sarah in nyc

Yet Another Sweater Re-con

2012-01-30T11:14:00.001-05:00

There isn’t too much that feels better than cashmere on the skin. I am always on the look out for cashmere sweaters in the thrift stores. A bad shape or an unfortunate color don’t detract a whole lot from a well priced sweater. Any sweater can be re shaped or dyed, to suit my taste.

It’s generally warm in New York City apartments. I nearly always have a few windows open in my apartment, even on the coldest days. I usually wear a sleeveless dress topped by a cotton sweater while at home. When I go out I switch to a warmer wool, often cashmere cardigan.

I found this very pink cashmere v-neck at the Salvation Army this summer. It was half price. I put it on yesterday for the first time over an orange paisley dress. I realized that I just wasn’t going to wear it very often unless it was turned into a cardigan.

I folded the sweater in half and lined up the side seams to be sure that I would actually cut along the center front properly.

The I cut from hem to neckline.

No, the cashmere does not unravel. You have not wrecked the sweater by cutting it.

Here is the sweater, cut. I’m not quite sure why the camera could quite manage to stay consistent color –wise…but the top picture is just about the right shade. I know, the color has very little to do with the success of this operation.

I then serged the cut seam. this serves two purposes, it seals that raw edge. it also serves to provide a stable base for whatever embellishments you plan to add to the cut edge.

My daughter had found me the geranium pink lace trim a few years ago. Many years ago I bought the spool of maroon velvet. ribbon in a trimming place about to go out of business. I really am not a pink and lace sort of a girl. But I now own enough cashmere sweaters to allow myself a silly one. First I zig zagged the lace to the sweater, then I topped the lace with the maroon ribbon.

To me, this sweater looks like the inside of a Valentine’s candy box.

It is a little silly. The front edge of the sweater got a bit stretched out. I ironed the sweater with lots of steam to take away the ripple that had formed along the front edge. In knitting or crochet books they call this blocking and make it seem like something so difficult to do that it is best left to the professionals. It’s just easier to do if you think of it as pressing the garment into shape.

I had a batch of sweaters that I had just laundered. I pressed them all.

Susie Homemaker Strikes Again

2012-01-29T17:15:00.001-05:00

When I was pregnant with my oldest 24 years ago, my friend Eve was pregnant with her second. She needed to get rid of a couch to make room in her apartment for her second baby. It was a grey cotton couch. It was the perfect couch for us, about to become parents, because it came pre-stained with baby Tylenol. After many years we got a new couch and tried to get rid of Eve’s couch. Housingworks sent two men to pick up the couch. They refused to take it. They said that it was to worn out for them to sell in their thrift store. We kept the couch.

After several more years I recovered the couch with a mix of marked down upholstery fabrics in colors and patterns that looked good together. Eventually, the new couch began to look shabby. I have been slowly recovering that couch as well. I still haven’t done the back cushions, but I have done all of the seat cushions

Last night I noticed that the old arm protectors had gotten really shabby. I made new ones today. I also noticed that one of the pillows that came with the couch was also decrepit looking. I made a new cover for the pillow.

The photo shows the new pillow, the new arm protector, the teal of the original couch and the maroon and teal re-covered couch cushion.

I like that my slap dash method lets me complete work as I see fit. I also like that it’s a fairly thrifty way to get the sofas looking nice. From time to time I purchase more upholstery fabric that works in the mix. my couches keep evolving as time marches on.

Banging my head against a problem over and over.

2012-01-27T16:34:00.001-05:00

Diane is a bible scholar and a good friend. I have made at least three tallitot for her. The year my father was dying, Diane came up with another idea for a tallit. My husband couldn’t understand why Diane would want yet another tallit, let alone, another made by me. Diane’s mother came from the Syrian Jewish community. Diane wanted the tallit to honor her past. She hoped that I could make the tallit in the form of a Moroccan star. Something like this.

( Image source http://www.dphotographer.co.uk/image/160311/moroccan_star )

I loved the idea. Then it got a little complicated. Diane wanted the tallit made out of one layer of pieced silks, no lining. She wanted the tallit made out of crayon- bright colors. My other problem is figuring out how to do the geometry in my math challenged brain. Diane was kind enough to realize that while my father was dying, I simply didn’t have enough brain power left to figure out how to make the tallit. Diane was kind enough to allow the project to sit on the shelf until I did have enough brain power to figure it out.

