a steady diet of beach and world cup

We live on an island, just two blocks from the East River. It's easy to forget how close we are to the water when we're so busy. And it's not exactly the beach, let's face it. Which is why, I suppose, everyone in Manhattan seems to escape the city for the beach in the summer.

After living here for almost twenty years, we finally followed suit and joined some friends in Montauk for the weekend. It was our first visit to the eastern part of Long Island. I can't say I've ever been very interested in the Hamptons (it's such a loaded name, I think) and all the hype surrounding them, but now I understand why so many people are willing to brave the traffic and long travel time. With such beautiful beaches, adorable towns, and amazing food, it's worth the extra effort. We climbed the lighthouse, searched for sea shells, built sand castles, and ate lobster. And watched lots of World Cup.





And we left hungry for more. We'll be back, I'm sure.

could this be the one?

I took a short business trip last week and happened to turn on the TV in my hotel room as I was getting ready for dinner one night. As you may know, we don't have a TV at home. But we watch a few programs on Hulu and generally feel like we know what's going on in the outside world. So how did I now know about Cash Cab?



After living in New York for almost 20 years, you'd think I would know about things like this. I mean, there's a slim possibility that the very next taxi you climb into might start flashing colored lights and put you on the hot seat to answer trivia questions for cash! If you're a New Yorker, you want to know this, right? It's a funny show, particularly watching people's expressions when they first discover they're in THAT taxi.

What else do I not know about this city? I wonder if there's a cash L train?

video introduction to City Weekend by Moda

Here is a short video of me introducing our sewing patterns and talking about the City Weekend fabric collection. This was shot by one of Moda's great sales reps.

still here

It seems that I'm having trouble juggling two blogs and a bunch of deadlines lately. It's been a little quiet at disdressed, but not for lack of activity elsewhere.

Let's see, here is a partial summary:

• We launched City Weekend, our first fabric collection, at Quilt Market last weekend. It was fun, and we heard lots of excitement about it from everyone who stopped by the booth. I've been recapping some of the Quilt Market experience over at the Oliver + s blog, if you're interested. Each time we exhibit I learn all sorts of new things, and this time was no exception thanks to the folks at Moda as well as many of our terrific customers.

• Tsia has been bringing home little sprouted bean plants from school almost every day, it seems, and we've managed to accumulate a miniature garden on our air conditioner. It’s probably illegal to keep plants on a ledge like this, but when they started sprouting tendrils it suddenly occurred to me that they're climbing bean stalks and I'd rather not have them climbing our living room walls. Which begs the question: do bees fly six stories above the ground? Because we've got beans growing, and I'm assuming the little bean-y flowers were somehow fertilized. Wouldn't it be crazy if we could eat beans grown in empty tomato cans on our air conditioner? It gives the term potager an entirely new meaning for me.

• My laptop, also known as half my identity these days, died a sudden gruesome death twice this month. On both occasions the cause was overheating, which melted the solder that holds the graphics card in place. Apparently I’m just burning things up over here. Fortunately, this problem can be solved by clever guys in the computer store just down the street. I hope the second fix will last.

• My Mom joined us at Quilt Market and brought home-made chocolate chip cookies, which Todd then declared he hasn’t eaten in years. Guess who will be baking this weekend? Did I simply forget about cookies? Apparently, yes.

• This weekend we’ll be relaxing with friends, de-cluttering our tiny apartment (I need to do this several times a year or I start to feel like the walls are closing in on us), and doing a little sewing for Tsia. She has suddenly outgrown most of her clothing. I also have a stack of craft books to read: Anna Maria Horner, Sandi Henderson, Kaffe Fassett...

I hope you have a terrific holiday weekend!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that ebay did a little profile of me last week, so now you can learn all about my shopping habits, if you were really curious.

labelled

Tsia has been home from school for much of this week with a cold and a fever. Todd stayed home with her for two days while I had some meetings and urgent business to attend to, but on Wednesday it was my turn. We spent some time in the morning learning to braid, and after lunch I set up my sewing machine because she's has been begging to learn. She did really well and then lost interest after approximately five minutes, as expected. (We had a similar experience when she asked me to teach her to knit last weekend--these things will take time, so I'll let her set the agenda. It's not like I'm in a hurry for her to start sewing samples for me or anything.)

In the afternoon I needed make a couple of phone calls and reply to some emails, so I set her up with paper, scissors, and glue and asked her to stay busy for a little while. She did very well, and it wasn't until I finished and looked down at the paper she had taped to the front of my shirt that I realized she had still found a way to voice her displeasure:



Fortunately, the fever is gone and she can return to school. And I can continue to do what I regularly do. Which is being BORING, I guess.

you may have heard

We made a happy textile-related announcement over at Oliver + S yesterday.

I'm excited to tell you more about it after it debuts at Quilt Market next month.

April flowers

Headed from one meeting to another early this morning, I had the pleasure of taking a shortcut through Central Park. I saw a pair of cardinals, robins hunting for worms, loads of flowers, and even the boat pond is open--which is great because Tsia and I have our wooden toy sailboats at the ready and have been toting them along every Sunday morning in the hopes that we'll get to launch them. At last, we can!

