missing snacks

S handed me this note the other day after school. Apparently she didn't hear me that morning when I told her I was putting her snack in the small pocket of her backpack. I'm framing this note, I love it so much. (Click to enlarge--it's worth a read, and I adore the illustrations.)

Poor thing. The day before that I accidentally put her homework in my backpack instead of hers.

Last night she told me she learned how to say "hello" in Pork-and-cheese. It took me a minute to realize she meant Portuguese.

All I can say is that it's been nice to have a little laughter in our week. We've been really busy! But have you seen the new Oliver + S website? It just launched last night. I'm pretty excited about it. Todd posted some details, like how you can purchase all our products in one place now, and how it re-sizes itself for various screen sizes (hello, ipad!), and how you can play with the paper dolls. Try it! It's really fun.

seven

A certain someone turned seven the other day.

Seven seems so big to me, and this milestone hits me on so many levels that it's a good thing we took the week off (S's birthday always fall on a school vacation week) because it gave me a little time to contemplate all the implications, including the fact that I started this blog six and a half years ago, and this blog was the start of my company, which is truly a family business. I never could have imagined we would be where we are now when we decided to have a child. Or to start a little company.

Or the fact that S fits into this dress my mom made me back in first grade. My sisters all wore it, too. It's in really good shape considering that it's already been worn by at least five girls.

Anyway, this photo is mostly for my Mom. To thank her for all that sewing she did for me. And for handling all my special sewing requests. She sewed everything: school dresses, church dresses, prom dresses, blue jeans, quilts, doll clothes, and knock-offs of the Esprit dresses I wanted so desperately and couldn't afford. The list is really endless. She is an excellent sewist and a gentle, generous, and loving mom.

And she also knew when to say no to my sewing requests. Like the day before high school graduation, when I decided I needed a new outfit and came home from the store, fabric and pattern in hand. Saying no helped me to appreciate all the time and effort that goes into sewing. And it gave me the little push I needed to start sewing, myself.

All the dresses my mom made and saved are so precious to me. I just boxed up a whole bunch of them and shipped them back to her because I don't have space for them. But I photographed them, and I know they'll be waiting for my sisters when they have kids(?). Plus, I added a bunch of my own sewing to the box. Nothing like adding to the tradition, right?

Thanks, Mom. And happy birthday, S!

scenes from last weekend

Disdressed is finally getting a little upgrade! Things are progressing slowly around here, but already I think it's a bit easier to navigate and I'm liking the cleaned-up appearance. Do you agree?

Here are a few scenes from last weekend. S learned to ice skate and loved it so much that we're going again tomorrow. The the rink is located right in our apartment complex this year, and the neighborhood kids all love it and are quickly becoming fantastic skaters.

I took these photos early Sunday morning before New York was awake. I love exploring the city when it's so quiet, like on Christmas day when no one is around, and the West Village is especially fun for window shopping and discovering adorable little hidden cafes and restaurants when you're the only one out.

In other news:

• My dad called yesterday, on his way back to Antarctica after coming home for two days between trips there. Believe it or not, it was easier to come home (even for just that long) than to get from New Zealand (the end of his first trip) to South America (where he leaves for his next trip). He departed for the first trip before Christmas and won't be back from the second one until sometime in April. That's a lot of travel, even for my dad.
• S is fascinated with magic right now, and we're up to our elbows in magic shows. Would you like to see a box of crayons disappear? Please??
• Todd and I went to see this with some friends last night and had a terrific time. I highly recommend it if you come to New York for a visit. I loved everything about it and couldn't begin to do justice to the production. The sets, the sounds, even the smells. Or the bizarre sense of isolation one gets from wearing and being surrounded by other audience members in masks. It was all very sexy and thrilling, and I'd go again in a heartbeat. (Although it couldn't possibly be the same experience the second time around.)
• I really need to stop watching TV shows about teenagers. I obsessed my way through all the seasons of Gossip Girl (the fashion!) and then Friday Night Lights (the writing!). Someone move me along with a grown-up selection? Please? 
• It's fashion week! 

Have a wonderful weekend.

sweet, again

S and I have a little tradition when we play our favorite matching game. Whenever one of us turns over the bear on a bicycle card, we both do a little freak-out and holler "Bear on a Bicycle!" And of course whoever finds the match does a mini dance. I've got no idea why we do this. Maybe just because we love the illustration so much.

So when Heather Ross told me that Melissa Sweet, the illustrator of our beloved game, would be attending Heather's Weekend Sewing retreat last weekend, I did a larger version of my mini freak-out. I love Melissa's work, and she would be there in person, sewing with us! (And not only was she sewing with us, she was even making up my Lisette Passport Jacket.)

So that was fun. But what we even more fun was learning that Melissa has just published a new children's book, Balloons Over Broadway, which is a story about the man who made the very first balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

As it happens, we were having dinner just around the corner from Macy's one night during the workshop, so a few of us dropped in afterwards to see if we could find the poster and the Macy's shopping bags (!) featuring Melissa's illustrations.

