sarah in nyc

 Tonight we have in-person guests, an old friend of my husband's and his family. We will be eating-- Chicken with za'atar and lots of lemon and lime, and potatoes cooked with red peppers and paprika. Not pictured is the cooked eggplant and zucchini. My husband will be making a green salad. More work is being done on tallitot and atarot. Ribbon is being embroidered to edge the atarot. This one needs another layer of embroidery. I think this one is complete but will be stitched down with bronze thread to add an extra bit of wonderful. This where it goes-- The combination makes my eyes happy. And we are eating cake for dessert. A faked blueberry citrus cake--meaning made without a recipe. Aside from the blueberries, the cake is flavored with lots of lemon and lime peel, ginger, some fresh lemon juice, limoncello, and orange juice. I prepared the bunt pan with coconut oil and sugar so it has a crunchy crust. And now I go take a pre-dinner nap. Shabbat Shalom!

 I have three tallitot all due the same week in June. Two are for a bride and a groom, Todd, and Alejandra. The other is for Ella a bat-mitzvah girl. Ella's tallit is made out of a herringbone woven silk noil that has a beautiful drape. Most of the tallit will be painted blue to look like the sky. The "stripe" sections of the tallit will look like the sky at sunset on one side and sunrise on the other. I had cut the silk to size and rough hemmed it. I was ready to start painting the blue sky. I didn't want the blue dye to bleed into the sunrise and the sunset. sections of the tallit. I came up with a clever way to block the dye. I first pressed in a fold  I then put raw rice on that fold. If any dye migrated the rice would hold back the flow of the dye. The watered-down dyes are applied in thin layers and allowed to dry and set between applications of color. So far two layers of dye have been applied. I have also begun constructing Todd's tallit. These strips need...

    I finished Ella's tallit yesterday morning. In the afternoon, Ella came by with her mother and grandmother to tie the tzitzit.  When I first started making tallitot  I used to tie the tzitzit for my clients. What I have learned over time is that the act of tying the tzitzit  creates a real ownership of the tallit by my client.  I think of it as the halachic term kinyan ,   literally taking ownership. When family members participate  in the act of tying the tzitzit a truly sweet family moment takes place in a quiet setting before the hubbub of the bar or bat-mitzvah.   Ella was  accompanied by her mother and her grandmother. Grandma began asking me about the sources for wearing tallit.  As I filled Grandma in on some of the historical background of tallit, she informed me that she was an Art Historian specializing in the art of ancient Mesopotamia. Clearly this was not your run of the mill Bubbie. I usually have the...

With the exception of the eyelets, Ella’s tallit is complete.  It’s such a serene looking piece which is a bit ironic considering what a wild week this has been. My nephew has been in the hospital up the street for most of the past week. His parents live in Boston so I have been doing my bit as  the nearest adult relative.  Most of the reasons for my nephew’s being in the hospital was over aggressive medicine and the horrible side effects from the aggressive medications.  My nephew is now back in his dorm room. He is completely fine. The resulting drama has left me anxious and tired and prone to mistake making. Unfortunately, heavy white silk charmeuse does not have very much of a margin of error.  I’m being not quite accurate . There is zero margin for error with this delicious fabric. But, the tallit is finally done. I haven’t done the eyelet’s yet because I’m too tired to do them without doing something stupid. I will do them in the morning.   T...

After I wrote my last post I carefully outlined all of the letters on the text panels of Ella’s tallit.  I was feeling so pleased about how clean the lettering looked. I was so happy about how nicely the two panels of lettering worked together. But then I noticed  AAAAAARRRGGGHH!!!! two teeny droplets of paint on the fourth row of text between the third and fourth letters from the left.   I put the work away and hoped that I could sleep on a solution to the problem. I woke up having dreamed the two droplets into giants ugly globs of horribleness. I could pretend that nothing was amiss and hope that Ella and her family wouldn’t notice. But that is pretty dishonest and would leave me feeling guilty. I could redo the lettering, but the paint had dried. I would have to mix up new pots of color, I don’t know if I could match the color or get the letting to play nicely if I started  a new.   Instead I emailed Ella’s mom with photos of the blobetts and as...

Drawing with a sewing machine is definitely an off label use of power tools.  But after a couple of days of trying to avoid the task I plunged in.   I used this drawing of a wing via Google images as my source inspiration. I drew the top arc of the winds onto the flannel I had used to back the silk.  If I were a different kind of a worker, I would have transferred the design onto a grid to enlarge the design. I just drew the design while I looked at the original wing.   I then loaded the sewing machine  bobbin with silver thread and sewed along the green line. I kept the drawing next to me as I first stitched the outer edges of the feathers.  Then I gritted my teeth and added the feathers.  the more I worked the more control I had over the process. I kept pressing down on the ‘ go backwards’ lever on the machine. Astonishingly …it really looks like feathers.   After I was done I pulled all of the threads to the back until my ey...

Sometimes working on a tallit can have terrifying parts. Ella chose a relatively expensive silk. It’s delicious to touch. On the other hand, the fact that it is so blindingly white means that there is little room for my errors to hide. Because it is relatively expensive, I have just enough to make the tallit. there isn’t margin for error.  When I was much younger these sorts of large multi part tasks used to terrify me into paralysis. When I was in my early 30’s I figured out a way around that paralysis. I work on the least scary part of the job, even if it makes no sense  from the point of view of efficient work. I am supposed to quilt wings for the atara/ neckband.  rather than work on that, I decided to work on the pinot/ corner pieces. They are supposed to look like clouds. Two layers of flannel back the silk and I stitched away with silver metallic thread. This piece will be cut into smaller squares. I had thought that each square could suggest a segment of ...