loving

from teen vogue:



i want to sink my teeth into those 'gems' and i can't wait to get my hands on some leather so i can make myself a 'marni' necklace :)

my weekend

It snowed in NYC last night - for what I think might be the last time this season. I also had a great time on Saturday night for crolby's birthday. We all contributed to an art piece, heaven/hell.



oh i also made a little somethin' but i haven't taken a picture yet...

cataloging

I sometimes run out of yarn in the middle of a project then panic because i forgot to keep the little wrapping that tells you the name of the yarn. I'm not really sure how people recall their yarn. no one else seems to have this problem. I think it's because of my lack of planning when it comes to patterns. anyway, i came up with a solution - first plan my patterns better - second catalogue my yarn. that way, if i ever want to make that scarf that i made way back when, i can look up the yarn i made it with.

friday eye candy

I meant to bring you something different today, but i don't have the right picture to show you what i'm up to. So instead you get, friday eye candy!


i need these odyn jeans. i do. and need is the correct word, yes.

recent aquisitions

A few weeks ago, stu and i picked this credenza(?) up off the street. We were a few drinks deep and the thing was really really heavy. but worth it. It now houses my fabrics and such. :D Also on Tuesday when I returned to work, my friendly UPS man brought me a box full of yarn, from smiley's.

"the evolution of marc"

I trolled through the marc by marc show to share with you all (since i ignored fashion week in ny - and milan, and now london) and I was met with a suprise. Not necessarily in the clothing, although cute and very marc as usual, but with the designer himself. I'll just show you.
i shared it with amy this morning and she said, 'i love this evolution of marc you're showing me." So maybe you'll love it too.

young marc - so naive, so sweet, so degrassi high...
FALL RTW 2000


grown up marc - so experienced, so loved, so graduate student marc
FALL RTW 2003


everyone loves and knows me marc - so coveted, so successful, so bloated marc.
FALL RTW 2006



and now for the shocker. This picture is only one year later. I seriously saw this pic on style.com and thought, 'that must be mis-captioned.' the mj amy so accurately described as:



marc "ken doll" jacobs - so tan, so buff, so tight shirted.
FALL RTW 2007


what happened to our hipster nerd marc jacobs??
well he made money i guess. i mean, have you seen his store? it's mobbed only in the way people mob stores to stock up on bottled water during high storm alerts...

weekend breakfast

Many people eat eggs as part of their brunch or breakfast, scrambled, soft boiled, omelettes etc. I'm personally a fan of eggs overeasy - full cooked whites and soft gooey yolk. But that can get old and I'm not a huge fan of cleaning the frying pan. :) Anyway, I thought I would share one of my new methods of preparing eggs - perhaps my new favorite as well.

Baked Eggs - 1 serving
Butter
Cream or whole milk
2 eggs
Salt & pepper
Any extras you may want to add. I added minced tomatoes and onions.

With your oven on broil, add a tiny pat of butter and coat the bottom of the ramekin with milk. This helps prevent the eggs from burning too quickly before it's thoroughly cooked. Throw that in the oven. Add 2 eggs to a bowl salted and peppered. When the milk is bubbling and the butter is melted slowly pour the eggs into the ramekin and toss in a few teaspoons of your extras. (I've used smoked salmon in the past as well.) It should only take about 5-8 minutes to cook depending on your oven and honestly where your shelf is in your oven. It should look bubbly and brown when done - test with a fork. Be sure to watch these little guys, the top can burn before the eggs are fully cooked inside. It's also very important to have the eggs ready before the milk starts bubbling because the mixture can burn very quickly.

enjoy your long weekend!

Calgon, stomp that bitch for her sweater.

So I caved and went to the Barney's Warehouse Sale. I knew I was going to regret not bringing a camera to take a picture for you guys. I went with full intention of turning right around if there were any lines of any sort. Last night was WAY too cold to wait in line to shop.
In my life in nyc, I've been to this sale only once before. I was really young and my mother and sister toted me along on their venture - not realizing the trauma I would incur, forever scarred and unable to shop at sample sales. But with much training and practice with crowds, last night I felt brave enought to shop my little heart out.

