Look what I got!

Aside from an electric toothbrush embroidery hoop and lens cap I got a house.
Our bid was accepted and I'm already picking out Anthropologie resin cabinet pulls for my new 50's kitchen. Unfortunately this is about all we can afford to do to the house right now. Who cares though? We got a cool house that we can call our own.

Are you wondering about Harlan and the embroidery hoop/electric toothbrush/ lens cap/ Yahoo Serious hair-do photo? All of a sudden he is into everything. It's a constant trail of destruction. His favorite new toys are my large embroidery hoop, which he throws over his neck, and my electric toothbrush. I have to buy him his own (toothbrush, not hoop). I grabbed my camera to take a photo and of course he had to nab the lens cap before running off with all three, only to drop the lens cap and pick up my sandal which he then threw in the toilet. This morning I ran around trying to get everything together to go meet some friends in the playground and I couldn't find Harlan's left sandal anywhere (note to self: buy more than one pair of shoes for Harlan). We put on his too-small sneakers and left. I finally found the missing shoe this evening in my top desk drawer which is usually secured with a safety thingamajiggy. I must have left it unlocked. Apparently Harlan's cohorts are in the same phase. I saw my friend Kara today who is 7 months pregnant, and her son Arthur who is about a week apart from Harlan in age. The rascal had her chasing him all over the street as he opened people's gates, pulled dirt out of people's planters and dumped it on their front steps, and then ran into the middle of three deaf guys having a heated discussion in sign-language on their front lawn. The guys all thought it was pretty cute and so did I, but I was in awe of Kara's mellowness as she carried him over her swollen belly, kicking and screaming. She didn't even raise her voice or seem annoyed as she said, "No hitting buddy". I feel like she's an angel and I'm going to turn into a crazy Jewish mother running around screaming at my kid every time he gets a crumb on the floor (O.K. Not even close to reality, but I just feel that way). I think I am ready to sign up for anger management half the time.

You know what's great about having our own house? No more crazy landlord. Oh, did I tell you the latest in the Landlord Chronicles? Months back I ordered a year's worth of Croq zines from Heather in Portland. A month went by and I never received them. I e-mailed her and she had mailed them Priority Mail with delivery confirmation and it was signed for. Neither of my neighbors would steal my mail, nor would they sign for my mail and lose it somehow. I was stumped. Heather was generous enough to send me new copies. FF to last week, I walk in the vestibule and what should I see but the original package. According to my neighbors their months-old lost packages showed up the same day. We can only deduce that Landlord had been signing for our packages and just keeping them in his basement apartment because he was too lazy to walk them up the front steps to our entryway. Classic.

One more bragger shot: This is Harlan in his new, super soft Baby Beehinds bamboo and cotton diaper.

Tips of the trade

Here's a custom order I did tody for someone giving a gift. I am always unsure about my embroidered lettering in such confined spaces, but it's improving and I only do it when asked. I'm still working on the appliques and decided to make my smiling pears a pair:


I really love the 100% wool felt that I get at Brooklyn General and I just got an order for this specific onesie so I used the wool felt and then washed it and dried it in the dryer on high. As you can see with the super duper lens and high mega pixels of my camera, the wool got a bit fuzzy. I think it actually adds charm to the appliques because what's even cuter than a green smiling pair of pears? Fuzzy smiling pears. I doubt they would stand up to years and years of hight heat drying but considering the size is 3-6 months I don't think that will be an issue. My biggest obstacle right now (aside from lack of time to produce more samples) to launching the new line of appliqued clothing is literally purchasing the materials. I have to get to the garment district to buy some acrylic felt that I like the look of. Everything else that I have seen so far looked too cheap for my taste. The reason it's nearly impossible for me to perform this simple shopping expedition is that Harlan goes ballistic if I take him shopping. He screeches, throws his bottle or anything else I hand him for entertainment, and bucks and pops in his stroller to escape its confining straps. Not something I can bring along to jam-packed midtown any time soon.