We did however, go fabric shopping. We went to Rosen & Chadick and bought a selection of eye searing silks. I made one attempt to piece the silks. It was a complete ( and expensive and dispiriting ) disaster. I put the bag of colorful silk away for many months. I kept thinking about how to create this pieced tallit in one layer and not have me kill myself. Another complication, I know my work is pretty, but precision is not my natural way to do things. I kept trying to figure out how to make this tallit in my head. Mostly, thinking about this tallit made my head hurt. I would get my head partially around a solution and then it would slip away. It felt like I was doing calculus.

After a very long time, I had an epiphany. I decided to pieced the tallit onto a base of silk organza. The organza is stiff. Creating a Moroccan star is easy if you fold paper into squares and then on the diagonals. I pressed the organza to help create the shapes I needed and then marked the shapes I wanted with a Sharpee.

So, after a long long time for mulling, the center motif is done. Once all of the silk is pieced, I will cut away the organza and cover all of the joins with black ribbon.

I’m so relieved that I finally got my pea brain to figure this out.

Activities Best Left in the Bathroom

2012-01-27T14:25:00.001-05:00

When my Aunt Sheva would see one of us eating, say an ice cream cone, on the street she would always quote in Hebrew, Ha Ochel BaChitz Domeh l’Kelev, “One who eats outdoors resembles a dog.” Mostly, we didn’t follow Aunt Sheva’s edict, except to quote it before we began to eat.

While I am a big believer in good street food, I do think that there are activities that probably ought not to take place out in public, on the street. Living here in the city, on Broadway, I do often see people engaging in activities that probably should be best left at home.

When I used to walk my youngest to elementary school invariably, I used to pass the same suit clad man walking to the subway while he was shaving with his battery operated shaver. Aside from the shaver, he always looked completely put together and businesslike. Often, when I leave the house, I see a delivery man from the Chinese restaurant on the corner, sitting in his car while carefully tweezing his facial hair while looking in the side view mirror. maybe I’m a sorehead like my aunt, but I really believe that it’s not an activity to engage in in public.

There are always women applying makeup on the subway. I can sort of get refreshing your lipstick. I always worry when I see a woman applying her mascara on the lurching subway. I wonder if she will poke that wand inter her eye. So far, I haven’t seen anyone do that. I guess the women, who like me don’t have steady enough hands, do their make-up at home. I’m always surprised to see women doing full on makeup application complete with foundation and concealer on the subway. It does feel too personal an activity to do out in public. too often, those women would look better with less makeup on their faces.

lately, I have been seeing people working on their dental hygiene while walking down the street or while sitting on the subway. My family will on occasion all brush and floss our teeth together in the bathroom. Somehow, public flossing on the street seems sort of creepy. I don’t want to get sprayed by those flickies. today, I saw a woman walking down Amsterdam Avenue working on of those hand held flossers. For an additional bit of yuk factor the flosser was covered with lipstick.

Some things really do belong at home.

Bottom Feeding and finding books a new home

2012-01-25T15:42:00.001-05:00

I had a doctor’s appointment today. on my way back to the subway, I noticed that Paron is having a moving sale. Paron is moving a black south to 39th Street. Fabrics in their regular price store are now 30-60% off. I’m not quite sure the percentage off in their half price store. I assume that prices are a bit fluid. Fabrics in the back corridor are now all priced at $3/yard. I bought these three fabrics from the bolts in the back room. They are from left to right, a Lurex knit, a rayon knit and a hammered silk.

Oddly, each of the bolts had the identical yardage, a yard and a half. I’m especially pleased by the hammered silk. It has a beautiful drape and a great feel.

While my fabric was being measured, I noticed a box of ancient vintage velvet ribbon. As the various fabric stores in the district close up shop they tend to sell their stock to the ones still left standing.There are all sorts of treasures to be had here.

This is what I bought; grey 1 1/2 inch wide, light turquoise of the same width, and 1/2 inch wide wine colored ribbon. Vintage ribbon is nearly always of better quality than contemporary ribbon. can any of you figure out the exact vintage of this ribbon?

I love the old labels. I also assume that the colors have shifted a bit with age. I like that look.

One of the spools comes with a nifty yardage chart .

You can gauge how much ribbon is left on the spool by looking in the cute little window. The sale should continue until the end of the month. I assume that as moving day gets closer, the prices might be even more fluid.

And now on the de-clutter front.
My friend Shelly has taken up quilting. Yesterday I gave her all of my older Threads magazines. I was surprised that I let them go with such ease. I really was happy to let them go. I also gave Shelly my fabric painting books and my quilting books. I loved buying those books. I loved reading and rereading them, but now, I’m ready to let them go. I realize that I’m now ready to give away most of my Burda magazine. Any ideas about how to find them a good home?

