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Showing posts with the label challah cover

Repairs

 A bunch of years ago, perhaps it was fifteen or twenty years ago my sister admired a challah cover in my stash and I gave it to her. It looked like this when it was new. The challah cover was made out of a mix of fabrics, a Chinese brocade, a cross-dyed silk shantung and I painted the text onto olive green linen. Cross dyed silk shantung is just visual magic. Unfortunately, silk shantung has a life-span. Eventually, the warp threads fail and the fabric begins to shred. My sister loves the challah cover and mailed it to me hoping that I could repair it. I knew I had to replace the golden-green shantung. I rummaged through my stash of upholstery fabrics hoping that I would have something in the right color and weight. I found a few things that were the right weight but not the right color. I then pulled out this. My friend Arleen had dropped off a couple of yards of this Scalamandre fabric when she was downsizing. She had covered her dining room chairs in this gorgeous fabric. ...

Blog Salad

I had planned to post on Friday about the meal I had made for a cousin visiting from Florida. But Shabbat started early and my computer was being cranky about transferring images.  The time for candle lighting was getting close so I just  stopped. I was planning to post about the making of this kale, ricotta cheese and goat cheese lasagna made with home made noodles. Yes, it was tasty. I had also finished this challah cover that was a wedding gift for beloved cousins. The groom's parents were so incredibly present and caring during my parents' declines. They behaved not like a niece and nephew in law but like another set of siblings. The groom is one of the kindest people on the planet. I don't know his wife as well, but she made sure that all of the food served at their wedding buffet was served with a menu that listed possible allergens because she had sat next to me at a  family wedding a few weeks earlier and  saw me have to interrogate the catere...

getting stuff done

Well, I am finally feeling productive again. Two of the challah covers I had begun several days ago are now done. The text comes from a liturgical poem that is part of the Friday night service. English translation Transliteration Hebrew Chorus: 1 Let’s go, my beloved, to meet the bride, Lekhah dodi liqrat kallah לכה דודי לקראת כלה ‬ 2 and let us welcome the presence of  Shabbat . p'ne Shabbat neqabelah פני שבת נקבלה ‬ The center medallion had started out life as a scarf that I had made to give as a gift to one of my husband's relatives in Israel. I had unfortunately forgotten to pack it.  It is now the centerpiece of a challah cover.  If you are thinking about how fortunate I am to have found exactly the right ribbon to finish off this piece, you are half right. I embroidered the ribbons that edge this challah cover. I used the same text on the other challah cover that I completed. The ribbon, in this case, is a vintage striped satin ribbo...

back at the sewing machine again

After being away for two weeks, it was nice to be back at my sewing machine. My youngest son is home from college.  He had a pile of folded pants on the floor of his room. They all needed mending. My son is a skinny guy. He usually keeps his phone in his back pocket. The skinny jeans he wears look great on him but the lycra/denim mix isn't the longest wearing fabric on the planet. The parts of his pants that support the pocket usually fail from the weight of his phone. So, right after I returned home I started mending pants. This checked pair has been mended several times.  I have been adding a patch to the inside of the pants and grafting the two layers together with lots of stitching.  Luckily my son doesn't mind the contrasting bits of patch showing. I mended two pairs of the lavender and black checkerboard jeans. I also mended two pairs of jeans that I think I bought my son while he was still in middle school. When I think about it, the...

Food Friday- back in the kitchen at last

Being away has its pleasures. it is really nice to be in charge of your own food though. This was the rub that went onto the chickens. Let me see if I can remember what actually went into this now that mixing up this melange of spices took place many hours ago. I think but can't swear to it that this was made with sweet paprika, smoked paprika, sumac, cayenne turmeric and black pepper. This was the result. This was also a challah baking week.  A friendly reminder to those of you new to challah baking. Make your strands short and then pull the strands as you braid. Long and skinny braids make for anemic looking challah. Pull the strands hard, as if you are a mean and impatient mother walking down Broadway with a pokey child. My older son and I once witnessed such a mean mother and child. My son was horrified. Years later I taught him how to properly braid challah by pretending to be the mean mother, grab a challah strand and yell "C'mon you lousy k...