small town

I must have had Natalie on my mind already, since we were planning to get together during Fashion Week. But it was the hem of her coat that caught my attention last week as Tsia and I were on our way down Avenue B. That coat was standing across the street from us, and I immediately thought of Alabama Chanin and her designs when I glimpsed it. (I tend to walk looking down when I'm with Tsia. There was someone inside that coat, but my eyes were mostly on the sidewalk.)

All the same, I was completely taken aback when I looked up and saw it was her. Right there on our way to preschool! I love New York. Big city? No way. I run into dear friends all the time. It's a small town, I swear it. So small that someone from Alabama can suddenly seem like a neighbor.

Anyway, Natalie and I sat down in the showroom for tea yesterday morning, and I had an opportunity to view the new Alabama Chanin collection first hand. Here's a little taste. Enjoy!










Thanks, Natalie. I can't wait for book number two!

I am the egg, man

And here you thought those of us in the city didn't know which came first. Well, now we do.

Is this a common school project? I have no idea, but Tsia's preschool is hosting 12 little eggs this week. Farmer Albie brought his gorgeous bantam chickens to tell us all about eggs, and he's loaned us a dozen to incubate. Every day we turn the eggs, and when they hatch (I hope) next Monday and Tuesday we'll care for the little chicks until it's time to go back home at the end of the week.








I'm not sure who's more excited: the kids or their parents. But I suspect we'll be sad to see our little friends go home next Friday.

And by the way, they come at the same time. The chickens come in a little cage, and the eggs come in an egg carton, all set to nest down in the incubator. So that settles that question.

good reading

My sister recommended this book. It's written for older kids, and I didn't attempt to read it to S since we haven't quite gotten through Charlotte's Web or Pippi Longstocking yet. I think we tried both of those books a little too soon, because S lost interest about half-way through. We'll give it another shot in six months or so.

Anyway, this book reminds me a bit of Half Magic and The Enchanted Castle and The Moffats and all of the books in that genre which I adored when growing up. It's not a magic book, by which I mean it's a real-life book with no magic occurring in the story. But it's told in that perfect tone that I remember loving as a kid. Not a lot of sentimentality, lots of action, a loving family, and plenty of intrigue. So it's magic in a different way, I guess. A rare fine.

Speaking of reading, we're spending lots of time these days at two websites for kids. I've written them on little slips of paper that S carries all over the place because she likes to type them into the computer by herself. Onemorestory.com is a subscription site that reads books to kids. This is especially great when I'm trying to cook dinner or need to finish a project and desperately need a distraction that will entertain the kiddo for a little while. We don't have a TV, and I feel like this is more engaging for her anyway. I love how the stories are read, with music and engaging narration. The pages even retain the look of a real book. We also recently learned about starfall.com, which is a learn-to-read site. S loves playing with the various activities and "reading" the mini-books. She's got all the individual letter sounds down and is almost ready to start combining them into words, which I think may come with a little more practice.

5 sides

I started chuckling at side #4. Side #5 had me laughing out loud.

P.S. The box is from Trader Joe's. My favorite.

no, don't stop me

I really must write better titles to my posts. Why did I call that last one, "stop me"? It was something about the stop action animation movie-making technique of Coraline, I think. Anyway, I don't really want you to stop me. I'm going to see the film as soon as Todd and I can find a few hours to get away.

But here's what I really wanted to tell you: you might remember Hollie, the maker of that adorable little short animated film we love so much, Maggie and Mildred. (We still watch it regularly, S and I. We giggle over the cake-throwing scene every time, without fail.) Well, Hollie emailed to say that she was the second assistant editor for Coraline. I had no idea!

All the more reason to see it.

Hollie, I'll throw you a kiss when I see your name on the screen. Congratulations!

stop me

My friend Barbara just sent me this link I have to share with you.

Now I don't think I've been to the movies since Dr. S was about six months old and slept through a matinee of Me and You and Everyone We Know. But I may have to see Coraline in the theater. And no, S can't come along this time; Todd took her to see Despereaux a few months ago and she was terrified, so there's no way she's up for the level of scariness here (and there's obviously no way she would sleep through it anymore, either).

