sarah in nyc

  I didn't get out much this week. I was sick with SOMETHING that wasn't COVID but had me on the couch napping on and off for most of the week. I inherited a batch of  1940s and 50s printed tablecloths from my late mother-in-law.  They all have the kind of wild and hopeful prints that in those days were called gay. I have used those cloths regularly over the past more than thirty years. One of my favorites is this one  with a vaguely Hawaiian print---the border is actually a motif used on Hawaiian quilts. My friend Anne owns the same cloth but printed in Christmas colors. Anyway, after eighty or so years of use the cloth has needed some mends in the interior. I had noticed the last time that I ironed the cloth that the edges were getting frayed.  I thought about a variety of solutions, binding the cloth with a contrasting fabric, serging off the grotty bits and then re-hemming or even tossing the cloth in the rag pile. Instead, inspired by Nancy Sullivan who se...

I was born in the early 1960's. That means that I was witness to the last gasp of the era of the club-woman. It is easy in these post feminist times to scoff at groups of women who get dressed up to meet together during the day-- because of course, they had no paying jobs. One of my old sewing books referred to a few categories of women, housewives  who mostly stay at home, working women who work in offices and club-women who attend lots of meetings. However, before you turn up your nose at those women who put on hats and gloves and attended this or that tea or luncheon, you ought to remember that we drink milk untainted by tuberculosis because of luncheons long ago. Abolition of slavery was achieved partially through the charming efforts of bonneted women. You can add to the list of achievements of club-women fundraising for hospitals, the creation of settlement houses, funds to run houses of worship, care for wounded soldiers, money to run orphanages as well as money to fund th...