sarah in nyc

 Well, we finally had a real snow. Once again I am grateful that the task of shoveling didn't  fall to me. According to city laws shopkeepers are legally responsible to clear the sidewalks in front of their stores.   This hard working employee of the health food store across the street had to come out every hour or so to re-shovel the sidewalk. It was also bitterly cold. The snow piled up on my window frame. The next day this gentleman tried to free his car from the snowbank using only his bare hands and his cane, He was successful but hasn't yet moved his car. I haven't just been hanging out by my living room window. I even got a bit of work done. I first met Darone right after I moved to New York. I was just barely an adult and he was one of the kids in the afterschool aftercare room that I ran. Now I am fully an adult and so is he. A couple of years ago I talked Darone through the process of designing needlepoint tallit bags for his twin sons who ere about to have thei...

 I probably shouldn't take the time to post today I am hard up against three(!) deadlines. I didn't want all of you to think that I had abandoned you so here goes this post---typed quickly. Todd's tallit is moving right along. I bound the edges with strips of bias-cut linen, no photos but you just have to believe me. כְּתַפּ֙וּחַ֙ בַּעֲצֵ֣י הַיַּ֔עַר כֵּ֥ן דּוֹדִ֖י בֵּ֣ין הַבָּנִ֑ים בְּצִלּוֹ֙ חִמַּ֣דְתִּי וְיָשַׁ֔בְתִּי וּפִרְי֖וֹ מָת֥וֹק לְחִכִּֽי׃ Like an apple tree among trees of the forest These pinot are affixed to the corners of his tallit and three of the four eyelets have been cut and embroidered. The text for Ale's pinot is: כְּשֽׁוֹשַׁנָּה֙ בֵּ֣ין הַחוֹחִ֔ים  Like a lily among thorns   As I had mentioned ( I think in my last post) Ale had chosen to have  שֽׁוֹשַׁנָּה represented by an Egyptian water lily rather than a lily (how the text is usually translated into English) or as a rose which is how the word is used in Hebrew but the more botanically correc...

 If you have spent any time at all reading this blog you will know that I work best when I have several bits of projects going on at the same time. I have three big projects all due on the same day (just under two weeks from today). I am attacking each of these projects from a variety of directions. When the dust settles all of them will be completed. Friday I sewed Ale's tallit together. In terms of actual tasks, I folded it in half the wrong side out, sewed the raw edges together being sure that the stripes aligned as I stitched. I then unpicked some of the stitches and then turned the tallit right-side out through the small hole made by the un-done stitches. I then carefully pressed the tallit and topstitched all the way around. Much to my delight... You can read the text straight across each stripe --from one side of the tallit to the other. I am so chuffed about this. I paint the text freehand. I am not painting the text while paying close attention to a ruler. This nearly per...

I recently got a message from a woman who had heard that I was a good person to turn a shawl into a tallit.  I told her that I was and we met later on that day. She brought me a beautiful olive green woven shawl woven with a lovely diaper pattern ( that's the pretty diamond woven design) and with a truly lovely woven band in red, blue and orange near the fringed ends. When you look at the photos in this post, please be aware that for some reason my camera had trouble with the colors in this shawl and the green that looks chartreuse in the images is really a soft olive. I wasn't able to use my photo editor to get the colors to read properly. You really do have to trust me on this one. My task with this tallit was to create corner pieces that worked with this lovely bit of woven wool. I had hoped that I might find a bit of vintage embroidered woven or embroidered textile in my stash. While going through my pretty bits of vintage goodies was fun, nothing worked wit...