sarah in nyc

The wedding took place last Sunday. This picture pretty much sums up the day. By the way, none of these pictures are mine, all were taken by guests I thank them for allowing me to use these images. But since you had asked for details, here goes. The day began with the traditional Kabbalat Panim,  where guests greeted the bride. The groom as at his Tisch or table. The band danced us into the room and I danced guests up to greet the bride. Yes, those are awesome shoes, Chinese New Year in shoe form. The veiling of the bride was a moving moment.  Some of you were wondering what I would be wearing. It took three tries.    Attempt 1 was a skirt and jacket made out of an expensive and beautiful turquoise lace. That ended up looking dowdy. Attempt 2 was this dress which was OK but both of my sisters said that it looked like a good guest dress and not a good dress for the mother of the bride. The third time was the charm. I took a dress that w...

I used to love reading Martha Stewart Magazine when it was a fairly new publication because it was exactly like the experience of talking to someone who was beautiful, seemed delightful and charming but as the conversation continues you realize that what at first glance looked like charm was just a thin veneer over bonkers. You could read directions for making a pretty blanket for your bed but if you bothered to check the fine print you might notice that the pretty blanket was made out of cashmere that cost $300 per yard and you needed about two and a half yards to replicate that adorable project. Or the adorable cartridge pleated curtains somehow had only half of the instructions included in the article. It's a project that is hard even with complete directions but with incomplete directions it is impossible. Today I was thinking about a little aside in a longer article where Martha mentions that her mother made something like 600 napkins for Martha's daughter's wedd...

In German "aufruf" means to call or an invocation. But in Ashkenazi Jewish practice, the Shabbat before the wedding the groom is called up to the Torah and blessing are offered in his honor and in honor of the upcoming marriage. blessings are offered in words and in candy tossed at the groom. In an egalitarian synagogue like ours, both the bride and groom are called to the Torah. So this Shabbat our bride and groom were called up to the Torah. Our groom read Torah for the first time. There are lots of people who have been Jewish since birth who have never read from the Torah scroll. Our groom has been Jewish for about a month and took on this not easy task. Our bride in addition to reading Torah also read the longest haftarah of the year - all while looking entirely glam while wearing a fascinator she had made herself and a pair of delightfully outrageous shoes. I was deeply moved by our groom's commitment to doing the right thing and doing the hard things.  I was s...

Well, I have a whole lot to talk about this post. First of all news of the world hangs heavy this week.I am thinking about those poor kids killed in school THIS week as well as all of the other recent senseless shootings. I also often think about Russian interference in the election and in general mucking about on the internet. One of the cool things I can do as the owner of this blog is seeing where my readers come from, no, not your home address, but the country readers come from.  Most of my readership comes from the United States. I always have a fair number of readers from Canada, from Israel, and from the UK. Some of those people are relatives and some are friends and others are people I know from the sewing world. Every day my "audience" page tells me that I have readers from Russia. Sometimes it is just a few. Sometimes it is several hundred. Some days I click on the pages that send traffic my way. Often it is blogs written by sewing friends. often the Russian s...

 I have been working on more wedding related stuff. Amazon.com Widgets The kippot are all completed. I think I finished the shawls. Yes, they need a better pressing but don't worry, the attendants won't look like they slept in their finery. This is the stencil that I used for the scarves. No, I didn't use the elephant. The stencil itself isn't perfect (I would have preferred a more complex design) but it does well enough. Surprisingly the hardest bit of all of this turquoise and gold fabulousness has been creating the pocket squares.  I have experienced several failures along the way. One layer of this silk is NOT fun to work with. The pocket squares are all going to be self-lined. For some reason I don't quite understand, precutting the pocket squares and stenciling them works less well than stenciling a long length of fabric and then cutting it up. So after much too much time, I have three pocket squares completed and I think s...

I have been exchanging emails with my friend Liz. Her daughter is getting married and wanted to repurpose both her mother's wedding dress and her future mother-in-law's wedding dress into something wonderful for her wedding. Yesterday was one of those rainy gross days that makes you want to just say in bed. My mother used to say about days like that, while reverting to her deepest Brooklyn accent., "I shoulda stood in bed". Liz showed up in the gross rain with two wedding dresses in tow. One was in a dry cleaner's bag (covered with a heavy black garbage bag against the rain). Liz's dress was similarly sheathed in a black garbage bag but it had been preserved in a box. Before she unveiled the box, I mentioned to Liz how the daughter of one of my mother's friends had paid to have a wedding dress preserved. They wanted to lend the dress to a friend, opened the box and saw that not only had it not been preserved, the dress hadn't even been ...

The attendants walking down the aisle will be wearing black dresses and shawls that I am stenciling. Amazon.com Widgets I purchased the stencils and this is what one side of one shawl looks like. This length of fabric will be folded in half the long way and sewn into a long 14-inch wide shawl. Each shawl will be similar but not identical. I am making stenciled pocket squared for those attendants wearing black suits. I am still not ready to show my work. All of the males in the bridal party will get turquoise kippot embellished with gold block printing, stenciling, and embroidery. Again, no two are identical but they all work together.  The regular wedding guests get their kippot unembellished. I am not entirely nuts.