Wisdom from Reality TV

2012-01-23T16:29:00.001-05:00

Last week was a really hard week. Each day came with terrible news. I’m fine and my kids are fine. But a relative was diagnosed with a terrible illness. A friend’s child woke up dead and a sweet young man committed suicide. It’s all a bit much to assimilate in just a few days. It does make it hard to work.

My kids have begun subscribing to Netflix. We have been enjoying an orgy of reality TV. My son now claims to be addicted to Intervention . Watching Hoarders has convinced me that we don’t need to keep quite as much stuff as we currently keep around. My husband gets very attached to objects. He also feels strongly that just a few holes or wear spots doesn’t mean that something isn’t perfectly good.

I was given a block printed table cloth several years ago. It had belonged to my friend’s mother. it’s hand printed cotton from India and was purchased from Bonwit- Teller in the mid 1960’s. I assume that when it was new it had a coarse feel. It's been washed so often that it is now as soft as gauze. The cloth has several wear holes and many stains. I cut the cloth into blocks along the large squares of the design. I discarded the damaged squares. I stacked two squares together with the right sides facing out. I serged the squares together. Then I folded the edges twice to the inside and stitched a decorative stitch in the ditch. I used an orange rayon thread, because it needed to get used up.

Now, I have three new napkins. You could say that this was a complete waste of time and effort. I don't see it quite that way. The cloth that was not so nice to use because of the holes and stains is no longer in circulation. The three napkins take up a whole lot less room than the one damaged cloth. I love the cloth and how it is just a slice of textile history. One of the hardest things for me to do are the refined bits of sewing. Practicing beautiful mitered corners means that when I need to do a lovely mitered corner on a tallit or a challah cover, I will be able to di it with ease and finesse.

I also find that these sorts of nearly mindless projects tend to prime the creative pump. I’m always grateful that I have spent time on these dumb on the face of it projects.

Here you can see the napkin lining. The napkins are so soft they would disintegrate without the lining. I realized that the folded hems will add to the longevity of the napkins.

All of my old sewing books talk about thrifty measures to remake worn our household goods so they will be useful. I see this table cloth to napkin transformation as part of that tradition of thrifty home making. We often struggle with objects that are worn, we have fondness for but can’t really use because they are damaged. I find that those damaged but beloved objects often take up an awful lot of space in my home and in my life. I’m glad that I came up with a solution that keeps the table cloth in my life but in an un-burdensome way.

So perhaps we aren’t hoarders after all.

I’m Baaaaaack!

2012-01-17T18:17:00.001-05:00

The bat-mitzvah was lovely. Hanging out with the various generations of cousins, is a pleasure.

My cousin ET surprised me with this.

Another addition to our Royal drek collection

I may have to rearrange my collection of Royal drek. My daughter pointed out that both William and Catherine look terrible in the photos. I think that adds to the charm of the plate

The dress? It was fine. I did notice a fair number of sequins on the dance floor. I don’t know if they were from my dress or from a dress worn by someone else. It was comfortable to wear. I think I will even wear it again.

But all play-time must come to an end. I’m getting back to work on Maya’s tallit. Here is the lettering, raw, without the refinements that come with adding a border.

"I will increase your offspring..."

A detail shot

"...like the stars of the sky."

both sides of the tallit

Yesterday, I had a cool experience while meeting with a client. i'm serving as a consultant and my client is actually making the tallit. We did a Google Image search to look for striped silk shantungs, so my client could see examples of striped shantungs.

Some of my tallitot showed up on the first page! That was just so cool.

On a very different note, today, I received an email from my high school. The 23 year old son of one of my classmates died in December. I had attended her wedding in Crown Heights. Her son died unexpectedly in his sleep. I don't know how she can wake up in the mornings.

All dressed up …with a place to go to

2012-01-12T21:54:00.001-05:00

I got my black tie event outfit al put together. The dress is complete. I realized I needed a wrap of some kind. My usual lace or chiffon won’t work with the dress because the sequins will snag those fabrics.

It’s hard to look elegant while extracting ones self from a shawl. This is where being a tallit maker comes in handy. I had a length of Calvin Klein satin in my stash. ( Hurray for www.fabricmartfarics.com mystery bundles!) Sewing it up and top stitching the shawl was quick work. far quicker than pressing all the wrinkles out of the fabric.

I did need an evening bag. My neighbor had given me an evening bag with a cute shape in bright orange.

See, it’s a really bright orange. I made a slip cover out of crinkled metallic silk organza. I hand stitched it onto the bag.

