sarah in nyc

I got a call today from my friend Elisheva. She had an odd sewing job for me to do. She wasn’t sure if it was quite in my wheelhouse, but thought it was worth asking. Elisheva had inherited a mink collar/stole and hat and they both needed to be re lined, would I be willing to do the job?   I wasn’t sure if this was something I could do until I took a look.  Elisheva came by with the hat and the stole. I decided to tackle the stole first.  It was really nice mink. My grandfather was a furrier and my mother is a big fur critic. That is, when we would walk down the street together, she would critique  the fur coats. “ Ugh, she’s wearing a mink, but it’s so cheap. Look how stiff it is!” “ Rabbit fur!That’s junk!” “Oooh! That’s a nice fur.” “Her tush is too fat for that fur, she needs to either get a new one or just wear a different coat.” I didn’t think that I was actually paying attention to all of my mother’s critiques, but her lessons on the finer poin...

My hard drive died on Friday. I'm really lucky that my husband was smart enough to purchase an extended service plan for the computer. That's the good news. The bad news is that the company taking care of the service plan has probably one of the worst voice mail systems I have ever encountered. I have spent about two hours on hold  over the past two days. That is two  hours by the clock, not what it felt like, which felt more like six days. The good news is that my hard drive will have a new set of brains soon. The bad news is that I'm using my son's old laptop with it's ancient operating system. My mother had a small stroke last week. It felt like for a couple of days her brain was not properly plugged in. Happily, her brain is now plugged back in.  Clearly I would rather that my hard drive's brains be permanently fried than my mother's.  Life will so return to normal on both the human and the virtual fronts. Despite having to spend t...

Rachel's waves I’m now working on the ocean portion of Rachel’s tallit. I layers three colors of Shantung, a turquoise a blue/grey and a dark green.T stitched waves and then began cutting away layers of the silk. while I was working, I found a length of silk charmeuse that I had dyed in blue/greens. I’m adding some waves in the charmeuse. Once the piece looks oceany enough, I will then satin stitch and cover all of the raw edges. I suppose that there other other ways to build an ocean out of fabric, but this is my favorite method. crossing Broadway Walking on the south bound lane of Broadway after the storm And now for the continuing weather report.  You can see that at 9:00 this morning, that Broadway was still unpopulated by cars, you can see the lone walker walking south.  The cross streets were still unplowed. A little later on in the day I saw parents pulling their little one on a sled, going west. During the night I saw the Chinese restaurant delivery men weav...

Although I have always liked to work with my hands, and think of myself as an artist, I don't draw particularly well. I'm pretty good at design. Drawing is more of a challange for me. When I have to create something that actually looks like something out in the universe, I turn to Google Image to lend me a hand. I download the image I need, and then draw it over and over until my hand understands what to do. It is far easier for me to work from a two dimensional image, than from three dimensional real life. Ella's tallit is made up of a water element, that's really easy for me to create, grapes, again, a no brainer, and grape leaves and wheat stalks. The wheat was easy to handle, the grape leaves gave me pause. I large photograph of a grape leaf was my guide and I painted all the grape leaves with a dry brush on the tallit. Today I began filling in those grape leaves. I added salt to create darker areas that mimicthe puckered surface of a grape leaf. I'm feeli...

This logo was designed by my client's uncle who emigrated to Israel in 1948. The family name is Benjamin. The wolf image comes from Jacob's death-bed blessing of his son, Benjamin, who he compares to a wolf. The Benjamin family has used this logo on t- shirts for family reunions, and even on checks. The great nephew of the man who designed the logo is having his bar - mitzvah in Australia. His aunt and uncle decided to have me make him a tallit bag and asked the bar- mitzvah boy for his input before I got to work. I was told that the bag needed to be black and it also needed to include the wolf from the logo. The bar- mitzvah boy also wanted gold on the bag.The boy's bar mitzvah actually includes the reading with Jacob's blessings to his sons. I had a piece of wonderful black wool flannel which is deeply black. My client was happy because it seemed to be just the thing. My client also decided to include the following line from the boy's reading " ...and he b...

Hannah's tallit is now complete. Hearing Hannah's reaction as she walked into the dining room and saw the tallit on my dress making dummy was worth the price of admission. It is so nice to be able to exceed expectations. Working with a kid as intellectually engaged and as comfortable with who she is is also a pleasure. Hannah's mom joined us for a lively and fun time tying the tzitzit. They were happy to have tied the tzitzit last night because their rehearsal session at the synagogue is tonight. A photographer is joing them to they are glad to have the tallit be in the official bat- mitzvah photos. Hannah's mom was delighted that I was able to take flashy materials and tone them down to be tasteful and elegant. The silver silk on it's own, without the gold /blue doodles looks like something that could be worn on a Mardi-Gras float. It's funny that adding more flash quiets the whole thing down. It turns out that Hannah had purchased a deep purple dress to wear...

My client came to pick up the "old shul" tallit. As she examined the velvet corner pieces, my client laughed and asked if I had been in her childhood synagogue in Dayton. Sometimes what a client wants is a sensibility in the finished object, something that is hard to put into words. What I need is a key to understand what that feeling is. Luckily, I was able to understand what "old shul" meant to her. Old dusty synagogues that have fallen on hard times often have a sense of a bit all of the poeple who have sat in those seats and remains of their prayers settling into the dust that emerges as you bat at the faded velvet cushions. My own synagogue, now beautiful and renovated, for a very long time had that sense of ghosts from the past hanging around. I tried to find images of the interior of by client's childhood synagogue, unfortunately, google couldn't find any for me. So if you want to get the old shul sensibility, find a synagogue built before WWII., If...

Sara-Beth came to pick up her tallit and tie the tzitzit today. She was very happy with her tallit . As someone who has spent lots of time in summer camp, the half hitch knot used to tie the tzitzit was familiar to her from her friendship bracelet making childhood. She chose to use silk for her tzitzit . The silk Sara- Beth chose looks a bit like butcher's twine, but it has a beautiful sheen. Did I mention that she was happy? I also gave her her engagement gift. A challa cover made out of a melange of silks. the text comes from the Friday night services.

A psychology text I read many years ago talked about how small children often use very specific and personal imagery as descriptors, not realizing that the person they are speaking to may not have any idea what the child is speaking about. In the example used, the child was shown a photograph of a puddle of water. The surface of the water was ruffled by the wind. The child described the puddle as reminding him of "sheet". The adult tester was assuming a freshly ironed sheet on a freshly made bed and felt that the child's answer was incorrect. The child was thinking about his crumpled sheets in the morning. When I read that so many years ago, I imagined the child's face close to those crumpled sheets just as his eyes were opening in the morning, those wrinkles close up to his opening eyes. I found his description wonderfully evocative. Although that psychology book assumed that those sorts of deeply personal descriptors are replaced by more general, universal ones, I h...

In reality shows, the big moment of drama is the reveal. In makeover shows, the reveal is when the formerly frumpy woman comes out with a cute new shape, sexy clothing, good make up and a great hair cut. So much effort has gone into the transformation, the producers of the shows want to pump it for all of the drama that it is worth. I used to lay out the completed tallit on my dining room table when my clients would come to pick up the piece. I now own, thanks to my friend Andrea, a dress making form. So these days I put the tallit on the dummy, as soon as my clients come into my dining room, there is the tallit. It works like the tallit reveal. When I begin working with a client, I listen hard to what they are saying. I pay close attention to the colors and textures that appeal to them, that make them happy. Often my clients don't articulate their needs in words but by talking to them, watching and listening I can usually get a pretty good idea of what would work best for them. D...