It was reserved pandemonium. There were designer dresses on the floor, shoes stuck under benches, cashmere tossed about like rags! But there was no fighting, no pushing, no scratching, stealing, biting, flame throwers, shanks or hairpulling. It was a tight crowd of excuse me's and so sorry!'s. And unlike that first time I attended, hardly a naked boob or granny panty in sight (for those of you who don't know, there are no dressing rooms at these things).

Ok to what you guys really want to hear about, the goods. There were about 4 library stacks full of shoes - from size 6-11. There were a lot of good shoes. But they were all about 50% off. Now if you are familiar with the shoe fare at Barney's, this still leaves you with $350 boots and $200 pumps. But no matter, as I closed my eyes and quickly made my way to my real reason for going, a winter coat. I passed racks of Marc by marc, theory, DVF, barney's label, trovata, and various other italians i've never had the pleasure of meeting. While I hesitate to discourage you I must be honest - hearing those labels might excite you but the items those labels were showing were either the season's rejects or really just not cheap enough. I can't be sure as I was lifted by the force of the crowd and wound up in the coat dept, but I think there were racks of beautiful black stiff silk skirts, YSL? de la Renta? hm. all I can say is that I caught the price tag of $1400 - sale price.
In the coat dept, I tried on a few sad tweed numbers, for some reason there were PLENTY of these coats to go around. They came in green, brown, and an odd magenta color that was flattering no one. I sighed and decided to see if I could find myself a consolation prize in the jean section. There were some sevens and levis and blah blah blah - i'm so over digging for jeans. (sidebar - why does it feel like every woman i know, including myself, are consistently looking for a 'better' pair of jeans?) I moved on wondering if there were some baby clothes I could get for my soon-to-be-a-mommy sister, there was nuthin. Unless you REALLY wanted that random half-ugly $80 t-shirt for your infant and are so excited that it was on sale - which really, i wasn't that person.

Ok, so right. At this point I'm like, 1. Why are there SO many korean women here?? 2. I need to get the fuck out of here. I ended up walking through the racks one last time, "maybe i missed something. I didn't deal with those people to walk out of here with nothing!!" This thought is why these things are dangerous - half the people are like "i can't deal, leave now." and the other half are like, "well wtf. i came here, i'm leaving here with some discount designer somethin!" I can be either, depending... Well it turns out, I did miss something - a black camel hair winter coat original price $850, then 80% off. (do the math, i'm not divulging that easily.) It was labeled as 50% off and I was about to drop it back to the masses, when I decided to become my mother for a moment and ask for a price check. Well I'm glad I did, bc not only did I get a compliment from the woman who helped me on my selection but she told me it was more than half off of the written sale price. Slash slash slash!! If you know me, it's very "me" as some would say. Belted, dramatic collar, buttons etc. but a soft silhouette and comfy.

All in all, my advice is, if you want to go to this sale drop what you're doing and go NOW. Because none of those women I saw last night were going to let any gem pass them by.

ohhh phaidon

money for books seems so much more sensible than money for bags or oh i don't know ... shoes. I am still going to assume there are many out there can feel my need for all those things in my life.

A compromise perhaps, with a knitting pattern book and a beautiful recipe book.


Phaidon's Breakfast Lunch and Tea from Rose Bakery



Twinkle Big City Knits by Wenlan Chia

I'm reaching

On Wednesday evening, I had almost a whole bottle of white wine and I thought to myself - I really love American Idol. I should really blog about why American Idol is such an awesome show.
Then the next morning I was sober and I realized that there is no way I could make that work.

Then I came across beautiful furniture sites that sell in the UK and Sweden. And I thought, 'hey my reader(s) might want to hear about that!' But then I realized they were all from another blog so I should just hook you up with this hot blog happy accidents. (Gina those lamps made me think of you. Get on that sh*t!)

Basically the point is - that i'm reaching. I'm trying to find things to give you(s). This is what I've come up with ... Buddy, Walter and Jester.







Cmon. Everyone loves stuff on my cat.

little world

I know these have been posted on many blogs but I had to share my enthusiasm. When I have some extra money to blow (as if.) these will be up on my list.