Meanwhile, I signed up for a class over at Purl for my mother's day gift to myself from Harlan. I'm so glad he knew that what I wanted more than anything was a break that involved leaving himself and the borough of Brooklyn in order to do something fun all alone. In three classes I'm going to make a backpack that doubles as a tote. There are all kinds of sewing skills that I hope to learn (putting in a lining for one thing) and so far so good. I bought some lovely Japanese floral print for the body of the bag and patched together a couple of yards of various fabrics for the straps and lining. I can't wait to see how it comes together. The teacher turns out to be Lisel of Distressed. Lucky for me! She designed the tote and I already learned some great tricks from her last night that I hope to share later when I actually apply them to my bag. One of the other students in the class had a great tip for all of us: When tracing a pattern from (or another tissue one), use vellum instead of tissue paper. This way your copy will be much more durable and last longer. In addition, vellum pattern pieces are much easier to store (I always get fed up trying to refold my pattern pieces and stuff them back into the envelope) and less likely to fall apart if you want to pin them to yourself first.

More tips coming next week. In the meantime, I sat down today during my free time and grabbed my Tivo remote while working on the Sadie embroidery. After checking out my gal Rosie over on The View (I'm not ashamed, I love her) doing her hot topics, I checked out Martha's show from yesterday. She gave a tour of her new craft line over at Micheal's and I was drooling over the rotary cutter that attaches to the T-square topped quilter's ruler. There is a little edge along the side of the ruler that the cutter rests on and slides over so that you end up cutting your fabric in a super straight line at the edge of the ruler. I went over to Micheal's and could not find it for the life of me. They have her line separated into really obscure sections like celebrate, share, and cherish and inside each section is a specific project. I have no idea where the hell anything is. Horrible web design! Next I went straight to her site's new section of her products and found the cutter but not the specific ruler. At least I can count on her site to have excellent navigation and comprehensive sections. However, I find it very un-Martha for her site to be missing something she advertises on her show. As the public knows, and as I know personally from having friends working for her, she is not one to overlook details. I think this reputation of hers as being a perfectionist is really good PR, because it's one reason I may shell out the big bucks for some of her tools. I know they're not going to be crap. Let me know if any of you can find the special ruler anywhere.

Garbage update: Landlord apparently called my downstairs neighbor and apologized for cursing him out and holding him personally responsible for the overflowing torn up trash. He said he figured it must be someone else putting it there. Now if you recall, the reason it's there is that he DOESN'T TAKE IT OUT for weeks on end. Yesterday morning Joe took down a bag of our garbage and noticed two things: 1) Landlord had in fact taken out some trash and placed it on the corner for pick up. 2) The trashcan was popping and jumping. After he raised the lid a chihuahua sized rat lunged at him and scurried away inside Landlord's entryway. A pile of watery, decomposed garbage remains at the bottom of the trashcan.

Poopee Pot

Tonight I bring you a post with no photos, only text.
Why? Because I have to admit that I am overwhelmed with sweating the small stuff this week.

We returned from a lovely (albeit cold and rainy) trip to Fresno on Monday evening. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday doing my usual routine with Harlan involving making the rounds at the neighborhood playgrounds, meeting up with friends, and sitting on the floor of my living room while the gorilla from that 70's Samsonite luggage commercial shrieks and throws objects as large as his entire body at me if I pick up the phone or walk towards the computer. When he napped, I crashed hard. Nothing was sewn, stitched, knitted, or baked. No crumbs were removed from highchair trays or kitchen counters, no shriveled up grapes were pulled out from under the sofa. Mail was not sorted and phone calls were not returned. I napped on the couch and watched an episode of Desperate Housewives, and I don't mention this to be ironic or in any way poetic, it's just what happened. I took the advice of Richard Dreyfus' character in one of my favorite movies What About Bob, "Give yourself permission to take a vacation from your problems." I turned on the Tivo and ate some See's candy and did not feel guilty or unproductive. I did yoga and washed my hair, and trudged through the crumbs on the floor nestled among baby gorilla's wreckage while he slept.

Then today all hell broke loose, the small stuff happened and I sweated it big time. First of all, the cloth diapers that I carefully researched and selected arrived. The unbleached prefolds required being laundered prior to use. Three times for maximum absorbency. No problem. I loaded up 42 of the 100 I ordered and took them along with Harlan to the laundromat. I washed and dried them twice and brought them home, only to discover that they are so enormous that even if I wore them I could barely fit a pair of maternity pants over them. WTF? I ordered the toddler size based on the weight chart provided on the website. No way is a 30 pound baby going to wear these suckers. I berated myself for having wasted $100 on something I can only resell for half that price, and thought that this was the worst part of my day when the mail arrived, and in it was a big old letter from my crazy landlord.

