit better. There are some threads that need to be trimmed and bits of hand repair that still need to be done to the tallit…but it is for the most part, complete.