I'm going to see it because of the costumes. Yes, I know it's a stop-action film, which makes the costumes draw seem really weird. I realize I should see it for all the other aspects that make it amazing. For example, the incredible level of detail demonstrated in this fascinating article about the making of the film. Wow.

But read this article about the teeny, tiny sweaters and tell me you're not completely fascinated by the wardrobe aspect, too? Here's the short film about Althea Crome, the woman who knitted the sweaters. Amazing.


Now me, I'm already in love with the yellow raincoat. Which, as it happens, coincides with my starting to think about fall patterns. I desperately want to do a jacket or raincoat, and the rain slicker makes me want to do one even more.

By the way, knitters, did you catch that link to the free sweater pattern download for normal-sized humans? So cute.

new to me

One of the items we included in our family Christmas packages this year were these clever printable calendars from Little Brown Pen. I love the shape of them: you print onto stardard letter-sized cardstock and then cut the pages in half lengthwise to make two months from each page. I punched a small hole near the top, threaded a ribbon through the hole, and off they went. Lots of fun for a tiny price.


Well, Little Brown Pen, I just learned, also has a really sweet blog. Nichole, the author, lives in Paris (oooooooh, jealous) and takes great photos. She also offers some free printable items on the right side of her blog.

Turns out, her husband does the illustrations for their wonderful products and Nichole write the copy. Love that.


I'm currently admiring their Valentines. It's difficult to decide which I like best.

P.S. All photos belong Little Brown Pen.

waaaay back when

You know me, stress, and closets. And trust me, our closets are looking very spiffy these days; January was a crazy month.

I was looking through the bedroom closet the other day for Tsia, who wanted some black paper for a project, when I came across my old design portfolio. I honestly hadn't looked at it in ages--at least seven years--and it was fun to reminisce while re-examining it.

Included in the book was this project from my last school project: the one that got me my first job.

I feel a little weird showing it to you. I mean, it's about ten years old and completely irrelevant to anything at all. But it's an interesting concept for a final project. I'm glad my professors assigned it, and I thought you might enjoy seeing a design-school graduate's portfolio, especially since I had never seen one before I graduated.

The concept was relatively simple: we were told to select a target company or designer and then to design a collection for him/her/them.

I chose Ralph Lauren.

My collection was inspired by two recent trips to Scotland. I love the highlands and traditional Scottish culture: kilts, tartans, Charles Rennie Mackintosh's exquisite architecture and designs, cozy pubs on dark evenings, ageing bed-and-breakfasts, and stopping the car to let sheep to cross the narrow twisty roads as we made our way over the terrain. It all seemed like a great starting point for a fall collection.



The first step of the project involved collecting inspiration, swatching fabrics, and developing rough sketches of our initial designs. These designs were then collected into a book that was included in our portfolios to show our design process (meaning how we approached our designs and our thought process in developing the designs). The project required dozens and dozens of sketches and designs. Once I had a stack of sketches, I scanned and colored them in Photoshop to reflect the fabrics I had chosen for my collection.



The next step was to select our best designs for the portfolio pages themselves. I'm no illustrator, so I feel a little naked showing these to you. But we drew our best designs in greater detail to reflected our (so-called) drawing abilities, demonstrate our design sophistication (meaning, how our designs reflected the look of our target company), and illustrate our color and fabric choices.

And then came my favorite part of the project. We were told to select one element of our collection and highlight it in a separate book that further elaborated on a theme. This was sort of a trend-forecasting project.

I chose kilts.



This project was the most fun because it had the fewest requirements. I work well with restrictions, but I especially enjoyed breaking out and giving this all sorts of attention. The book opens with a brief discussion of kilts and the role they play in fashion.

Then each page featured a landscape photo from a Scotland tourist brochure, and within the spread I attached two vellum pages: one of a garment "flat" (literally, a technical illustration of a garment laid flat, like we show on the back of the Oliver + S pattern envelopes so you can get a better idea of the details of each piece) and an illustration of someone wearing the outfit, theoretically walking a runway. I had so much fun pulling together the various elements of this book.

And guess what? I got the job.

(More photos of the projects here.)