Was it a new lease? Nope. It's a letter stating that we have been throwing out our trash in ripped up bags that he has to clean up, and that he is charging us $50 for the service. If anyone reading this blog happens to recall, my landlord rarely puts our trash out for the sanitation service to collect. At one point I went out and bought giant lawn and leaf bags and collected all the rat-eaten trash myself and put it out on the curb. I sent him a letter complaining about it and charging him for the trash bags, and his response was to call me and curse me out and threaten to throw me out. It gets better though! Enclosed with the letter are color photos of the garbage cans filled with bags of garbage that have clearly been eaten by rats. The bags appear to be shredded with a cheese grater, they are mere pieces of plastic entwined with trash swimming in a can that has clearly been ignored for at least a month. At the bottom of the letter the landlord demands that I cease putting out my garbage in this condition, or else he will "take further action". While this is clearly hilarious and insane, it just pushed me over the edge a bit and I turned and looked at my four foot pile of newly laundered, useless, $100 Chinese pre-fold diapers and wondered how I ever gave up cigarettes. Calgon take me away!

But fear not dear readers, I won't leave you on such a bleak note. My husband Joe has a co-worker at the school he teaches at who goes to grad school at night at City College, which has a very diverse and international student body. When the professor read the attendance for the first time she prefaced one of the names with, "I'm sure I'm mispronouncing this, but, Poopee Pot?" An Indonesian student replied, "Yes, I am Poopee Pot, that is correct". The class tried to stifle their laughter and the professor asked Poopee if he had a knick name that he preferred (Poop? Pee? Pot?) "Yes, my friends call me Pizza Man." I do have a very scatalogical sense of humor so I apologize if you're not with me here, but Poopee Pot has become the answer to about 50% of the questions around here ever since Joe brought that story home (i.e. "What should we eat for dinner?" "Who is hosting the democratic debate tonight?" Answer: Poopee Pot?) This is how I overcome sweating the small stuff. Poop jokes always do it for me.

Warning, contains profanity!

Isn't this a nice shot? I made a pile of stuff to sell on ebay one morning and decided to shoot these vintage glass findings inside this teacup before photographing them separately to sell. The past couple of weeks I have been focusing on business- new felt applique designs, selling more ebay stuff and keeping up with the hand embroideries even though I am trying to phase them out. I dropped a bunch off over at Artez'n and did a custom order today. It's a juggling act, that's for sure.

This is a sticky toffee pudding that came all the way from jolly old England! I saw the wonderful recipes in this month's Marta Stewart Living, and really wanted to try and make one for Valentine's day. The sticky toffee pudding sounded like the best and easiest to make. One day last week I was at Key Food and passed the shelf over by the deli that houses the English goodies. I always have to check it out to pick up some nice cookies or a can of Devon Cream to pour over my cereal in the morning (kidding, but not really). Imagine my surprise when I saw a collection of canned puddings! I had to have one. I didn't make it on V-day, but we enjoyed it a couple of nights earlier instead. I have to admit that the frosting was a let down. Not only was it rather gelatinous despite having been boiled inside the can for forty minutes, but it tasted quite tinny. The cake itself was moist and brown sugary and quite figgy. I can only give it one thumb up. You'd think I would know better considering it came in a can, but if there's one thing I've always coveted it's English desserts. When I was last in London I filled a small suitcase with packaged goodies from Mark's & Spencer. I had all kinds of little fondant covered cakes and marzipan filled cookies. They were all mind-blowing and like nothing I have found stateside unfortunately. For V-day we laid low since we agree that it's pretty much a Hallmark holiday. We also laid low because I fucked up and thought V-day was the previous day during which I procured and cooked a marinated flank steak, potatoes, and haricot verts with shallots and pepper. I also made my favorite chocolate cinnamon buttermilk cake. Even my little valentine got to eat a piece after his dinner. He pretty much gobbed down the frosting immediately and then threw the cake on the floor and screamed and held out his hand to indicate "MORE FROSTING RIGHT NOW PLEASE". Here is he enjoying his fudgey valentine goodness:



