What's old is new

I went to hock my wears on S. Congress today in the Guerro's outdoor area, along with my friend Jody who also sells hand embroidered and appliqued children's clothes. Unfortunately, today was one of the only super cold and windy days in Austin this year. The winds were so strong that our entire tables and garment racks kept dumping over, so we packed up and decided to have a mamas' day out. Luckily for each of us we sold a couple of items in the short time we were there, covering the cost of the spot, and we scored a free make-up day next Saturday!

After a tasty lunch and couple of drinks we checked out the new old-fashioned candy store and ice cream fountain shop: Big Top. I've been watching them decorate the shop with giant circus posters for a while now, anticipating their grand opening:


There were wall to wall candies- the hard to find kind that you thought you would never see again!

The ones that immediately grabbed me were these chocolaty morsels, filled with liquid marshmellow:

Because the store just opened I knew that whatever I bought would be super fresh and I was not disappointed one bit. This Valomilk melted in my mouth, and the chocolate was surprisingly good quality. As soon as I saw these maple peanut balls in the bulk bins I knew I was a gonner:

What they lack in aesthetic value they more than make up for in taste and texture. Again, they were super fresh tasting. "Num num num" as Harlan would say (and as he did say when he got hold of the bag I left on the counter). Less appealing for taste value, but more appealing for ha ha value were these:

I also picked up some cinnamon toothpicks for my mom since we'll be seeing her up in NYC very soon:

Last week I received a surprise book from a secret friend of mine who works at Conde Nast and always hooks me up.
The new Son of Stitch 'N Bitch book by Debbie Stroller. The patterns were overwhelmingly cool and very clever. My favorites include the Lucha Libre ski masks:

The High Fidelity sweater (look- the pattern across the chest looks like 45 rpm records):

Joe wants me to make him this hat:


I guess I'll have to add it to my super long To Do list. Luckily I'll be able to get at that list soon. I've begun the Rose & Duke 2008 collection and have decided that once they're up and the site is launched (early Feb.) I'm going to relax and only fill web orders until the summer at which point I'll begin producing for next year's Christmas fair season. I seem to have spent all my "free" time over the past year working on embroideries and other business related stuff and suddenly I have no time to make anything for myself or my family. Suddenly it's no longer fun, and surprisingly unprofitable for the amount of effort involved. I may keep up with one retail store in Brooklyn and one here, but otherwise I would rather try to concentrate on the Christmas season when I can do what I've been doing on a more frequent level (I missed the deadlines to apply to a bunch of good craft fairs here this past season) and on web orders. This way I'll get all the profit myself and will also be able to make the whole thing more of a part time venture than it has been so far. I want to keep it fun! That said, here is a sneak peak of some of what I'm making for next year. A few of the designs are expanded and more detailed versions of the appliques I made at the beginning of last summer (see some old pears here.) These old applique designs were the first to sell at Stitch and the most fun (and least time consuming) to create. Bingo!
Happy Cherry Hoodie:

Happy Flan Onesie:

Happy peach face shirt:

A pair of pears:


I have a few more in the works as well, mostly inspired by Japanese sweets that show up in my craft books or on bento boxes or Decole goodies. I've seen a couple of crafters out there make really great stuffed versions of these sweets. Check out Cutseypoo and her egg tarts, Cocokoala's needle felted critters, She Like's Cute's softie pins. I can't get enough. What did old people do before the internets showed up? I feel like when Joe and I one day tell Harlan tales of how we grew up with telephones that were attached to walls and no internet, that he will think of these stories the same way we thought of the ones our parents told of growing up sitting around a radio on a Saturday night, and what they watched the first time they saw a television. Joe recently had such a conversation with one of his classes of high school seniors. A particularly funny student asked him if they had cars when he was a kid, or they had dirt. Perhaps I should call Bill Cosby and tell him this "kids are funny" anecdote. Perhaps he's already reading it.

