sarah in nyc

About thirty years ago I was asked to make an atara to be a gift  for Jerry.  Jerry was one of the founders of an alternative Hebrew school in our neighborhood. Jerry was also one of the people who forged an alliance between the older mostly German members of our synagogue and the young counter culture former ( and still hippies) that were the new lifeblood of our congregation nearly fifty years ago. At that point, it wasn't the easiest marriage between the old guard and the new guard but Jerry helped to break down the barriers between the suit wearing older folks and the ripped up jeans wearing younger folks. Jerry has prepared thousands of kids for their B'nai Mitzvah. He is a frequent and excellent Torah reader and for many years he organized Morning Minyan. Jerry had often said that his favorite biblical text is the following: (יא) כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹֽא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹ֥א רְחֹקָ֖ה הִֽוא׃ (יב) לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑...

  Nothing makes me feel more like an old fashioned Domestic Goddess than the post holiday ironing of tablecloths and napkins.  I have lost track of the number of tablecloths and napkins that were washed and ironed since yesterday. There have been many dinners in the past few weeks that have required a step up in the napery department. Actually the thing that makes me feel the MOST like a Domestic Goddess is noting holes in said napery as I was ironing and then deciding to mend the holes--today. This is exactly the sort of advice that one finds in the introductory chapters to sewing books from the early part of the 20th Century. Mend those holes and rips as soon as you find them. These charming napkins came into my life, perhaps from the large linen stash given to me from my friend Vivian from her mother's and grandmother's collection. I noticed that one of the napkins was full of holes. The photo below is of the half dozen or so holes in the napkin. Just as there are many ways...

 I am glad that all of you are on the other side of this screen and not here in my dining room with me right now. My husband and i did our big Passover shop at Bingo yesterday. we aren't switching the house over until Sunday. My dining room table is stacked with cartons and boxes of dry Passover goods and my fridge and freezer are simply bursting at the seams. It isn't pretty. I want to share some of the great things we found at bingo yesterday, and I am not even including the kosher brisket at 6.99/lb. One of the tasks one often needs to do is to kasher items that one uses during the rest of the year so they are useable for Passover.  I will kasher my parents' sterling flatware and serving pieces. It is lovely to use my parents things on Passover. To kasher metal you need to plunge it into boiling water. At some point during a lull in the cooking I will set a parge pot of water up to boil and then lower silverware  or kiddush cups.in a strainer to the rapidly boiling ...

  A while back I had repaired two pairs of boots using a bit of leather that I had on hand and some barge glue that I had purchased for the task. The dark pair at the bottom of the photo also had some rips in the heel area. The boots are so incredibly comfortable but the rip at the heel made the boots look really shabby. My fabric stash is sort of like the state of my brain, meaning awfully messy. But the other day a leather skirt that I had purchased at a thrift for the sole purpose of mending, emerged form the chaos that is my fabric stash.I traced the back heel piece onto newsnapaer and cut it out to be a pattern for this mending adventure. I plunked my newspaper pattern onto the suede side of the leather and traced around the newspaper with a pencil.I then cut out the piece using a pair of scissors and then repeated the process so my two boots would match. I spread the barge glue (it's rubber cement but stronger) onto the back of the leather piece using a very specialized tool,...

 A few years ago I bought a cotton quilt (cotton batting covered in cotton broadcloth)  for us to use during the summer. Truth be told, we use this quilt year round because my husband likes sleeping under a big pile of blankets. A week or so ago I realized that there was a big tear in the quilt about an inch from the edge. about four feet's worth of tear. If my mother owned this quilt she would have tossed it. My husband always sees the good side in people and also in objects. Why should one toss something that is nearly good?  I live with my husband and not with my late mother so I knew that I needed to come up with a way to mend this quilt.  My husband has lived with me for a long, long time so he suggested that I fix the tear using my serger or perhaps machine stitch the tear to a long strip of cotton. Neither one is a bad suggestion. I have been doing a whole lot of mending these days and I have come to learn that aside from fixing a tear mending needs to not be ...