I did make Joe an awesome gift which I will photograph and post when it's finished. Yes, it was not completed on time, because I have yet to figure out how to manage my time. I embroidered a drawing that Joe made for me a few years ago, and I am going to sew the edges and back it with some patterned fabric inside a frame when the embroidery is done.
We've also had a rough ride recently with the landlord. I may have mentioned that I had to pay his Con Ed (electric) bill in January to prevent the lights in the hallway and the heat in the building from being shut off due to his negligence. I received a letter from Con Ed saying that by law I could pay the bill and deduct it from the rent. I left Landlord a message saying I would pay the bill unless he called me back and he never did (surprise surprise). When I paid the February rent I deducted it (almost $1,000) and included the bill. Well, he didn't take too kindly to my generosity. I got home from my friend's house last Friday and picked up the phone to hear Landlord muttering something vaguely obscene sounding. I honestly couldn't hear him at first. He's a chronic monotone mumbler, almost like a cross between land shark (classic SNL) and Frankenstein. "What?" I asked. And then he raised his voice so I could hear him crystal clear, "Give me my motherfucking money bitch or get the fuck out!" I froze, not being accustomed to people talking to me like this unless waiting for a subway. Like a maroon I said, "What?" for a second time. "Give me my motherfucking money or I'll call the cops and throw your ass out. I'm sick of you and your husband and all the motherfuckers in the building complaining. Give me my motherfucking money!" I hung up. I called 311 who connected me to the police and they came by within a few minutes (I guess it was a slow day). The officers told me that Landlord should be thanking me for paying his bill and that under no circumstances could he call them and have me thrown out. They also advised I put a deadbolt on the door since he's let himself in before. FF four days. Suddenly the apartment is freezing cold, particularly in the bedrooms where the baseboard heat no longer heats up despite the thermostat cranking up to 85. Our neighbors are having the same issue. Luckily the living room heat is on, although it doesn't go above 65. I had Joe leave Landlord three messages about the heat and needless to say he has not called back nor has anyone been by to fix the heat. I'm pretty tired of living here. We're going to Austin next Friday for Joe to take a teaching certification test and I'm looking forward to seeing all my old pals. I will post before then with some crafty goodness. For now, I'll leave you with one more cute Bub shot just in case my tale of harassment has gotten you down:

The elephant in the room

I'm full of good news this Sunday. The jerk whom I sold the boots to on ebay dropped his claim against me, although my negative feedback stands. I suppose I should just be happy that I don't have to deal with a refund and reselling the boots, but the whole thing just left a sour taste in my mouth. I don't know why but I am consistently disappointed when people act immorally. I celebrated the good news yesterday by making some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies:

These sure hit the spot. What's better than a homemade one of these? Not much, except perhaps a completed WIP:

How cute did he turn out? Pretty cute, although I will admit that it was tricky to sew the underside to the main portion of the body and it came out a bit wonky, especially around the trunk. I am going to try another because I think it's such a great animal that I plan on selling a few once I have the seams all straightened out. The giant houndstooth corduroy comes from good old reprodepot and the the felt on the back of his ears is from Brooklyn General over in Carroll Gardens. I loooooove this store so much, not only because it is owned and run by one of my wonderful midwives, but because they carry all the lines of fabric I love the most (Denyse Schmidt, Heather Bailey, etc.) and they also have deadstock vintage fabric and tons of other crafty goodies. They have a fantastic yarn selection too. I could pretty much just move in and be happy. In fact if I did, I could even give birth there pretty confidently (not that I plan on a repeat of that experience any time soon).
In apartment news, my landlord's wife and son moved out of the ground floor apartment a couple of weeks ago and now there is absolutely no way Con Ed or Keyspan will ever get a chance to read our meters. To add insult to injury there is no one taking out the garbage or changing the lightbulbs in the hallway. I attempted to take care of the garbage by buying some giant thick hefty bags and went to put them in the trash cans, but the cans are so full of decomposing food and sneakers and circulars that the smell almost knocked me out. I quickly tossed a bag on top of the compost and figured that the other two tenants and myself could just place our garbage in the remaining area and then we could drag the giant bags to the curb on garbage night. Problem solved right? The only problem with this scenario is that several bags of garbage piled in one large bag is pretty fucking heavy. I wasn't able to life it at all. To add salt to the wound of insult that already was added to injury the landlord rang our doorbell one night last week at 10:30 PM to get our phone number. This is a habit of his. He has rang my doorbell at inappropriate hours to get my phone number at least four times in the past eight years, so I was not surprised. In fact once when I didn't answer he LET HIMSELF IN and knocked on my bedroom door! Gross! Anyhow, this time around Joe went out to deal with him and told him about the garbage and the meters to which Landlord replied with a typical grunt (I swear he is a Neanderthal that could make serious bank up at the museum of natural history). Joe also told him that I paid his $987 Con Ed bill so that they would not turn off service in our halls or the empty apartment with the boiler that supplies our heat and hot water. To this he replied, "No, I think I paid that already." Oh, my mistake! I guess Con Ed sent me a letter telling me I had a legal right to pay the bill and deduct it from my rent just to mess with the landlord. And now for the piece de resistance: The windows. Mr. Landlord was also at our door to inform us that the infamous windows would be replaced on Saturday. The coldest day all winter. We told him absolutely not, so instead he is coming next Saturday. Don't even get me started. Well, I like to end these posts on a pleasant note, so here is shot of my sweet Bub in his tub.

