sarah in nyc

 First of all, the wedding tallit in use as a chuppah. I can't even begin to tell you how pleased I am. Yes, I love the tallit that I made, but I really love this couple and wish them many, many years of happiness together.  They were so kind to one another during the entire process of making this tallit. it bodes well for the two of them. There has been a whole lot going on around here, (not even including the rockets from Iran), so I haven't had the mental focus to post. So, prepare yourself for a hdge-podge of a post. Here goes: We have done a few local adventures, including going to Roosevelt Island. We hadn't been since Covid. there has been more development on the south end of the island. It is nice to get a different perspective of the East River. The day was beastly hot and muggywhich cut down on our exploring time. After we headed home on the tram we stopped off at a Japanese supermarket, because why not??? I liked howthese frozen treats didn't try to over-prom...

 A big job is terrifying, so terrifying that it can make it impossible to move forward. The big job can be less intimidating is you nibble away at the tasks  one at a time. I cut, then pieced and backed strips of the Hanae Mori dress for Ezra and Shay's wedding tallit. The center stripe above is lined in white silk.  The other two are lined in blue. These strips are edged in serged stitching that will soon be covered with embroidered ribbon. To the right you see the atara, painted, backed and edged. Atop the atara are the pinot cut backed and serged. Below are the (unpressed and complete with loose threads) pinot with one pass of machine stitching. Now with two passes of machine embroidery. There will be a third row --to attach the corner pieces to the tallit. And now, the stripes... Here, the narrower stripe is edged with ribbon and the wider stripe is awaiting ribbon. Below, ribbon stacked and stitched and soon be to sewn to the stripe. Yet another ribbon and embroidery...

 There are times when a task seems really simple in theory, but the reality is that it is actually difficult. I have been faced with such a task working on Ezra and Shay's wedding tallit.  The tallit is 42 inches wide. The bottom width of each skirt panel is  48 inches wide. That sounds like it should be easy. If this were paper I could just cut strips across the bottom of the skirt to make the tallit stripes. But this isn't paper  I am making these stripes out of fabric which has a grain. If you cut the stripes off grain the fabric will shift, distort and ripple when I sew it to the tallit. And no, that isn't the desired look.  I am including this diagram about how to create a skirt with a fuller hemline  so you can understand my problem a bit better. When you start out with a pencil skirt pattern, usually the yarns that make up a pencil skirt go north-south and east-west. A flared skirt has yarns that are  like that in the center but get increasingl...

I began writing a post yesterday but the murder of the two Israeli embassy workers in Washington just left me to upset to write. Before any of you say that perhaps it is understandable that they got shot exactly because they worked for the Israeli embassy, I would like to remind you that they weren't wearing big signs that stated where they were employed. Theywere at an event at a Jewish institution and the point of the event was to promote co-existance. We are living in sad and anxious times. So as you read the rest of this post I just want you to know where my head really is. To mis-quote the poet Judah HaLevi, "My heart is in Washington but my body is in New York." A little over a week ago I was contacted by a young couple. The groom's mom is no longer living. The bride and the groom wanted to include his mother in the wedding in some way. This is the dress that the groom's mom wore to her 1986 wedding. It is a Hanae Mori tea length dress. The dress is made out...