Tales from the plagrounds

Harlan wakes up around 6:30 each day, and is rearing to go by about 7:30. He tells me he is ready to go to the playground by bringing me one of my shoes and slamming it against my foot while moaning. Sometimes he brings me his own shoe and performs the same routine. By about 8:30 I load him into his stroller, pack the bag, and gently push the whole load down the flight of steps onto the street while all the nine to fivers rush past me on their way to the subway. We walk in the opposite direction, over to one of many parks in the neighborhood. On any given day Harlan and I have visited a minimum of three parks city wide.

Conversation from Cuyler Gore park last week: A five year old boy is playing on the jungle gym with Harlan (after school) and Harlan toddles past him commenting, "Doo doo doo doo". The boy turns to me in awe and exclaims, "He said doo doo!" I told him that Harlan is only a baby and that he doesn't really know what doo doo means. The boy looks at Harlan and says, "You don't know what doo doo is little baby? It's brown, and it comes out your butt, and it's disgusting, and it goes in the toilet. There. Now you know what doo doo is."

Today in Manhattan: Union square park at 9:00 AM, I unload Harlan from his stroller and as he runs towards the slide I push the stroller, now draped with farmer's market goodies, next to two women sitting on a bench. One of them is Gwenyth. She is dressed like any other mom at the playground at 9:00 AM on a Monday morning, messy hair, no makeup, sunglasses, a flowing long cotton dress and flat sandals, coffee cup in hand. I look around for a toddling Apple to play with Harlan, but see only a storm of elementary school aged children running amok. Harlan plays alone on the mini jungle gym and eventually a couple of teachers gather up the class and form a line. Gwenyth goes with them and I realize that her "baby girl" is already school aged and she is with the class today for some reason. I suppose I need to keep up with celebrity news in order to be better informed about the ages of their offspring. Around noon in Tompkins Square Park I see my old friend Heidi and her sweet girl Beatrix who is running around barefoot with a ladybug ball (Beatrix, not Heidi). I brag to her of my star sighting and she says that in her neighborhood she sees Julianne Moore almost daily with her adorable son. She also once came across "SJP" at a water park on the west side. All the other moms were in their terry cloth sweats and suddenly SJP showed up in platform heels and a freaking Birkin bag (did I even spell that right?) I guess if you have a bag that cost several thousand dollars you don't mind if it gets schmutzed up at the water playground. Hmmm.

Last Saturday my good pal Ellen, her husband Ed and son Zack met up with me and some friends over in Prospect Park for a breakfast picnic. The allergies were fierce, but the grass was lush and filled with clovers and it was one of those mornings where everyone just feels that life is good:

Old & Pretty Things to See

I have been working this weekend on my embroidered valentine (a bit late) for Joe. In the meantime, I went through more of my stuff to weed out what I want to sell/give away and keep. These are mostly keepers, a couple are up for trade (here or on flickr).

First, this autograph book from the late 1800s that my father got for me at a yard sale on the north fork of Long Island a few years back.

I love how people used to write. When did the horrible bubble writing trend begin? I wish so badly that I could master an old fashioned style of penmanship, but my handwriting has always suffered from a bad case of sloppyitis. My second grade teacher would leave the room and come back in with a stethoscope around her neck and speak in a German accent, calling herself "Doctor Handwriting." She claimed to be Amy's (our regular teacher) identical twin sister. We all totally fell for it by the way. Doctor Handwriting taught us how to write our letters in upper case, lower case and cursive. When your writing looked good she would scribble, "You have a case of beautifulitis" on the top of your paper. More often than not my comment included the word sloppyitis no matter how hard I tried. Some things never change unfortunately.

The newspaper clipping below is carefully tucked into the book. I love it because it advertises a sale for clothing on 14th St. off of 5th Ave. When I grew up a few blocks south of there in the seventies my mother used to walk me up to 14th St. for cheap clothes too. Now Union Square is a trendy strip in NYC, completely overrun with so many tourists and NYU students that I can barely push my stroller up the street en route to visit my mother. The cheapy stores have been replaced by Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Diesel, and a few other stores that I'm actually not so unhappy to see (Anthropolgie is a few blocks up at 17th).

Some of the features include long ostrich feathers for $2.79, hot water bottles for .39 cents, coutil corsets for .50 cents, women's lace petticoats .65 cents, and spring suitings ("Natty wool, finish dress fabrics that look like all wool and are in similar designs of checks and plaids- black and white, tan-and-white, and other blendings- 27 inches wide instead of 14.") These suitings are priced at 7 3/4. I can't figure out if that means $7.75 or if they had 3/4 of a cent back then.