I think the bag is vastly improved. Yes, you can see the orange peeping through. I assume that the room where the party will be held will be on the dark side so the color won’t be all that offensive. I added a large crafted brass and pewter pin to the bag after I took the photo. Now that I realize that slip covering an evening bag isn’t that hard, I will re cover the first evening bag I ever owned, a black velvet that has become rusty looking with age. Once again, my trusty old sewing books come in handy with trifty hints for glamorous living.

I covered the orange part of the strap with more of the organza. My armless dummy is holding the bag through the magic of ribbon concealed by the shawl. I defied no laws of gravity for this photograph.

Despite running away from my family for this weekend, I did cook the folks who remained behind Shabbat dinner. It’s in the fridge waiting for them to warm it up. You want to know what I made? Chicken roasted with sumac and smoked paprika and potato chunks roasted with olive oil, thyme,rosemary and lavender and salt. They can make salad or warm up frozen veggies tomorrow.

Feeling an Affinity with Cloistered Nuns

2012-01-10T20:03:00.001-05:00

Lots of wonderful European hand work was embroidered by cloistered nuns. Probably , most of those women lost their vision doing that beautiful work.

I’m working away on Maya’s tallit.The beading needle has a really teeny eye. The gold beads are miniscule.

Aside from giving me an opportunity to worry about the state of my eyesight, I love how layering the stars, with the paint, the stitching and the beads and sequins creates a layered look to the cosmos that I’m trying to depict on Maya’s tallit.

The twinkly sequins will catch the eyes of people even in the back of Maya’s synagogue. The fact that the high octane sparkle is sprinkled , rather than paved over the entire surface actually increases their impact. I have lots more to do.

I did manage to slice my finger on yet another X-acto knife. I did not bleed on Maya’s tallit.

Yesterday, I heard about the death of our friend Peter, a wonderful man who didn’t quite believe in his very real strengths. You can read about him here. http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/87555/stark-loss/ Barukh Dayan HaEmet, Blessed be the True Judge. It’s just so sad.

Food Friday–Cooking Dead, and Maya’s Tallit

2012-01-06T16:20:00.001-05:00

In our family we often joke that we speak our own dialect of English. our speech is loaded with Spoonerisms, punch lines of ancient jokes, remainders of mispronunciations by our kids and kids I had worked with back in the day when I taught day care. Added to this are bits of Pee Wee’s Playhouse and odd phrases that came out of our childhoods. One cooking term we use often is cooking food “Until Dead”. In normative English, I would say that the food is cooked until crusty and caramelized on the outside.

Because I can’t add large amounts of salt to my food, my husband abhors garlic and we both want to avoid excess fat, the question is how with those restrictions does one add deep flavor to food. One way to do that is to cook the food with dry heat. If you cook food for a long time, uncovered in an oven much of the moisture evaporates and the flavors intensify.

Tonight’s meatballs are more than half vegetable matter by volume. My non vegetable eating son has a told ask don’t tell policy about what is inside the meatballs. He doesn’t ask exactly what is inside. And I don’t tell him directly. if I add barbeque sauce or this sweet and savory mixture…he will eat them. I’m satisfied. The two pounds of ground beef have been joined by a container of mushrooms, several celery stalks and a few carrots all ground in the food processor and then cooked with red wine.The vegetables are wet. The meatballs need a long time to loose that additional moisture. I topped these meat balls with a mixture of mustard and maple syrup. I will add more before I heat them for tonight’s dinner.

I’m also serving kale and barley along with challah. Our guest is bringing dessert.

I even had time to work. I finished off the slip that I’m wearing under my Margaret Dumont dress . I tried the dress on after adding the neck darts and I’m pretty pleased with myself. The dress looks pretty good on. I need to cover the seams insuide of the dress so the sequins caught in the seam allowances are all covered and don’t rip me to shreds. It’s just a matter of adding a long strip of the netting and zig-zagging it in place over the seam.

I also began adding the stars to the organza strips for Maya’s tallit.

This is just the under-layer. of the cosmos. other bits of celestial goodness will be added with machine and hand stitching.

Shabbat Shalom to all!

Ayelet

2012-01-05T20:19:00.001-05:00

in her completed tallit. Looking so much like her mother. She tied her tzitzit in the Sephardic knot pattern of 10-5-6-5, spelling out the name of the Holy One.

Ayelet’s mother comes from the Syrian Jewish community. I look forward to being at Ayelet’s bat mitzvah on Shabbat.

Midweek Dinner and Margaret Dumont

2012-01-05T19:53:00.001-05:00

Usually, during the early part of the week, our meals are made up of left overs from Shabbat. It’s busy season for my husband so he has been coming home late and I haven’t done a huge amount of mid week cooking.I realized as I pulled tonight’s dinner out of the oven that it is made up entirely of food I have purchased at Costco.

