sarah in nyc

Working on a tallit I usually toggle my way through moments of vision and creativity and moments when I just slog away. Gavi's tallit has had a whole lot of slog, especially during the past couple of days when L have been carefully picking out the bits of paper that supported the fabric while I sewed it on the sewing machine. Amazon.com Widgets Gavi was supposed to come over this afternoon to tie her tzitzit. I set to pick pick picking away paper as soon as I could this morning and a couple of hours before our appointed time I knew there was no way I would be done picking out bits of paper on time.  I got in touch with Gavi. She decided that she would tie the tzitzit today with her husband and as soon as I am done I will ship the cleaned up tallit to them in their new home. Gavi was always very clear about her vision for this tallit, white silk edged with lace from her wedding dress.  I did my best to create that vision. When Gavi and her husband came over I ...

As of Friday, Hannah's tallit looked like this. Amazon.com Widgets Hannah wanted the bottom of the tallit to look like a planet being born. I suppose I could have just stopped painting on Friday but I knew I could make the tallit look more like outer space with more layers of paint. I flicked lots of color onto the tallit with a tooth brush for a big chunk of the day yesterday. By evening I constructed the tallit. Yes this silk did start out nearly white. The atara is edged with striped blue ribbon and gold cording. Tomorrow evening Hannah and her family come by to tie the tzitzit. After my last post two of my wise friends suggested that I ought to have used iron away stabilizer. My friends are right. I am picking away at the tissue paper and tracing paper that I had used to stabilize the tallit. It is picky messy work. I have already vacuumed once today and will probably vacuum again before I go to sleep. I actually am making pro...

This has been something of an extra crazy week. There was a whole lot of cooking going on.In addition to our usual Shabbat dinner I also made a fancy dinner for Sunday evening. Amazon.com Widgets I also finally figured out the secret to making really good bagels. A fairly long boil,   say, 5-7 minutes in water with a few table spoons of brown sugar  creates a really crispy  outer crust. I went to Costco this morning and also did some shopping for a friend there. Bringing home my friend's meat order I was really aware of how limited our fridge and freezer space is.  With only a limited amount of cursing I was able to fit everything into our fridge. My older son made the carb and roasted some vegetables for tonight. I made these two chickens.  Actually they are still cooking as I type this. They look cute but those chicken legs are still not cooked to the wobble stage.  I also made a non dairy ice cream for tonight. It is a gi...

I have been working away on Gavi's tallit which is made out of lace from her beautiful wedding dress. This is one of those projects that on paper seems simple. How hard could it be to trim a mile of lace trim off of a dress and then sew it to a new piece of silk to make a tallit? Amazon.com Widgets The answer is actually that it isn't all that difficult but it is time consuming.   I had to trim off the mile of lace trim and cut it away from all of the tulle that it had been stitched to. Did I mention that the lace was stitched on invisibly? Unpicking white  stitching from white tulle is hard on the eyes. After all of the lace had been unpicked I realized that it was actually dingy and needed to be washed. So I hand washed the mile of lace. I cut the silk Georgette to size and realized that the size my client and I thought made sense for her tallit would in fact be too short.  I suppose I could have just ordered another length of silk. Instead, I inset a stripe of la...

I have been reading and collecting old sewing books for a long time now. All of them have a couple of chapters at the beginning of the book describing various sewing techniques and often with illustrations or photos to steer you right. Amazon.com Widgets One of the techniques mentioned often is how to applique lace over a space between two finished pieces of fabric. The final effect is something ethereal . All of the books describe stitching each finished piece of fabric to a piece of marked paper and then stitching the lace over the space. I tried the technique out a couple of days ago.here is my marked strip of tracing paper stitched to the silk. What I discovered is that this old method worked like a charm. No cursing at all was involved. There is lots more work to be done and I am really looking forward to doing it. And now, another blast from the past. My father started each day with a cup of coffee. My father was a meticulous man. In my early childhood ...

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...