The following patterns are up for grabs. I'll swap with anyone who wants, or give them to anyone who feels they must have them:
A cute dress for anyone who can actually go bra less.
Anyone brave enough to make a cowgirl shirt?
Cute things I will never ever make for myself.

The following patterns have been collected over the years when I dreamed of having a little girl. I don't think I will, but one never knows for sure.



These are for me to make eventually:
My dream shirt!
Can you see me and Lucy and Ethel in this one?
Not sure how this would actually look on me. It could end up looking like a grown woman stuffing herself into a little girl's dress. Maybe I could skip the ruffled hem.

Next on my to-do list is buying fabric for the wrap dress with embroidered trim that I'm making (posted a couple of posts below). At first I thought it could be cool to go to the African fabric store a few blocks away on Livingston St. and use some lovely African pattern with a white or black yoke on the dress. My friend Sarah lived in Ghana for a year and came back with so many beautiful dresses that she had made over there. They are all cut just like forties dresses with covered buttons and everything, but they are made in the coolest local fabrics. One is a tan background with weird Coke cans all over it. Now I'm not so sure I want to use any type of patterned fabric for this dress. I might just use a solid colored cotton and focus on embroidering the yoke and sewing ric rack on the edges like in the picture on the pattern cover.

Finally, here are a couple of photos of the neighborhood taken this week. I started posting my neighborhood pics in a Ft. Greene flickr group recently and on Friday I came home to an e-mail from someone at the Brooklyn Paper asking if they could buy one of my photos for the next week's issue. I was really flattered. It turned out that the woman who e-mailed me was on a deadline and I didn't get back to her in time, but she said she'd like to keep looking at my photos to use on in the future. Woo hoo!

Fulton and S. Oxford. I was trying to get a shot juxtaposing the old signs on the corner with the giant condo skyscraper going up in the background. You can't really see the skyscraper in progress, but it's a nice shot anyhow.

These two are out of Harlan's bedroom window. Snow and sleet were upon us.

I have to throw in these pictures of Harlan eating a waffle:

WIPs and Da Hood Hospital

I'll begin by diving right into fun and crafty stuff. I'll get to the kavetching afterwards.

My Work in Progress list of personal projects as well as business related projects is totally out of control. It's so long that I feel like I am never going to accomplish anything until I can get a handle on it, and that's part of the point of a crafting blog isn't it? So here goes, a complete list of Personal (not work related) WIPs which I will keep in the sidebar until they are complete and then I'll have a new sidebar category of finished projects. That'll keep me crackin' the whip on myself won't it?

1. Harlan's embroidered nautical/pirate/mermaid theme quilt
2. Joe's embroidered valentine's day card
3. Aranzi Aranzo cat made from pink cashmere sweater
4. Felt and cotton chick
5. Pear fabric pillow:

6. Amy Butler fancy pillow:

7. Log cabin pot holders with superbuzzy fabric
8. Robot fabric shortalls for Harlan:

9. Other superbuzzy fabric shortalls for Harlan
10. Matching sun hat for Harlan
11. Crochet amigurmi dog:


12. Zakka purse with clear plastic handles
13. Clothes for myself using the following vintage patterns. Bitter Betty's post about sewing a garment every other week from vintage patterns has inspired me to light a flame under my own vintage loving ass:
This wrap dress first:


Then this dress which isn't vintage but could be:


Then this awesomely cute romper (I do a lot of romping you know);


Then this sleeveless top:

And maybe even one of these elegant thirties dresses to wear the next time I haul the stroller down the stairs and over to Target for some tin foil and diapers:



That will definitely keep me busy for a while.