Sadly, all the real daffodils are finished blooming for the year, but I've been playing around with making them out of construction paper, just to make them last a little bit longer. Also some primroses--or my rendition of a primrose, anyway.


They're quite easy to make, and I got the idea from some simple paper flowers that Tsia's class made in art class. The cutting and gluing of this fancier (and smaller) version are a bit fussy for little hands, so they're more of an adult paper craft, but patient and dexterous kids could certainly make a go of them.

Here is a quick and dirty template of the shapes I used, with dotted lines to indicate folds. I think you can probably figure out how to do it yourself, right? Especially with a few photos to help:






Happy spring!

art day

We had a marathon museum-going trip last Saturday. I wanted to visit the Neue Gallery for inspiration on a project, and Todd needed to prep his tour for the Whitney Biennial so we decided to make an adventure of the day and throw the Metropolitan Museum into the mix as well. All three museums are near each other on the upper east side, so it is actually logical (but still exhausting) to visit them all in one go. We took some photos in case you wanted to come along.

First up: the Metropolitan. We went primarily to see a couple of new shows there, but Tsia took photos of the permanent galleries. Art from the eyes of a five-year-old is always interesting (and a little blurry):











Then a stop for lunch at my favorite restaurant in the neighborhood, Cafe Sabarsky, which just happens to be located in the Neue Gallery building. If you go, the pickled herring sandwich with apple slices is amazing. Really, I should order other things on the menu sometimes, but I just love this one too much.

We sketched while we waited for our orders to arrive. Can you guess what this is?


Well, the chandelier, of course!


The current exhibit, Otto Dix, wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but here are some posters in the basement that caught my eye:




Then on our way down Madison Avenue Tsia had trouble choosing her favorite giant doughnut from the windows at Gagosian. Pink or sprinkles? I think we decided on the sprinkles:


Once we arrived at the Whitney, Tsia and I left Todd to his business and escaped to the fifth floor, where we found one of our favorite pieces by Lee Bontecou. I don't think we're allowed to take photos inside the museum. I always forget to ask but seem to recall being scolded for trying to photograph Todd while he was giving a tour once. And it's too bad, because this photo is really awful and doesn't begin to do the piece justice. Here is a photo of another Bontecou (at MoMA) so you can at least get a sense of her work and the dimension it has. Her work is often simultaneously creepy and enticing, which we all seem to love in our family. Here are Tsia's sketchbook renditions. (The first one was amazing until she started coloring it, but I was proud of myself for not intervening!):



Then home for a rest. Shall we take you to MoMA next time?

little designers

This morning it was my turn to talk about my job at Tsia's school, so we talked about clothing.

The kids were very excited to show what they were wearing and to discuss design details. This week at school they're celebrating spirit week with pajama day, backwards and upside-down day, and crazy hair day. Today was cultural heritage day, so one little girl was wearing a Flamenco dress and another was wearing a kimono. We discussed collars, ruffles, stripes, buttons, and pockets. I showed everyone my sketchbook so they could see my first sketch of the Jump Rope Dress, a sample of which Tsia was modelling.




Then we all got busy drawing. I gave everyone basic garment shapes outlined in dotted lines on a sheet of white paper. From there, they all went different directions. The boys designed lots of clothing with spider webs:


Some of the children really enjoyed adding details:

And others added color:




I was amazed at a few of the designs. One little girl who wears a lot of color had some spectacularly vibrant and detailed designs that fit her personality and style perfectly. Two of the children wanted to give me their drawings so I could go home and sew their designs for them. I was sorry to explain that we were just drawing this time, not sewing. And several of the children started cutting out the clothing and making paper dolls for themselves!

If you know anyone who would like to make some designs for him/herself, here is a pdf of the clothing silhouettes we used. Have fun!

first contract

At Tsia's school this year, the parents have all been taking turns teaching the kids about our careers. Since the East Village is a creative community, the kids have tried their hands at photography, learned about interior design, built a house from sticks (one parent builds treehouses when his band isn't touring), constructed cityscapes (three of the parents are architects), made jewelry, written books (literary agent), and learned to conduct interviews (journalist). Last week, they learned about contracts from the lone lawyer in the group.

I love how this career was presented. The parent introduced the children to the idea of contracts by negotiating with his daughter, who wants a computer. He left himself plenty of wiggle room (as lawyers are wont to do) while convincing his daughter that she shouldn't fight with her little sister. Of course Tsia came home from the experience wanting to negotiate her own contract, and she promptly sat down at the dining room table to fill out the contract template that came home from the lesson--even signing my name for me.

Anyway, last week Tsia and Todd sat down together to complete the census form, and they agreed that they will always complete their census forms together. The even wrote a contract to ensure that they're legally bound to do this. So they produced Tsia's first contract: copy below.

I wish I had my camera handy when they were negotiating and completing this form; it was really precious to see them leaning over the paper together, concentrating on the wording and signing their names. Tsia said she'll never move out (much to Todd's horror!), but I'm all for flying her home someday if she's living in Paris.

Nothing like a tradition and a little civic duty to hold a family together.

Wish me luck. This week it's my turn to talk about designing sewing patterns for children's clothing.