sarah in nyc

Here is the mink set I had tackled the stole/collar yesterday. Today I had to take care of the hat. Hat is a generous term , it’s a hatlet. The guts of the hat were in terrible shape. The hat had been given shape by a couple of layers of buckram. I know that we all think that natural materials are best, but the straw like buckram had become brittle and felt like a teeny fire hazard. The layers inside the hat were two layers of a sheer silk. One layer of the coarse buckram and two of the finer buckram. I usually don’t use buckram. I don’t do tailoring.But the sewing gods were smiling on me and I had a chunk of buckram. Not only that, it was easy to find in my fabric stash. I wasn’t exactly sure how many layers I would need but I decided to start with two. I used the silk layers as my pattern and cut two layers of buckram and one of the lining. I plunked the layers inside the hat and liked the feel of the hat. It had enough body to look perky.   Then two...

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 grandfather, Yankle was a furrier. He stitched pelts into yardage that other furriers turned into fur coats. My mother always wore a fur coat as a kid. One winter she begged her parents for a cloth coat.  Her parents relented and my mother was cold. When I was growing up there were two types of fur coats. There were utilitarian warm ones and there were glamorous ones that were worn for style.  My mother had a muskrat or marmot coat that she wore the way most of us would wear a down coat today.  it was a utilitarian fur. In addition to the work-a day fur coat my mother also had a fur lined coat that she would wear to go to the symphony. I think she bought it in the late 1950’s.  The coat had bracelet sleeves that were unlined. the coat and the platter collar were lined in nutria. I always loved that coat.  My mother used to complain about the short  unlined sleeves  I thought it was just the greatest coat ever.   After my father died, a...