Now, on to the kavetching. After the barfolicious plane ride to Austin and a week of feeling feverish and struck with The Naush, poor Harlan became quite feverish himself. This was last Friday. By Sunday he was still crying relentlessly and began trembling. I took him to the local emergency room (at what Jennifer rightfully calls Da Hood Hospital) two blocks away. My sweet boy was burning up with a temp of 104.9. To make a long story as short as possible we spent a little over 24 hours in the pediatric wing of Brooklyn Hospital which had very nice and competent doctors and nurses. I won't torture anyone by describing some of the tests my 16 month old had to endure, but needless to say he is feeling much better. The doctor thinks it was a bacterial infection in his blood (how the hell does one get this?) But the test results still are not back. When I got up to Harlan's room I was immediately struck by the bright overhead lights and the blaring noise. My roommate and her husband were simultaneously listening to music on their laptop and watching TV at full volume while holding their 1 month old daughter and bottle feeding her. I asked meekly if they could please turn the volumes "down or off" and they reluctantly turned the volumes down. Harlan kept crying. I burst into tears. A nurse came in and told me to stop crying because it would scare the baby even more than he already was. I did as I was told. Luckily Joe came by soon after and asked the couple nicely to turn off the music and television so that Harlan could get some rest. They did. He asked if we could turn off the overhead lights too so that Harlan could go to sleep. My roommate said, "Well, I'm not ready to go sleep." I started crying again and caught myself. All night long TVs were playing in adjoining rooms. All day the next day TVs blasted. At one point most of them were literally playing an episode of Jerry Springer featuring people who were having their babies DNA tested to prove paternity. It was a bad stereotype come to life. I went next door to ask the person if he could turn it down so Harlan could try to take a nap. It was a very young man with a newborn baby in his lap (who knows where the poor mother was), holding a bottle and watching Jerry and his guests hoot and holler at full volume. He was happy to turn down the volume but the whole scene made me feel a bit numb to be honest. The one saving grace of our stay at Da Hood Hospital was the playroom which was open for two hours. There were a ton of toys and a guitarist named Bill who sang songs for the kids and handed out shakers for them to keep. We found out about the playroom earlier in the day from a young girl named Wroed who was there with her 17 month old baby sister Muzma and their mother. Muzma had asthma as did the majority of the children at the hospital. Wroed was about eight years old and super sweet and smiley. She helped her little sister play with Harlan in the hosptial hallway while their mother tried to get some rest. She told us about the playroom and how it was her favorite place in the hospital and she never wanted to leave it and go back to their room. Joe drew a wonderful portrait of Wroed for her using crayons while Bill sang songs about ducks and Dora the Explorer and for a little while we all forgot we were in the pediatric wing of Da Hood Hospital. Hopefully we won't have to return.

Eatin' + makin' is what I crave

Born on a mountain Raised in a cave Bikin' and F'in is all I crave.

Huh? Why would I have typed such vulgar nonsense you ask? Well, it's because when I was about ten my father bought a motorcycle and our neighbor whom we kept running into would say to my father, "I got the best present for you, you're going to love it!" When he finally brought the gift by it turned out to be a refrigerator magnet with that very poetic life-vision emblazoned on it. My father was appaled. I found it hilarious. What this episode has to do with my blog is simple: Eatin' and makin' is all I crave these days. Okay, I realize how that might sound to anyone as scatalogically inclined as I am, but I meant making stuff . Today I had my very first Jessica Day where Joe took Harlan out for an adventure and I got the chance to do whatever I please. This day will now occur once a month. This is my new year's resolution, along with monthly Joe Day and monthly Joe and Jessica Date night. Anyhow, I had originally made plans to go into Manhattan and hang out with a friend of mine, but I was not able to get in touch with her. Instead I relaxed and read my brand new premiere issue of Cook's Country- the new country-cousin version of the high-brow Cook's Illustrated.

Now don't get me wrong, I am still a big fan of Cook's Illustrated, the magazine where the editors have their very own test kitchen, where they try every method thinkable for different recipes and tell their readers what worked and what didn't. The end result is always a perfect description of how to cook/bake just about anything. I am also recently addicted to their T.V. show America's Test Kitchen. Without this cooking team I would be making dry chicken and gluey lemon squares amongst other atrocities. The Cook's Country quickly stole my heart with its wonderful late-fifties font and design. Even the recipes reminded me a bit of a lot of foods my grandmother loved to make, dishes like apricot Jello with clementimes in it (although my grandmother would probably omit the fresh clementimes). Check out this recipe for the Monte Cristo. Everyone in France eats them, why not me?

After deciding to try their chicken marsala recipe this week I got to working on my new Dreamweaver 8 tutorial. I have to say I am feeling a bit like a computer geek for loving this new web design program so much. I never thought I would love anything remotely related to programming, but learning about how to set CSS style sheets makes my heart soar. I can't wait to completely redesign my website. Bun Bun Babythreads is seriously a "D.I.Y" venture from top to bottom. When I was finished working I decided to look into my WIP drawer and get a crackin'. I started to embroider a pirate/sea theme quilt for Harlan when I was pregnant. At the rate I'm going I realize that the quilt will be a twin size instead of a crib size, but this is probably better since he will get more use out of it this way. Here are the squares I have so far. The designs are from Sublime Stitching and some vintage patterns that I have on hand.

I'm going to use some type of nautical fabric for every other square and for a border. I saw one I like over at superbuzzy, and some at Atelier Jade , but I can't commit quite yet.
After deciding on a few more designs I want to embroider I put the squares back in the drawer and pulled out this vintage stuffed animal pattern I've had laying around for a while:

I decided on making one of the small elephants. I got out some great stretch cord houndstooth fabric from reprodepot and decided to make this the primary fabric. I'm going to put some mustard wool felt on the back of his ears and use it for his tail. I am out of stuffing though, so a trip to Canal St. is a must this week. I wish there was a damn craft supply store in NYC. Where on earth do people go to get things like pellets and animal eyes around here? I have to get mine out in Riverhead when visiting my mother in Long Island. Oh well, enough complaining. How can I gripe when it was such a great day?