Half Violet Crumble

So it turns out my camera is fine but the lens is broken. Lucky for me my father's birthday gift to me just arrived today. It's a micro lens and it's taking me a little practice to get the hang of. Here is one shot I took with it of a couple of the price signs I had on my table at Stitch:


This is a shot I forgot to post last week. It's my failed attempt at making honeycomb with chocolate coating for the adult's goody bags at Harlan's birthday party.


I made the honeycomb three times, all according to Nigella's cooking show. She never mentioned a temperature for the confection to reach and thus I never ended up with a successful honeycomb. Lucky for me my friend Kim can steer me in the right direction in time for Christmas.

I've been oot and aboot

What a flaky blogger I have been, although to be fair the past month has been extremely un-computer friendly to me. We spent a week up at lake Muskoka at Joe's family's lake house that has been in the family for generations. While packing for the trip Joe recommended that I bring along some of my craft projects since there was going to be so much time to relax. Being the know-it-all that I can't help but be, I did not pack anything recreational other than a pile of New Yorkers that I have not had the opportunity to read. This was wise. While all of the family members at the house with us lounged on the dock and rode around in sail boats and Kayaks, Joe and I pretty much did what we do on a daily basis; we took care of Harlan. At twenty months the big lug has only been really walking about three months, and all of it has been on solid cement ground. The rocky steep ground on this Canadian island was not familiar turf, and so we spent a lot of time running around the porch and playing with grandpa's plastic clogs. Luckily grandpa was a good sport and enjoyed having a charming toddler take his shoes on and off repeatedly, and occasionally offer them to his cousin if she happened to be passing through. Not a lot of spare time to work on crafting, but it was certainly relaxing and always great to get away from Brooklyn in the summer. And did I even mention that they sell English candy in Canada? Yup. I got to go to the Cadbury outlet store. What could be better than that? The truck stop availability of maple or cinnamon Kit Kats? Perhaps. The abundance at the supermarket of those crazy English potato chip flavors like dill pickle and ketchup? Maybe. But as anyone knows, it's hard to beat the English Cadbury. I went to the outlet store in desperate search of the chocolate spread that Dottie Angel is hoarding over on the west coast. Alas, they did not have any, but I did leave with a shopping bag full of candy. I hope they have a good dentist in Austin.

Right now I am getting in my beach time at my mother's house in Long Island. The apartment is half packed and we move out on the twenty fourth. As you can imagine, not a whole lot of crafting going on these days. P.S. Check out this shot of Harlan in Canada with what we called "boat face" on. He loved riding in the boat, but always got this super serious face while the boat was actually in motion.

Mas Pantalons por El Nino

I made these pull-on pants for Harlan last week using some dyed quilting muslin and some cute Japanese fabric for the pockets. My sewing skills leave a lot to be desired (including mastering machine tension as you can see from the back pocket, and sewing in a straight line) and each of you is a witness to my journey. The pattern doesn't have any pockets but Harlan has a Lucky Wang pair that look similar to these with pockets I like so I traced them and cut out the ones you see on the front. I put one square pocket on the back for Harlan to keep his wallet in. Or maybe a pack of Kleenex considering he's been miserably sick for the past week. Again with the high fever and runny nose and drooling (Joe calls him Rudy Drooliani).

These are some lovely cream-filled easter eggs from my favorite NYC chocolatier, Li-lac. My mother used to take me there each Easter when I was little and although they have been sold to a new ownership and moved location they are still finger-lickin' good. Joe picked these up for me one night when he was near their store at Central Market in Grand Central Station. It was a great surprise. They are filled with chocolate mousse, chocolate fudge (their least good filling in my opinion), marzipan (the best marzipan around), maple-walnut butter cream (SFG or, So Fucking Good) and chocolate butter cream.

Speaking of easter candy, have you seen Mariko's recipe for easter candy cake? I think I may need to make it after easter when the goods go on sale.

Also, my four-month pledge to not buy any new clothes but to make or re-fashion old ones begins tomorrow. Check out the Wardrobe Refashion blog to see what people are doing.