My Love/Hate Relationship with Sewing

Since I'm 5' 2", one of my mom's major sewing lessons was how to hem pants. Last summer, though, I decided to try sewing an actual garment (with a pattern). I started a spring dress with a white and pink leaf print for the body of the dress and a rose print for the yoke, hem, and sleeve trims. I still have to attach the sleeves. It's cute, even though it will have to be ironed a lot (it's made of quilting cotton).

I would like to continue sewing clothes in the future, since it's hard to find cute, petite-sized clothes that are a) age-appropriate and b) not cut for 12-year-olds. While it isn't hard to find such patterns, I've found that the sewing books targeted at teenagers/college students are mostly focused on sewing crafts (like making/decorating pillowcases) or making T-shirts into purses/skimpier shirts. Since ready-to-wear clothes are much cheaper than 50 years ago, even for students (you can get a $15 skirt at H&M), I can understand why there are fewer resources for learning to sew clothes.

But what about people who want to individualize their garments? I'm not just thinking about adjusting patterns (for non-average heights and/or body types), but customizing fabric choices and embellishments. There's also the appeal of making novelty garments, like Halloween costumes (since the ready-to-buy versions often look like industrial accidents). The decline in choices of fabric and fabric stores is also annoying - it's tough to find good selections of fabric that isn't quilting cotton or Polar Fleece.

Perhaps things might change for sewing. After all, knitting transformed very suddenly from being associated with stereotypical old ladies to a rather popular hobby among young women. And who knows, eventually the T-shirt chopping ladies might decide to construct garments from scratch.

Wii and Fitness

About a month ago, my supervisor at the pediatric clinic where I volunteer told me that a Wii system had been donated to the clinic. My first thought was that there would be fights over it in the waiting room and that no one would want to play at the art table again. On the other hand, some of the kids clearly need to get up and move around more. I had heard about nursing homes and rehabilitation centers that used Wii games to get people to engage in low-impact exercise and improve their coordination.

The Wii arrived last week and was just approved for electrical safety. It's housed in a rolling unit with a TV and preloaded with about 15 games. Apparently these units are specially made by Nintendo and the Starlight Foundation for hospitals and clinics. After figuring out how it worked in the break room, I took it into the waiting room. 

When there weren't any patients in the waiting room, I tried Wii Sports. Despite P.E. being one of my least favorite classes in school, and not being a fan of sports games, I really enjoyed it. Boxing was the only sport on it that I would recommend for intense exercise, but for a lot of people I think pretend tennis and bowling would be a positive step forward in terms of physical activity. The ability to play pretend sports with friends is also a major advantage over the at-home fitness innovation of the late 80s, the exercise tape, in which the people you follow may be intimidating in how fit they are or, in the case of Carmen Electra*, their apparent ability to exercise without messing up their hair.

* = Yes, she makes exercise videos. Last year my hall had an exercise event and used one of her videos. While we were working out we couldn't stop talking about how ridiculous we looked compared to her.

Glitter, Crystals, and the Words of Jesus in Red

When I was in Sunday school, all the third graders received a Good News Bible, which uses a 5th-grade level English and has small line drawings. After confirmation (around 7th grade), we got regular New Revised Standard Version Bibles, which had a more sophisticated translation and no illustrations. The most flamboyant feature on them was the gold edging on the pages.

The image I had of a Bible growing up, be it Christian or Jewish, was a plain book that was easy to carry around, very readable, and sometimes found in hotels. A dignified book worthy of its contents.

I had no idea how much the Bible market has expanded beyond the standard church/synagogue Bible for simple reading and study Bibles for in-depth learning. Every time I go to Barnes and Noble, I see a new kind of "teen" Bible whose format is remarkably similar to a teen magazine, with bright graphics and speech bubbles highlighting key concepts. One comes in a pink metal case with the words "[Jesus] loves me" inscribed. Another has a plastic-covered pastel blue and green glittery cover that you can further decorate to reflect your personal spirituality. There is even the black leather-bonded Extreme Teen Bible.