I was baking pita in the oven at 420. I put some frozen mixed vegetables into an olive oiled baking pan. This vaguely Asian mix of vegetables takes a long time to cook, so I got those cooking first. I had pulled a small package of tilapia out of the freezer yesterday. I usually break apart the giant Costco rafts of fish into smaller meal sized packages. I topped the fish with dried rosemary and balsamic vinegar and returned it to the oven. By the time the last tray of pita was cooked, so was the fish.Every ingredient in tonight's dinner came from Costco.

I made this simple dinner, partially because I had to make a dress to wear to a black tie event.

This is what I made.

I bought the fabric yesterday. Yes, you have seen me make dresses in this shape over and over again. You can’t get too complicated with such an over the top fabric. I did make two darts at the neckline. I edged all of the open edges with a frech binding of black netting. It was simple. I had never worked with sequined fabric before. My serger hated it. My sewing machine didn’t complain too much. I do have little black sequins all over my floor. I made a slip to wear underneath. It seemed like an easier solution than a lining. The slip is cut fairly low in the back. I like the mix of sheer and opaque. I still need to finish off the edges of the slip.

This dress reminds me of something Margaret Dumont might have worn in the Marx brothers movies.

Getting through the boring stuff

2012-01-05T11:30:00.001-05:00

Some elements of making a tallit ( or doing anything) are just plain fun. Other elements are about as exciting as watching paint dry. The other day I had to cut the silk for Maya’s tallit. Generally, when you gut a piece of fabric from selvedge to selvedge, the easiest and most accurate way to cut is to make a little cut at the selvedge and then just rip the fabric. It makes a great satisfying sound. You also end up with a perfectly straight edge. I learned this from a cranky very old chain smoking saleswoman in a fabric store that no longer exists on 39th street.

The old saleswoman had a really contentious relationship with the owner of the store who she probably remembered from the time he was in diapers. The two used to have screaming fights regularly as you shopped for fabric. they were both quile lovely on their own. They had a screaming fight each time I went in there. I’m not quite sure why it didn’t bother me enough to stay away, but it felt like you were walking into some ancient family dynamic.

Anyway, one of the first times I bought fabric there, the old sales woman nipped the fabric I had chosen, gave me one side of the nipped fabric to hold and with her cigarette tucked into the corner of her mouth growled at me, “Rip it honey!”. It took me a moment and some clarification by hand motion to understand what she she expected me to do. I dutifully ripped the fabric and I learned a new skill.

This unfortunately does not work for cutting fabric parallel to the selvedge. That is a much more painstaking process. You cut a nip and then pull a thread so you know where to cut and cut along the line left by the pulled thread. if you are cutting a fabric woven with thick yarns it easy. if you are cutting a silk made out of fine fine fibers it’s slow going. you pull an inch or two cut and begin again.

It takes a while, but eventually the task is complete.

Food Friday–House Guest Edition

2011-12-30T14:38:00.001-05:00

Our Minneapolis friends, Alfie and Judy have spent most of their time in New York staying at a B&B across town. They are back with us for Shabbat. They have been having a blast running around the city. One of their adventures took them to Brighton Beach, known locally as Little Odessa. They bought us some Russian spices, a Russian spice mix meant for meat and sumac. I have been dying to try sumac. Yesterday I made an amazing salad with sliced cucumber and carrots dressed with olive oil, vinegar, sumac and smoked paprika. It was really delicious. The combination of sour and smoky is quite intoxicating.

I decided to cook tonight’s chicken in the same mixture. I mixed generous amounts of both and rubbed each chicken piece with the mixture. I had thought that the rub would go on easier if I mixed it with olive oil. At the last minute decided that it would make the chicken too fatty. I’m glad I didn’t go that route because I pulled over two cups of chicken fat out of the roasting pan after the chicken was cooked. After the chicken was cooked I put all of the chicken into a clean roasting pan. Then I dumped three trays of ice cubes into the juices that were left and spooned off the fat into a measuring cup. After I got rid of the fat, I then reduced the pan juices and added the juice of a lime. I reduced the juices until they were about 1/4 of the amount they were when I began.This way you have a really flavorful chicken juice to pour over the chicken. I’m not fat phobic, but too greasy a meal is kind of unpleasant a few hours later.

When I cook on Friday’s I’m usually done by early afternoon, but we won’t be eating until about 8:00 pm. I need to put the food into the oven to warm just before Shabbat starts, so the food needs to be improved by a long warming period. by warming the chicken in the reduced cooking juices it’s even better than it was fresh out of the oven.

