sarah in nyc

 I had promised Jess that her tallit would be wearable by Rosh Hashanah. It was.  The atara though, was not yet completed. I worked on hand embroidering the letters through a nasty head cold. I used hand dyed silk embroidery threads. I used them because they evoked the colors in the watercolors that Jess's late mother had used in her beautiful sketch books filled with little watercolor landscapes, color studies, poetry, and reflections on what she was seeing and thinking. This seemed like a lovely way to include Jess's mother who had died completely unexpectedly not long ago. Once I was done with the embroidery I backed the atara with two pieces of crisp drapery fabric to give it just the right amount of body. I cut the atara to size and rough edged the three layers with my serger. Then it was time to create a binding. I embroidered one edge of this beautiful blue and white striped satin ribbon with a teal scallop stitch. I planned to fold the ribbon along the dark blue center...

The other day, I had a lovely initial conversation with a potential client about the possibility of my making her a tallit. She wanted to know if  weaving a tallit was something that I would ever do. The truth is, that in my youth I had fantasies about weaving and becoming a weaver. A friend even gave me a loom to play with. And as I typed this I remembered using a simple back strap  loom in high school. The reality is that I have entirely the wrong brain and personality for  large scale weaving.  Well, I had done some of that wild wooly and hairy weaving that was so big in the 1960s and 70's. But the sort of weaving that one does for a tallit where you meticulously plan every bit of the piece before you begin to work and there is no room to improvise once you have begun just doesn't work for me at all. So often, while I have a plan for my work I will often have to improvise in a way that don't work with classical weaving. Jerry's atara is a case in point.  It's...

 I have a completely irrational belief that if my kids taste the flavors of the holiday foods from my childhood then they will, by eating those foods inherit my memories. Like I said, it is irrational. And yet, I do it every year. My parents made these foods not to evoke their own families but to evoke the people that they loved in Halifax and that particular moment in their lives, the first years of their marriage. That Halifax evocation was so strong that my dear Halifax born friend, Shawna was able to identify whose cabbage and whose Tzimmes I serve.  I didn't grow up with the tradition of serving a plum tart made with Italian prune plums on Rosh Ha Shanah. But my dear German and Austrian born friends who are no longer living did. Herta, and Fanni and Ida are no longer living but I bring them to our Rosh HaShanah table every year. This tart feels like we are inviting those three women to join our table  for the New Year. My daughter has taken up the mantle of making th...

 Jess's tallit   Is heading towards the finish line. The pinot/corner pieces will be made out of woven strips of the ribbon that I embroidered both for Jess's tallit as well as for other recent tallitot. I wove the strips together last night over a bit of fusible interfacing. Eventually, it looked  like this. You are getting some additional photos just because I am feeling really pleased with myself. All of this sewing is being interspersed with holiday cooking. The tzimmes tat was cooked in this graniteware roasting pan is now in the freezer. not visible is the 7.5 lbs. of flanken meat that are under the vegetables. I am feeling especially fond of this pan because it has been working hard all week. Not pictured is the brisket that I cooked in there yesterday. Both the tzimmes and the beef are now frozen. Today I used the same roasting pan to sweat the leaves off of two heads of cabbage. Yes, there is stuffed cabbage making in my future. And of course the cabbage wil...