sarah in nyc

Our dear friends are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They are hosting a giant party on Sunday and asked me to make chocolate pudding for 50. I was happy to fulfill this request. Our friends have been so kind to us I would have gladly done anything they asked, even if it were unpleasant. Making a dinner sized portion of pudding for say a dozen people is something I could do even without drinking my morning coffee.  Making pudding for 50 needed some figuring out. Amazon.com Widgets First I had to figure out how much I had to make.  Luckily we live in the age of Google and I found out that 2 1/2 gallons of ice cream is the right amount to serve for 50 if you are serving other stuff. My friend has been consulting with me at morning services. He wanted a dark chocolate pudding, not milk chocolate. Please, I shouldn't make the pudding too sweet. This request came with a face that was revolted at the thought of an overly sweet chocolate pudding. I thought ab...

When I took my first painting class in college my professor told me that when there was a piece that I liked I needed to make 5o of them so I could really understand what I was doing.   When I was in college I didn’t quite get the wisdom of that statement.  I am working on an invitation design. My clients are people of real taste and definite opinions. I love working with them.  It also helps that they are really delightful. So over the past few weeks I have been creating LOTS of variations on  the theme. We had been exchanging emails back and forth with some of these variations being sent as attachments. We had a few pow-wows  at services about how things were  going.   Last night we met in person. We talked back and forth and came up with a game plan. No, I’m not going to share the final design –yet. I really do enjoy the back and forth as each of us clarifies what we like or don’t like.  I love the partnership of worki...

Most of my work is sewing, but I do sometimes work on paper. I designed invitations for each of my children's B' nai Mitzvah. I had also designed some wedding invitations for friends.. Earlier this year I had my first paid invitation job and that, led to this invitation job. Yesterday I put this invitation to bed, so to speak. The invitation is a gate-fold, so the top image opens to reveal the inner image. I have not included the specific invitation text. The text comes from Jacob's wrestling with the angel. We chose this particular verse because it seems to epitome that Bar-Mitzvah moment of choosing adulthood. I have really loved working with Jacob's mom. She claims to be a control freak. I have found her not to be that at all, but someone who is really careful about details. She is very appreciative of the effort that I have put in and I have found her wonderful to work with. Her attention to detail has made my job so much easier. I love how this piece is a m...