Alfie and Judy also brought some kale. I made a salad with the kale, celery, chickpeas, rosemary, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar.

I also baked rice in the oven while the chicken was cooking. I added cardamom to the rice ( those are the black dots) .I think it will be a nice foil for the chicken.

We will also have a green salad and a fruit salad for dessert. Judy and Alfie brought a ton of fruit. I will make that a little later today. I also roasted some tofu in sesame oil and rice vinegar for our vegetarian guests. I find that tofu is tolerable only when roasted in a deeply flavored marinade. Otherwise it tastes like eating soggy Styrofoam. An overnight marinade and a few hour in the oven and the tofu is fit for human consumption.

Best wishes for a productive and peaceful 2012 for all of us.

Playing with ideas

2011-12-29T20:26:00.001-05:00

This past High Holiday season a woman I know slightly was wearing a really chic sleeveless glen plaid dress. I loved the mix of the girly yet tailored cut, with the men’s wear fabric. A length of glen plaid came into my life recently. It may have arrived as part of a www.fabricmartfabrics.com mystery bundle. I don’t know the fiber content. I haven’t done a burn test. It has a nice feel and a nice drape. This book mentioned here, A New Addition to My Sewing Library, had such terrific directions for piecing bias yardage that I have been getting into creating bias yardage whenever I can. I love bias cut clothing because of the natural stretch they have. Also a plaid on the bias is always cooler than going the regular way.

I thought that I would make a sleeveless cowl necked dress. I used this dress The Most Boring Dress in the World as my starting point. If you are obsessed with pattern drafting you would know that the cowl needs to be wider than the actual neckline so there will be enough extra fabric to create a cool drape effect. If you obsessively study pattern drafts you would know that a cowl necked top usually show the upper part of the bodice curving away from the center line to create the additional fabric you need to create the bias. I decided to do a cheat and just bend my boring dress to what I thought might be the right shape and then cut that outer curve, keeping the center line the same. My dress front was then cut out.
I then realized that I had to piece the fabric that was left if I wanted my dress to have both a back and a front. The glen plaid is delightfully forgiving. I was even able to match the plaid without much effort. I cut the back the same as the front, using the dress front as the pattern for the back. No, my back and front are not the same, but I planned to add fish-eye darts at the front waist.

I sewed up the side seams, finished the raw edge of the cowl and then used a trick I had learned from a Japanese sewing magazine, and turned the cowl to the inside of the dress, twist it a bit and then stitch it to the arm holes. It is much harder to describe than to do. I edged the armholes with black grosgrain. Then I added two waist darts. I let the dress hand overnight and then hemmed it today. I had to take in the side seams a bit. I love the dramatic neckline.

Despite being inspired by the dress I saw on the High Holidays, it really doesn’t look all that much like the dress I had admired. i t will be nice to wear to synagogue with a black or grey cardi.

Ayelet’s tallit is done!!!!

2011-12-29T17:47:00.001-05:00

I loved working with Tess, yet my actual work with the tallit was difficult. This tallit just came together with tremendous ease.

I’m incredibly happy with it. I love how the colors that are so close keep your eyes busy trying to figure out exactly where they separate. I credit Ayelet for the brilliant addition of the crazy green. I never, ever would have chosen it on my own. I don’t think that my client is always right. If I think that a client is making silly choices, I will steer them in a better direction. This green was completely off the wall, and yet it pulls the piece into another dimension.

Score!!!!

2011-12-28T20:03:00.001-05:00

Today I had to go to the doctor. The office is ever so conveniently, in the garment district. Even more conveniently, it is right around the corner from http://metrotextile.blogspot.com/. Metro is owned by Kashi who came to new york during the Iranian revolution. In most stores in the garment district you pull the bolts of fabric that you are interested in. At Metro, first you have a conversation with Kashi about what you are looking for. Then he brings you bolts of fabric to approve or disapprove. Once he gets a sense of what you are looking for he both meets your needs and then also tries to lead your eye ( and your lust for fabric) in new directions.

I knew I needed two yards of white charmeuse for a tallit that I need to begin soon. I told Kashi what I was looking for. He brought me a bolt and then asked me what I needed it for. He assured me that he would give me a good price. I told him that I had no worries about that. he quoted me an amazing price, $10/yard.

