sarah in nyc

Today I needed to buy a specific piece of fabric for a tallit. I needed white silk double georgette. For those of you who are not shchmatta geeks, georgette  is a thicker version of chiffon. A double georgette is translucent, rather than transparent and has a lovely soft drape.  Georgette was a staple for dresses in the 1920's and 30's. It isn't an easy fabric to find these days, particularly in silk but it is exactly what I need to make my next tallit. Amazon.com Widgets I called my pals at Rosen and Chadick to see if they had any in stock. They did. I took the subway, went to their new digs and purchased what I needed. I have been buying from Rosen& Chadick for a long time. I used to buy from the grumpy fathers of the current owners. The current owners, unlike their fathers treat each customer with warmth and respect. I have been shopping there for so long that each visit includes some catching up on each of our children. They do have a  website ...

I wanted to keep my hands busy on the 4 hour drive to Rafi's funeral. I was so sad. Keeping my hands busy is a good way to deal with grief. My sister's mother in law had given me a load of vintage cashmere sweaters. She loved the work I had done refashioning sweaters. So, she gave me a batch of sweaters to play with. One of the treasures that I hadn't gotten to, was a Pringle grey cashmere turtleneck. It's too hot in New York apartments to wear a turtleneck. I also hate having things tight around my neck. I was planning to transform the turtleneck into a cardigan but hadn't quite gotten to it. Before I got into the car, I cut open the front and then packed along a black eyelash yarn and a lovely hand dyed blue ribbon yarn and a crochet hook. My sister's mother in law died this summer. So it seemed like a nice way to focues on her, and on her not quite in the fullness of her years death as we went to attend Rafi's funeral. After a little over an hour I was do...

Most Torah mantles have some sort of trimming at the top. Most also have fringe at the bottom. Some of this decoration is there because the Torah is dressed sort of like the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol. When I started making mantles though, I realized that some of the trim is there for functional reasons. Very often when you make the mantle, you pad the wooden frame and then and stitch the "skirt" to that padded frame. Inevitably that join will be imperfect. The trim at the top hides any lumps in the join. Today I went trim shopping. This isn't an off the rack sort of a Torah mantle and I didn't want off the rack trim. Often people use upholstery trim. I didn't want to use just silver, because I thought it would look too cold. I wanted something that would pick up the colors that I had used. I also have a less than lovely join to hide so I needed a bit of width. I thought that if I layered standard trims I would get the look I wanted. When I purchased the velvet...