sarah in nyc

 Every single article on aging, on avoiding dementia talks about the value of problem-solving and learning new skills in keeping one young. Today I took my last stitches on the baby quilt. Every bit of it was a challenge and in the very best way. My client was worried that using so many different fabrics would create a visual cacophony. The strong horizontals of the shelves and the railroad tracks and the recurring use of red keep the composition coherent. I had assumed that I would quilt ( that is, attach the layers of the quilt together) by machine. The bulk of the quilt was too much for my sewing machine. I realized that I had to go traditional and quilt this by hand. I stitched meandering lines in two different blues, lavender red, and green. it took me a little while to get into the rhythm of the work. Some quilters use the act of quilting to impose a grid over the design. I did not. I thought about the baby that would be using this quilt and how he would be so close to the su...

 I have been working away on the baby quilt. here you see the three "bookshelves" each arranged with toys and books made out of fabrics that had belonged to the new baby's recently deceased grandmother. My lovely client helpfully sent me a file filled with photos of toys and books that really mattered to my client and to her brother in their childhood so this quilt wouldn't be filled with images of generic childhood toys and books but with toys and books that truly mattered to them. As I have worked I have gone back to the list again and again.  Creating  this book cover was so time-consuming that I wasn't dying to attempt another detailed book cover. As I consulted the picture file one more time I realized that I had not yet tackled the Lionel trains. My client and her brother had spent lots of time with their father's Lionel trains.   I had kind of assumed that I could simply create a stylized traintrack, like this Clearly, I did not grow up with Lionel trai...

I realize that several of my posts over the past few weeks have focused on death and loss. I promise that this topic is not discussed at all in this post.  My friend asked up to pick up her CSA farm share this week and our Shabbat dinner is heavy on goodies from the farm-share produce. There were four beets, a small handful of string beans, and a small head of cauliflower. All of them got roasted together with lemon juice and olive oil. Usually chicken looks better cooked than raw. That rule of life is proven wrong here.  The beautiful bunch of flowering dill was chopped up along with onion greens. I added lots of lemon peel and lemon juice to the chicken. I am sure that it will taste delicious despite looking less festive when cooked. I hadn't posted about our Shabbat dinner last week. For the first time in a year and a half, we were guests for Shabbat. It felt awfully luxurious to not have to cook. It was also wonderful to spend an evening with our dear friends Alfie and Jud...