He then began to take care of some other customers. I poked around in his remnant barrel. I always find great stuff there. Today was no exception. I bought, ( from L to R) the green paisley mesh, because I have the same fabric in orange. It reminds me of clothing my older sister wore when she was in her early teens. The orange is now a dress. I will have to see what the green decides to become. The black and grey floral is a cotton chenille.There is about 3/4 of a yard there. I think it may become a pencil skirt that will go with a wool cowl necked sleeveless top I had made out of another goodie from the remnant bin. The top is charcoal grey with a squiggle print in lighter grey. The two will look terrific together. The fabric furthest to the right is a poly with a neat texture and a great drape. there are two yards there and it might look great as a col necked dress cut on the bias. I forgot to add the yard of black suiting to the picture. So all of this fabric came to a grand total of $24. I am ready to start sewing it up!!.

What a long strange trip this was.

2011-12-28T00:04:00.001-05:00

I learn new things from each tallit, from each commission. I guess what I learned from this one is a Zen acceptance of my making errors.

I sewed two of the pinot/corner pieces on the wrong side of the tallit. Yes, I sewed with a teeny tight zig-zag. So I had to carefully undo my sewing. It was at this point late at night. Tess was picking up the tallit the next day. I really hate finishing up my work at the last minute, because it always seems to ask for disaster. I also know that working when tired is a more certain path to disaster, so I put away the tallit and began again the next morning. I got the pinot sewed on correctly. I also made the eyelets without any further adventures. But by this point I was waiting for one to happen.

I had my dressmaking dummy set up so Tess and her mother could see the tallit as soon as they walked in. Tess kept thanking me. Clearly, she was pleased.

We began to tie the tzizit. Tess, like most girls her age, had long experience making friendship bracelets, so the knots she needed to do were familiar to her. When we were about half way through tying the tzitzit, Tess's older sister showed up. I had made her tallit seven years ago. She is now home from college. I hadn’t seen her since we had worked together so many years ago. Tess reminded her sister about how to properly tie the tzitzit. They were both incredibly good natured about working together.

Here is Tess in her tallit.

I always wonder how wise it is to be open with my clients about the difficulties I might have working on their piece. Some things come together easily, others, like this tallit, seem to involve many close brushes with disaster. I chose to share my travails with Tess and her family. In this case, it was a wise choice. The tallit is a lovely one. It’s imperfect, we all know that, but it’s still pretty wonderful.

When I make a tallit for a client, I spend several weeks with that client inside my head. Spending this time with Tess was delightful indeed.

Cooking and sewing

2011-12-23T16:15:00.001-05:00

Here is Tess’s atara. I’m pretty pleased.

center of the atara

and now the entire tallit

I still have to make the pinot/corner pieces.. I dyed the silk but have to make them and sew them on.

I also cooked today. The challah that here you see rising

is now baked.

Today is Caveman Shabbat at our house.

beef ribs

chicken wings

Our guest is someone who is nearly family. You need to be really comfortable with your guests when you have Caveman Shabbat. Yes, there will be vegetable matter at this meal, another take on last week’s winter salad.

The completed Bein Gavra

The Bein Gavra gets presented at services tomorrow. A big weekend. Shabbat Shalom to all.

Sometimes, it’s just hard

2011-12-22T11:43:00.001-05:00

Before I begin, I want to say that I have really loved working on Tess’s tallit. Sometimes though a piece is marked by lots of errors along the way. This was one of those pieces. In my first attempt to sew down the sky panel, I had skewed something and despite measuring the organza to fit the tallit, it was short. I had to undo my sewing. The next pass went just fine. but I realized that I hated the look of the thread I had used to sew down the organza. I had to undo two rows of densely packed decorative stitching. That is never fun but I worked away at the task. I use an X-acto knife to take out stitching, and yes, I sliced my finger. After I bandaged myself, I saw that I had bled on the tallit. Work had top stop so I could wash the blood out of the piece.

After the tallit had dried, I tried again. This time I added striped ribbon underneath the scalloped stitching. I used silver on the sky side and gold for the ocean side.

I ended up topstitching the entire piece with the same scallop stitch but just done much narrower.

I also began work on the atara.

Usually, I don’t have quite as many disasters along the way. I do love this piece that you are now seeing unpressed but nearly complete. Tess picks up the tallit on Monday.

The First Candle

2011-12-20T22:32:00.001-05:00

Our friends Alfie and Judy came to visit from Minneapolis. Our oldest came home to pick up her menorah and to get some home cooking. I’m not such a big fan of latkes. To tell you the truth, there are some years that not a latke crosses my lips. I did decide in honor of the holiday to use lots of olive oil in my cooking.

So we ate breaded whiting ( the pan was well oiled with olive oil)

and eggplant stewed with carrots, tomato paste and chili peppers ( and olive oil),

and oven roasted potatoes with herbes Provencal ( and olive oil).