It wasn't an entirely fruitful search. No sign of the shopping bags, but we located a poster before returning to the sewing lab for the evening. I'll go back in a week or so to see if I can find the shopping bags.

S was beyond thrilled to get a signed copy of the book, and she spent yesterday afternoon and evening (parent-teacher conferences--half day of school) happily working away on the fantastic activity pages that Melissa and her publisher assembled. They're amazing! S spent loads of time designing her own Thanksgiving Day balloon, assembling a balloon hat (it turns out she moves quite well like a balloon when she's wearing her hat, thank you very much), and finding the best parade route through the maze. She was busy taping together the finger puppets while I assembled the adorable finger puppet storage box (I'll be making another one for myself, I love it so much). The activities are brilliant and would be a wonderful way to keep excited kids busy while they're awaiting Thanksgiving dinner.

By the way, Melissa will be on The Martha Stewart Show later this week demonstrating what Heather says is "the best project" she's seen for kids in a long time. Guess what we'll be doing on Thanksgiving Day before dinner?

Sweet.

(All these images are from Melissa's website. She's got a great blog, too!)

orange

Last weekend S picked out a new hat on our way to Christie's for the contemporary art auction preview. As soon as we arrived at the galleries we noticed that she coordinated with the Mark Rothko--so well, in fact, that she had to stand to one side so we could see the top of her head!

Then we noticed orange everywhere we looked.

She even coordinated with the noses of the dogs on stilts.

And the creepy tomato-head art. (Can you tell I'm not a fan of Paul McCarthy?)

No orange on this one, but it's one of my favorite pieces by Maurizio Catellan. The tiny elevators actually seem to work, much to the amusement of the two little girls in attendance.

she makes it easy

I've said before that I'm not really interested in making Halloween costumes, and so far S has really let me off easy in terms of her costume requirements. I'm pleased to report that she's still making it simple and sketched the following costume design the other day:



No elaborate suits or fantastical structures to be constructed, hooray! Just a simple black knit Hopscotch Dress, black tail, and black cat ears on a headband. I can do that.

The most challenging part will be finding the right black lace for the hem that she's clearly communicated is a crucial element of the costume. I love that she's thinking about the little details like that, and about what color her nose should be: black or pink?

That detail still needs to be decided.

grumpy

We really try, at our house, to make a point of not working on weekends. When your work is a family business it's easy to let personal and business blend together to where the business side completely takes over. I struggle with it a lot and still find myself mentioning phone conversations over dinner or suddenly remembering some great idea late in the evening. You know. It's hard to shut it off sometimes. So on weekends we try to take business completely out of the picture and focus on family and personal.

But with all the rain we had recently, we were having trouble finding a sunny workday to photograph the fall patterns, and we finally resorted to working on a sunny Saturday afternoon to get the job done. None of us wanted to be at the studio that day, so I had to laugh when S handed me this note as we were setting up:



Todd wasn't the only one feeling grumpy. My least favorite job is pressing the samples and styling them for the photographs. The mannequin shots are much simpler than the flat shots because it's such a challenge to eliminate all the folds and get the clothes styles lying flat nicely . It all takes much longer than I want it to (I've got plenty of other things I'd rather be doing), and although I've learned a few styling tricks I still get frustrated after a while of fiddling with that one fold that refuses to go away, or the underarm that doesn't lay flat. (Shooting women's clothing flat is the worst--all those curves!)

photo by S

But S wan't grumpy at all. She managed to keep herself busy while we were working, starting out by styling a mannequin with her all-time favorite dress (the Jump Rope, complete with accessories from her dress-up box) and then moved on to positioning and re-positioning her dolls and toys, shooting photos all the while.

photo by S

After that she sat down with the iPad, and I wasn't paying much attention beyond a general awareness that she was making faces for the camera. When I picked it up later I was surprised to fine over 100 photos saved. Here are some of my favorite creative (and disturbing) self-portraits taken by the kiddo.

photos by S

Next time maybe I'll ask her to be the stylist when we shoot. She clearly has more patience for fiddling than I. But she'll need to learn to iron.

By the way, if anyone need to borrow a two-headed 6-year old, or a cyclops 6-year-old with a very pointy head, I think we may have one around here somewhere. She's quite charming!

textile jewelry

Last winter S and I were messing around with various fibers and made ourselves some jewelry. I finally remembered to photograph it so I can show you.

S went on a mad finger-knitting binge and swore she would make a scarf for everyone (19!) in her class as well as a lengthy list of additional friends who needed them (according to her--and I'm sure all our corporate-world friends would, indeed, have been very appreciative). Fortunately, she got distracted around necklace number eleven before I ran out of yarn, but I got to pick out the yarn for my own and specified that I wanted a necklace instead of a scarf. So my commission resulted in this fabulous piece made with an Amy Butler yarn. I combined her little masterpiece (yes, I really do wear it) with a scrap of Nani Iro double gauze sewn into a tube, stuffed with a little cotton, and tied with embroidery floss every so often to define the "beads" in the necklace. Someone showed how to do this in a blog a while ago and I can't remember who--can anyone refer us?