P.S. Did anyone on my block catch the pile of dogcrap with the G.W.B. flag stuck on top of it with a toothpick? Pretty rad.

Morning over Fort Greene

When Park Avenue moves to the hood.

Oooooh baby! Vicky's moves in up the street at the Atlantic Center. Now I can buy my diamond push up bras without having to go into town. I remember when the Atlantic Center was a full square block of dirt and parked cars owned by LIRR employees. The rumors flew around Fort Greene about what would be built when the mall finally opened. A movie theater would be great! How about a bookstore? Yeah, I heard Barnes and Nobel's was going to be there for sure. Well, with the exception of Target (whose entrance is not on the Fort Greene neighborhood side, ensuring that it is not in fact a real neighborhood store) everything else in this new mall is a real bomb. Chuck-e-Cheese (or "Chunky Cheese's" as I've had strangers on the street ask me for directions to), Mandee's and the Men's Warehouse were not exactly what anyone I know here was hoping for. I admit I was excited for the Stone Cold Creamery to open, and even a bit giddy to discover that the forty three teenagers behind the counter periodically break into song when the mood strikes them. But then after about the third time I purchased my small I like it sized cup of oatmeal cookie and found myself visiting the bathroom several times too many the following day, I realized that the love affair had come to an end.
Now there is another rumor flying around the hood. Word on the street is that a 7-11 is planned on opening in place of the dry cleaners on Lafayette and S. Cumberland, directly across the street from the beloved Lafayette Grocery & Dairy. When I heard the news I thought it must be a joke. A 7-11 in our neighborhood? On this beautiful street filled with historic brownstones and smoke filled chimneys? Isn't there some kind of law against such blasphemy?


I can't say I don't entirely believe that it's possible. Recently a restaurant who shall remain nameless so that I don't face any type of libel suit has moved in right next to our beloved Academy diner. All this new place sells is burgers and fries, except that if you want to buy a burger and fries at this new place, it will cost you almost $10 instead of half that amount if you just walked into Academy instead. The staff at Academy are friendly as can be and the food is as tasty as any good old Greek diner fare. All I have to say about this new $10 place is THE NERVE of some people. Actually, the other thing I have to say about all of these new developments is contained in the title of this entry. A while back on a local message board a new neighborhood tenant asked for advice about a neighbor who played loud music on the street. Another poster replied, "That's what you get when Park Avenue moves to the hood". It was by far the best post I had read on this message board where people are friendly and generally non-confrontational. It's always good when someone is not afraid to shake things up and tell it like it is. I met the poster of this great line a couple of weeks ago and ran into her again today. I fessed up to remembering her post and then realized that perhaps it was another case of Violette-Crumle-foot-in-mouthitis as she simply stared ahead and said that may have been her. Oh well, I never claimed to be entirely diplomatic.

It's a beautiful fall in the neighborhood

The global warming or, "Climate change" as the republicans would like us to call it, is working out pretty nicely this fall in Brooklyn (as long as you don't think about the dying polar bear cups up north). I am seriously adverse to cold weather. I do not understand why this is since I was born and raised right here, but my body practically shuts down when the thermometer dips below 40 degrees. My nose turns red and my fingers and toes freeze and turn purple. Part of this can be attributed to Renaud's syndrome, which unfortunately it appears Harley J. has inherited. Whatever the reason, me and cold do not mix almost as much as me and dark days don't mix. Put the two together (cold and dark) and there is very little chance I would do well in a Scandinavian country which is really too bad since my politics and their politics seem to go hand in hand. I do not mind paying higher taxes for the return of universal health care and scant poverty. There are many other aspects of Scandinavian living that appeal to me (the safety, the landscape, the fish) but sadly I know that I would end up going shithouse crazy like a Shakespearean Dane who just can't take it any longer. Living in Portland OR for five years gave me a taste of how little I can endure dark days. There are few experiences I hate more than waking up and having to turn the lights on, and in good old PDX one has to do this all winter long practically. I wish this were not the case because Portland has so many wonderful things going for it: No sale tax, lovely outdoors, a great bus system, world class thrifting, amazing food, the best live music west of Austin, and of course tons of loons just dying to talk to me on the bus. I would move back there in a heartbeat if it was not for those long dark rainy winter days. All the Prozac in the world would not be able to keep my head out of the oven.

That said, fall in Brooklyn has been unseasonably warm and sunny and I could not be happier.

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.