About Violette Crumble

I tried typing this jibber jabber in the "About Me" section but it was too much text apparently.

1. Violette Crumble because I love chocolate candies, and Violet Crumble is one of my favorites. Adding an extra 'te' to the end of Violet makes me sound French even though in French the word would be spelled Violet. See's Candy is my favorite American chocolate, so if you live in CA and want to stalk me, please do so by sending boxes of See's.

2. I am a SAHM, and if you know what that is, you may be one too.

3. I am also a WAHM, and if you know what that is you are wasting time online right now instead of working.

4. I have a small business designing and embroidering baby clothes. My website www.bunbunbaby.com is up and running but in the middle of a major redesign, so please check it out but also check back in a month or so. I am also a special education teacher who is part way through her masters and not working because the salary would cancel out the cost of childcare in NYC.

5. I grew up here in NYC, but also lived in Portland OR for a rockin' rainy, cheap-eatin', bus-riding, Mt. Hood Skiing, college going five or six years. From there I lived in SF for a year, and then down to Austin TX, before coming home to a city that is no longer affordable for the middle class. I will gripe about this affordability issue a lot in this blog, so if you don't want to hear it, you have been warned.

4. I am a direct descendant of Nathaniel Greene, namesake of the neighborhood I live in. I think that this lineage entitles me to a free house on any street in the neighborhood that I choose.

5. I choose one of those houses that looks like it belongs in Lafayette Louisiana, over on Cumberland or Adelphi. Maybe even one of those giant victorians on Clinton Ave (but not one facing those ugly ass co-ops that were built as PJs).

6. If you own one of those homes and can spare to donate it to me, please call me right away. You can have my crummy rental apartment with the leaky windows that the landlord has been promising to fix for the past eight years.

If you can not tell that this photo is of a window that is because the window is being held closed with an umbrella and a French/English dictionary, as well as covered by plastic that has been adhered to the malfunctioning frame by staples and duct tape. The landlord last promised that the windows would be replaced NEXT WEEK. I will keep you posted on this, as it's become a running joke around here. P.S. If anyone can tell me how to post a photo anywhere I want in a post as opposed to at the top of the post, please let me know!


7. I have a lot of crafty projects going on. I will photograph them and post them next week.

8. I consider myself a very good baker, but not as good as Nancy F. who also lives in the hood. She has a real gift. Everything she has baked that I have tried is hands down the best version of whatever recipe she made. This includes red velvet cake, gingerbread cake, lemon poppy scones, ice cream, crazy dips with ingredients from Sahadis, and much more.
Today I made a lovely Italian almond plum tart to bring to our hosts' house for thanskgiving. I wish I had photographed it, it was divine. I plan on doing a serious post about the best baked goods in Brooklyn. You need to know where they are, and I can tell you. I've done the research.

9. I love my life and thank the powers that be for it every day, in between kvetching about the windows leaking and lugging the hefty toddler up the four flights of stairs along with the bags from Pathmark and Do Reams. I constantly seek ways to be as charitable as possible and to help the world by starting locally, but I also won't hesitate to call someone on the street an assface if they yell at me to put a hat on that baby when it's 70 freaking degrees out.