While Jewish publishers offer the Jewish Bible in many versions, with variations in the English translations and commentators (i.e. classical vs. modern), the phenomenon of "teen" Bibles with casual English and a clear focus on making the word of God "cool" is not something I've seen in the Jewish world. I wonder if a Bible that focused on issues impacting teens with easy-to-read commentary would help engage the post-bar-mitzvah/pre-college demographic of Jewish young people, but I also find the thought of marketing the Bible the way one markets magazines and fashion disturbing.

What do you think?

Silly Faces at the Ohel

My first semester at Brandeis, I went on a winter shabbaton to Crown Heights (the Brooklyn neighborhood which is the home base for the Chabad chassidic movement) organized through Brandeis Chabad. 13 students, including myself, were accompanied by the Brandeis Chabad rabbi and his wife (their sons stayed with their grandparents). It was quite the experience.

Friday night, we went to a Kabbalat Shabbat service at the 770 synagogue, where the Lubavitcher rebbe prayed while he was alive. It was my first time in a synagogue with separate seating. The women's seating was in a balcony above the main floor, allowing one to see everything below through plastic windows. The men's section was a sea of long black coats and hats punctuated by white shirts, which the rabbi's younger sister lovingly compared to an Oreo factory. There was a banner on the wall reading "yechi adoneinu moreinu v'rabeinu melech moshiach l'olam." (A rough translation = Long live our master, our teacher, and our rabbi King Messiah forever). "Rabeinu" refers to the Lubavitcher rebbe; a fringe of Chabad believes the Rebbe, who has been dead nearly 15 years, is the messiah and is just in hiding. It was odd, I thought, but then I saw the yellow flags with red crowns that are widespread in Crown Heights.

My next exposure to the Rebbe happened when visited his tomb (also called the Ohel, or the Tent) in Queens on Saturday night. We entered a visitor's center whose entryway roughly resembled a large white tent with fluorescent lighting. Visitors were instructed to remove their leather shoes and wear Crocs (stored in several sizes on a plain shoe rack) and dress modestly; married women were urged to cover their hair. Before we stepped into the tomb itself, we sat down and some people wrote letters to the Rebbe to place at the Ohel. 

The idea is that a Tzaddik (righteous person), even in death, can act as an intermediary between the living and G-d. It makes sense if you think about people who leave letters at gravesites in non-Jewish cemeteries or Catholics who pray to saints, but I couldn't do it. It felt weird. I think the Rebbe was an admirable person, but I don't feel close enough to him to write him a letter. Reciting a psalm at the Ohel itself made more sense, because I was talking directly to G-d, and one of his righteous just happened to be nearby.

After we left the Ohel and did a ritual hand washing, we returned to the visitor center to take off our Crocs and put our regular shoes back on. And then, having visiting the burial site of the leader of one of the most prominent Chassidic movements… we gathered for group photos. In the last one, we made silly faces. I'm still not sure what to make of it. Was it a testament to the Rebbe's loving spirit? Or simply the product of gathering a bunch of enthusiastic college students? Probably more the latter, but I'd like to think it was a bit of both.

The Histories and the Stories

In my paternal grandparent's house, every room, and almost every wall, is covered with pictures of family members and church documents. On end tables and on tops of dressers rest family artifacts. There are also clocks, some working, some not, along with collections of old books. Next to some pictures are little framed descriptions of the person depicted, which give them the feeling of a museum piece. There are histories behind every object and every picture but when you look at them, you want to see the stories. How did he treat his grandchildren? What did she struggle with?

These are the kinds of stories my mother tells about her family. They don't always fit into the neatly framed church membership document, but they feel alive. You can see them happening.

At my house, the most visible family artifacts are the round dining room table and chairs from my mom's parents house. It's something that connects us to the past moments of family togetherness in my mother's family and continues in the present whenever we gather to eat. You can't get more familial than a dining room table. It doesn't fit in a pretty frame. It is just there, ready for a quiet breakfast or a rowdy game of Trivial Pursuit.