sarah in nyc

required more basting than I have ever done in my life.  because I had embroidered the lettering on the same side as the embroidered letters, I had to flip the middle of the chuppah over. That’s easy to say, but much more complicated to do.   First I tea dyed one of the lovely tablecloths that came to me by way of Vivian.  I made some really strong tea, added it to hot water and then let the table cloth sit in the tea for about 20 minutes. I dried the cloth in the dryer.   The color was perfect. Here you see the cloth  that Danielle's great, great aunt embroidered over the tea dyed cloth from Vivian's grandmother.   After basting the two cloths together, I cut out the center of the cloth and sewed all of the raw edges. then I flipped the sandwiched cloths, hand basted two two together and then inset pieced from the tea-dyed cloth where things didn’t quite line up. I machine stitched all of the raw seams with a three stepped zig-zag.  Ye...

Tonight, my nephew is coming for Shabbat dinner.  His mother adored my mother’s stuffed cabbage.  I decided to recreate my sister’s favorite dish. I know, I just made a batch for Rosh Ha Shanah. I finally figured out that when you core the cabbage before steaming the leaves off you need to really dig out that core. Perhaps my life was made easier because I used a different variety of cabbage. The cabbage I had used for Rosh Ha Shanah was  round like a basketball. The cabbage I used for today’s stuffed cabbage was squat. The pot pictured above is huge. It is a large oval. You could easily bathe a 6 month old child in this pot.  I once cooked a 30 lb turkey in this pot. The magic of photography has foreshortened the massive oval into a circle.  I even, for the sake of this blog plated the cabbage onto a cake plate so you could admire their adorableness. I baked challah. I will make salad later and my son made spiced roasted potatoes. I pulled a plum tart ou...

I’m not just cooking these days, even though it sometimes feels that way. I put in some work on the bag that will hold  Danielle's chuppah. I’m piecing ribbon using metallic stitching. This is what the grosgrain and satin ribbon look like  so far. I’m going to add the blue and metallic braid soon. The top picture gets the color right. the bottom image gets the textures right.  I guess you have to meld the images through the magic of IMAGINATION. I also put in a fair amount of work into my son’s Comicon costume. We have no photo  of the jacket today because my son’s  slobby mother dripped some grease onto the jacket. My son washed out the grease spots and the jacket is now hanging to dry. My normally blasé son is excited about the results. Given that it’s Friday, I had to  surprise(!) cook. The butcher was selling flanken ribs at a nearly silly price ($3.99/ lb) so today is Caveman Shabbat. I know that my youngest will really eat tonight. I also ...

Yesterday, Danielle and I made an appointment to meet at M+J trimming to buy ribbon to make a bag to hold her chuppah.   For those of you who are not familiar with Jewish ritual, this is not a usual thing.   Danielle, ( who I think of as the Wonder Bride, because she is the mellowest bride I have ever met) is planning to have her chuppah  be used by lots of her relatives over the years.  Such a chuppah, I suppose, could live inside a pillow case. Danielle thought it would be really nice to have a bag to hold the chuppah and an album  to hold photos of all of the brides and grooms that use the chuppah over the next many, many years. I don’t remember why we decided to construct the bag out of ribbon, but it’s what we decided to do.  We did decide to meet at M+J because it’s easy to find and has a large stock of ribbons.   I got there early mostly because I have inherited a bit (!) of the nervous Nellie family trait of usually overestimatin...

I tend to get sick the same way over and over.  My throat hurts and I feel generally icky. Yes, I’m drinking lots of fluids and I have upped my intake of vitamin C. I’m taking horrible herbs, I’m not worse.. so I guess that’s good.   Being sick is no excuse not to work. So I have been embroidering the letters for Danielle's chuppah. As you can see, I’m about half way done with the second verse.   If Danielle is reading this, she should not be worried about the un-pressed  piece and all of the stray threads. This will look all tidy and beautiful when it is delivered. I also have been  playing with a new book. The clothing shown in this book is now being seen again on the street in many variations.  I have shown some of the illustrations. The author wrote the book assuming that most people would follow the illustrations rather than the written directions. This dress is clearly a version of a walk-away dress.   Anyway, a worth it to pu...

  Vacation is over. It’s time to get back to work on Danielle’s chuppah.  I cleaned up all of the threads on the first verse.  I got the lettering transferred for the second verse. This is all very old fashioned work that might have been done exactly the same way fifty years ago, and with  slight variations a century and a half ago. Between doing post vacation laundry, and baking  bread ( two batches, because the boys inhaled the first batch of pita) time for sewing was fairly limited today.   I’m looking forward to making more progress tomorrow.

I collect old homemaking books from the early years of the 20th century. They offer tips on how to live your life in a thrifty way. The last 24 hours have seemed like a slightly warped version of those helpful books. I baked a batch of pita in the afternoon ( Made with some home ground hard wheat added to the white flour – making sure that the food my family members eat is wholesome.) I made a big salad using left over meat and vegetables from Friday night, check for wholesome and another check for thrifty. I did a marathon laundry fold last night.  We have had lots of company and I’m still folding laundry from my youngest’s return from camp.  I guess that gets a check in the tidy department. This morning I mended a sheet – thrifty. I also made this watchband – thrifty and smart. ( Smart in that 1940’s usage that has less to do with brain power and more to do with looking sharp.) I also cut a hole in a piece of plastic to act as a vent for our portable air conditione...