Judy made the kale ( with olive oil salt and pepper).

I baked pita

and made dessert.

Then we lit candles

and ate dinner

Food Friday–winter salad

2011-12-16T16:04:00.001-05:00

This is the second shortest Friday of the year. A an appropriately quick and yummy winter salad is pictured above. I sliced carrots, celery and radishes in the food processor. I dresses the vegetables with toasted sesame oil and rice vinegar. it can’t get any easier and the result is complex tasting. It’s hard to stop eating this salad and the flavor belies the simplicity of the ingredients.

The rest of the meal???? Chicken roasted with apples pears and thyme and the left overs of a bottle of Champagne, and eggplant stewed with tomato and celery, couscous and challah.

Shabbat Shalom!

A question to ponder.....

2011-12-15T11:47:00.000-05:00

A query from a potential client a week or so ago got me to thinking. The potential client's question was primarily about pricing ( and why my work is more expensive than a gift shop tallit). This Shabbat I had a lovely conversation with Ayelet's father about her tallit. He said, "We didn't realize that when you meet with a client, you have no idea of what that tallit will look like ahead of time."

My initial reaction was, " Of course I don't, the tallit is created for that particular client. I have no idea what we will design together, until after we have talked and figured it out together."

Both those conversations had me exploring the internet to see what others mean when they advertise their work as " One of a kind" or "hand crafted" in the world of tallitot.

I am not going to post photos of the work of other people's tallitot. But you can Google the phrases " one of a kind tallit " or "hand crafted tallit" and see what appears on your screen.

Most of what is sold as "hand crafted" could be more aptly described as "manufactured to look like hand crafted". If you go into any Judaica store around the country you will see the identical walls of Jerusalem motif appearing in exactly the same way, or the identical floral design in batik. I assume that the wax outline is machine printed on hundreds of yards of China silk and is colored in by unskilled labor. calling that sort of work "hand crafted " is a bit of a stretch, at best. If there were actual variations in the designs I would feel differently, even if the designs were fairly similar.

These descriptions of essentially manufactured talllitot as hand made,one of a kind made me realize why the potential client balked at my pricing. I was using the same words but meaning something entirely different.

Machine woven silk striped tallitot are touted as hand crafted. Are they small batch manufactured? Yes. Are they hand crafted, not really.

So now I want to explore what one of a kind actually means. I have assumed that it means exactly that. A singular, a one off. Not another exists just like it.

I don't think that a manufactured dress shirt that is monogramed and selected in a particular fabric counts as one of a kind. If you chose an item out of a catalog and selected a fabic and a color and a monogram, I suppose that that counts as a custom shirt, not a one of a kind shirt.

What many tallit makers are selling as one of a kind, falls into that "custom" category. When you go on their sites you see tallitot that essentially all look alike and you can choose the colors of ribbons that are used to create the stripes.

I'm not saying that the tallitot other people sell aren't attractive. Some of them are quite beautiful. But I feel irked when their work is sold as one of a kind, when it is one of several hundred and is customized rather than actually being one of a kind. I get annoyed when work is sold as hand crafted when it is really small batch manufactured.

Do I need to change how I describe my work if the terms I use, now mean something different than the words that I'm using? What would you call work that is designed and created individually for each client? How ought to I describe what I do?

DONE!!!!!

2011-12-14T14:48:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, two of the class participants came to my house to work with me to finish off the Bein Gavra. We ate, did some stenciling, embroidered ribbon, sewed it on , trimmed loose threads and had some pie.

All in all a really productive day. Kathy, took lots of photos with her fancy digital camera, and after she emails me her photos I will post them here.

For any of you who are locals, it is being presented at Shabbat morning services at Ansche Chesed on December 24. Hope to see lots of you there!!!

Zipping Right Along

2011-12-14T14:37:00.000-05:00

It took me thirty years to figure out how to work when touch of adversity . I had gotten to a stuck point on Tess’s tallit. I had to take out lots of really dense stitching. As any of you who sew know, that it truly depressing. Sometimes I have extra fabric to turn to in case I mess up. In this case, I didn’t . So I had to just be really careful. It’s exhausting to have to be so persnickety.

I decided to give myself a break. Rather than just sitting around eating bon-bons, I turned to Ayelet’s tallit. It’s all put together, except for the atara/neckband and the pinot/corners. My camera is showing the base color of the tallit as a royal blue. It’s not. It’s a royal purple. the tallit really pops. It makes me happy to look at it.the atara is nearly done. The pinot need a bit more thinking through.