sarah in nyc

I had a cool idea for Ari’s atara/neckband. I decided to layer a silver brocade, a slate blue lace and some flannel for support and then sew lots of random straight stitching.  I learned the method from an article by the brilliant Bird Ross .   The result looks cool, but unfortunately the color doesn’t quite work with the tallit. The blue/grey reads as greenish with the plum tallit.   The tallit though looks great. If I had more time I would have spent some time getting bummed out about the failed experiment. Instead I began adding beads and sequins to the tallit.   There is a small constellation of clear glass beads in the photo below. you may not see them in the photo, but when Ari wears the tallit in synagogue the tiny beads will catch the light.   The goal isn’t to create a Las Vegas showgirl tallit. But the subtle bits of light glimmering out from the tallit draw your eye to the tallit and ultimately to the wearer. It gives a sense of ...

I have been working on a batch of challa covers. The text in the center comes from the central poem of the Friday night service. In it we are invited to greet the Sabbat Queen/bride. The challa cover makes a great wedding gift ( a bit of shameless promotion there). For those of you interested in the technique end of things, I calligraphed the text onto heavy art paper and then cut the letters out with an X-acto knife. I then used that paper with the cut out letters as a stencil on silk shantung, filling the letters in with a Shiva paint stick. Then with a really fine brush I added what I call "hoo-has" the vine and berry pattern , around the letters using a mix of fabric dye acrylic paint and metallic powder. The border fabric is a piece of upholstery fabric that my friend Sara purchased in France. We have been invited to an engagement party that is taking place on Saturday evening. The groom's parents are good friends. My husband suggested that the challa cover that I ...

My friend Tamar was celebrating her birthday today with a get together of several women friends for lunch. I debated a bit about what would be a good gift for Tamar and finally decided on a scarf. Tamar is one of those women who is not a red head, has the coloring of one. The slightly off colors that look terrific on redheads look great on Tamar. So when I found this strip of not quite sea foam green shantung, I knew it was exactly the right color for Tamar. The scarf needed a bit of embellishment. I cut a stamp out of a dollar store plastic eraser. I poured a bit of bronze and some blue fabric dye onto a paper plate and got to work. I stamped three rows of design up and down the scarf. After setting the color with my iron, I serged the fabric into a tube , turned it right side out and then top stitched the result. I have lots of beads left over from the Torah mantle and decided to try to add a beaded fringe. this was a first for me. I did two different beading patterns, one on eac...

For the last few days I have been alternating my time between finishing my son's bar-mitzvah invitation which mostly involved lots of fussing with the computer and working on the Torah mantle. Usually I avoid hand work, but this piece is mostly made by hand. I added lots of beads over the past couple of days. The sanctuary in my synagogue is huge and the piece needs to sparkle or it will just get lost. Thus the vast quantity of beads. I decided to construct the mantle and then fit it onto the padded wooden form. I am attaching the mantle to the form with rows of beads that look kind of like fringe. I hadn't planned on the fringe, but it looks cute. The photo is fuzzy I will take more pictures in day light so all of you can obsess with how great it is along with me. My older son was nice enough to hold the mantle up for me so I could take a photo. He got tired, otherwise I would have taken more pictures. But yes, I am grateful that he was willing to do this boring task for me....