I also bought some of this crazy knit collage yarn at Purl and strung it with felted beads to make this necklace. S has a similar one with handmade felt beads (it takes about 15 minutes to make each bead, and I only had time to make enough beads for one necklace before I ended up buying the rest. Someday when I have more time...). As we strung the beads (you'll need a tapestry needle, strong fingers, and a lot of patience), I looped the yarn around my neck and arranged the beads and yarn lengths to my liking. Then I tied all the loops together at the back to hold them in place. It's easy to wear since I just slip it over my head (made sure it's long enough!) and it's lightweight.

Here it is on Pedal at the studio. It's a bit long on her, but I've had enough with modelling for a while.

We've got ideas for a few more textile necklaces when we have time. The felt beads are fun to play with, but S is very busy with play dates before school starts again, and she doesn't have time for crafting at present.

summer

Summer, at long last. New York schools continue through June, so S's summer break started with the Independence Day weekend and we've been busy cramming a lot of activities into our schedule ever since. We've made silly treats like cupcake cones (S liked these) and strawberry shortcake popsicles (I liked these and didn't feel a bit guilty eating them), had loads of playdates, run some errands , and made packing lists for all the trips we're taking.




We've also trying to slow down to enjoy picnics, the hydrangeas (especially since I only glimpsed the field of roses outside our building as a blur, I was trotting past them so quickly every day), and to play some games.



Ah, summer! Why do you go so quickly?

compounded interests

I've been doing a little travelling recently, and there's been a lot of planning and preparation for these trips. First were some classes I taught at Farmhouse Fabrics in South Carolina, and now I'm out in Colorado to tape a segment for a PBS sewing program (details to come). Samples needed to be made, lessons prepared, and clothing that isn't black or grey needed to be found. (My New York wardrobe is appropriately neutral in color--I fit right in here, but neutral colors and TV aren't so great together.)

In between those two trips total chaos ensued. S had spring break (and her first research paper to write--in Kindergarten--complete with trips to the library, index cards, and a lot of whining and cajoling on the part of various parties involved); we constructed, packed up, and shipped a brand new booth for Quilt Market; fall 2011 fabric collections for Oliver + S and for Lisette arrived and needed to be kitted up and sent off for sample making; and the fall patterns went off to the grader. Not to mention all the usual stuff that goes on day-to-day.

It was a little too much for one week. All the construction and packing made it difficult to move around in the studio. S spent a good deal of the week hanging out with us, "helping" and keeping herself very busy making things, and she loved every minute of it. (You can see her "art installation, named Sara, below.) We ran errands, traced patterns, stepped over boxes and around paint cans, shuffled piles and piles of fabric, and had a few good laughs in the process. On Friday I negotiated my way around the studio with the camera, just to document a bit of the mess.

six

S turned six the other day, and her birthday fell during a week of school vacation. So the celebration stretched across week, with extra time spent together and a few outings and events scattered across the days.


I can't stop thinking about how quickly she's growing up, which I know is what every parent feels. The pediatrician said she's grown three inches since last year, and her school uniforms are already starting to look short. She's acting so grown up, too. Todd and I have been commenting about how much fun it is to hang out with her. We have great conversations, and she can both take and give a lot of teasing. Five was a really good year, and I think six will be a lot of fun for all of us.

I wanted to track her changing preferences as she matures, so I made up this little "All about me" page that I plan to give her every year on her birthday. She can complete it herself, and we'll save them all so we can look back to see how long her favorite color remains pink and whether she still wants to be a teacher when she's in sixth grade.
You can download a copy of the page if you'd like to use it for your own kids.

weekend news

Every Friday S is given a small homework assignment for Kindergarten: weekend news. She's supposed to draw a picture and write a paragraph about something she does over the weekend and then read and present her news to the class on Monday. And every Sunday afternoon or evening we talk about all the things we did and try to help her decide which topic to write about.

I'm frequently surprised at what she chooses.

This evening she was tired and really didn't want to do her homework, so in an effort to excite her about the project I offered to do one myself. She gladly took me up on the idea and quickly generated worksheets for Todd and me to complete. So here is a summary of our weekend. She could have chosen any of the following activities:

1.
2. We had dinner (escargot for S: her favorite food) at a French restaurant in our neighborhood to celebrate the sale of the French rights to Little Things to Sew. It will be available en francais next fall. (Hurray!)

3.
(The big news here was the fact that S ate all her dinner. Todd is a great cook, too, but that's not news if you live at our house.)

4. We spent a little time admiring the Lod mosaic at the Metropolitan museum.

But with all those choices, here is what S chose to feature, instead:


"I had a tea party with my toys on Sunday. I had fun. And ice cream. It was fun for my toys too."

For the record, there is no ice cream at our house right now. So sweets weren't even part of the decision here.