sarah in nyc

 I finished making the havdalah bags last night.  I was asked to make fifteen bags but I made an extra one for insurance purposes. Because whenever you don't plan time for errors you get a disaster at the eleventh hour. Because I planned for disaster none occured. I am now going to rant for a few moments. If you are a commercial tallit making establishment and post a comment that is a link to your store I will never post that comment. That kind of marketing is underhanded . I don't post on your site trying to drive business my way, don't do that to me. And my second rant. What's with the men I don't know telling me that I am pretty and bugging me to be their friend on Facebook?   Why do they think that being aggressive and asking me over and over is going to make me change my mind? I'm currently on lunch break while on jury duty.  I will post when I can.

 This has been a busy, busy week. Sunday began with the lovely task of tying tzitzit with Benny and his family. We met outdoors because Benny's mom is a wise woman and didn't want to risk Benny possibly getting exposed to Covid a week before his bar-mitzvah and turning the celebration into a super-spreader event. Before a client comes to pick up a project I am always a wreck worrying if they will be happy with the piece. Just because I am pleased with a tallit doesn't mean that my client or his parents will be pleased. I expended some of my anxious energy setting up a table and chairs in my building's courtyard. I wanted benny to see what the tallit looked like--normally I would drape the tallit on my dressmaking dummy. Benny's father served as our model. Benny was really pleased.  We sat down to tie the tzitzit. each family member took a corner. Benny was at first a little anxious if he could manage the knots. Benny's mom reminded him that he was familiar with...

I’m starting this post with some sights along Broadway, first this display of giant bears seems to me like it would terrify a small child. Now that Chanukah is over the sun rises just a bit earlier and once again the early morning light bounces off the yellow brick facing of buildings on the west side of the street in a great way. For some reason my camera had trouble focusing at first. I like this atmospheric looking shot. And now, back to work, that is my work. The havdalah bags are completed. One is being picked up tomorrow and the other two are available for purchase. I am also working on Jane’s tallit using lace from her grand mother’s trousseau. I have backed each of the lace strips with the silk and metallic shantung. I had to repair some of the lace. Luckily I have had experience repairing other old lace. The body of the tallit is a wonderful raw silk in a herringbone weave. I am trying to pre plan for some construction issu...

Last night was the last night of Chanukah. Just three of us were home last night. One of the things that is wonderful about city life is the fact that you can fulfill the public display aspect of the mitzvah of lighting Chanukah candles in a really good way.  Our kitchen is across a courtyard from another apartment building. Several floors worth of our building can see our lit Chanukiyot.I would guess that more people see our candles across the courtyard on one Chanukah night, than the total number of people who saw our candles on Presidents Lane during all of our years of lighting candles there. It has been unseasonably warm for the past few days. This morning I walked to services in deep fog. I managed to clean the wax off of our chanukiyot. Lots of boiling water did the trick.  I also have to make a new batch of havdalah bags. I needed to create fabric for the borders. There was some black satin in my stash that was perfect for the job. My goal...

Well, I now have 11 Havdalah bags complete. Each one has it own charms. I completed them all yesterday, today I trimmed al of the stray threads. At the moment they are all packed away in Zip- Lok bags in my completed work suitcase. Hopefully, the suitcase will soon be bursting with new work. I’m nearly done with a new piece. If I complete it before Shabbat, I will post the photos. Like the Havdalah Bags, it’s a new way to look at an old tradition. That’s all I’m saying for now.

Today, I got about as close to production sewing as I ever get. In two weeks, my synagogue is doing an artists’ studio tour to showcase the work of synagogue embers who are also artists. I am happy to have been selected to be part of the day. Participants pay a fee to visit the various studios and are welcome to make purchases while they are on the tour. I may not be the smartest business woman in the world, but I do know that people are more likely to buy lower priced items. Thus, today’s flurry of havdalah bags. Yup, I invented these.  When they are done they will be filled with sweet smelling spices. you hold the bag when you recite havdalah, the prayers you recite are right on the bag. Today I made the fronts of eleven bags. That is a multi staged process. I photo transferred the text eleven times onto a long strip of blue silk shantung.  Then I began to build the borders. Many of the fabric strips come from pieces that I worked on recently, or not so recently. I su...

One ushers in Shabbat with the Friday night meal. One ushers out Shabbat with Havdalah. I make  Challah covers which are used at the beginning of the Friday night meal. I invented spice bags photo transferred with the Havdalah service that are filled with the spices one uses during Havdalah.   Some of my clients have requested matched sets of a Challah cover and havdalah bag. Often these sets are given as wedding gifts. I made both the Havdalah bag and the Challah cover out of richly colored silk noil.  my client had asked for a set in “California colors” the magenta and teal fit the bill. I was thinking about purchasing a Florentine styled stencil. I searched the internet for something appropriate. Instead I ended up painting the designs freehand. There are differing sizes of metallic bits in the paint which gives the painting a certain depth. It looks different from different angles.     I Love the bronze colored middy braid.  using the ...