EcoSphere is a calming balance of earth, water, air and life—all parts of a working self-sufficient ecosystem that’s much more than science; it’s an original work of art. Makes a unique gift for those who contemplate the mystery of life on our planet and enjoy the serenity of nature.
The delicate coexistence of animal and plant life (red shrimp, algae and microbes) thrives in the handblown glass sphere of seawater. It’s easy to care for—just provide sufficient light and enjoy the aesthetic blend of science and art, beauty and balance. This technology was developed by NASA scientists as part of a growing initiative to study our planet’s biosphere.

everyday food

I haven't given you a favorite product in a while. My per annum city diary saves me almost on a daily basis. The museum listings, the major shops and the maps in the back i would be dead without. It even has a handy 'address calculator' - you know you've run out without writing down the cross street and spent most of the time trudging across town. for instance, if the address is 108 5th ave. you have to drop the last number - 10 - halve - 5 then add 11 = that's 16th st. woohoo!

The number you add varies of course which is why i would never ever ever remember that equation for all the avenues in ny. and i love the gilded edges on the calendar's tissuey paper :D Also, how could i forget, the handy dandy subway map, requiring no unfolding or hanging over someone on the train trying not to get your boobs in their face.

oh and also it's under $20 - they have them at kate's, ai friedman etc. I got my calendar for 2007 in pink this time.

perfection

One of earth's most perfect foods is ramen. I get a lot of looks from non-Asians about loving ramen. They think of the dry packaged stuff sold for $.60 in a bodega and of the food that kept them alive during their college years. This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about soft fresh noodles quickly softened in juicy, meaty broth sitting in the company of chunks of soft, fall apart in your mouth, fatty pork. Then peppered with chopped crispy scallions and often mushrooms to add a earthy smokey flavor. Top it off with a piece or slices of dried seaweed and a raw egg that poaches just enough to have a half cooked yolk that runs in your broth and you are in heaven.



In light of this information I've just shared with you I must admit something. That dried packaged stuff? Has a really special place in my heart. I love all the varieties - ichiban, kitsune, shinramen... so on so forth. I consider them a meal and cannot be convinced otherwise. So, I do have to point out the death of the man who shared his invention of ramen - keeping so many of us happy and fed.

monday dinner:
buffalo mozz. with stewed chunky tomatoes & fresh basil
over crispy chicken breast and pasta
(some would call this chicken parm but it really was so much more. ;P )

frenchie

since i can't afford to go to the french countryside right now, i can pretend can't i??


clockwise from left top: linen tablecloth, salt tub, enamel milk pots, lavendar water, utility box, door wedge all from the linen works.

on a food note, i cook dinner about 4 times a week (this is minus my past vacation week over xmas/new years where i indulged in late late brunches outside) - and i thought maybe i'd start including some of the things i make since it takes up a lot of my time and cooking is something i'm quite interested in. I am not going to start turning this into a food blog because others have that covered. but it wouldn't be such a reach to assume that people who appreciate art, craft and have a weakness for self-indulgence also enjoy a good plate of food.
no pictures yet.

sunday dinner:
side of curry pilaf rice
horseradish crusted pork chop
over roasted fennel with red onion

not so safe for work non sequitur

just thought i'd share with you my top three lady crushes. dita von teese, salma hayek, and tracee ellis ross.


sorry for the slighty pornographic dita..

underthings

I'm a fan of pretty underwear. Who isn't really? But where are all the great lingerie companies that pricewise, lie in between the gap ($15 for three pairs) and agent provacateur ($300 for a bra)?? Not in the states I'm going to assume. Sure, I find a boutique here and there which carries lovely brands like natori, etc. - such as Sleep in wburg - but it's hard to come by.

I've found a couple of UK brands online and one in particular I'd like to share with you. St. Tropez! They even have cute tromphe l'oeil swimsuits, the camera strap is the strap of the bathing suit. :)

St. Tropez Leisure formed in 2001 by Sarah Fung and Benna Harry, who met studying for a Jewellery degree at Central Saint Martin’s Art & Design College in London. Disappointed because they could not find knickers that were sexy & cool, they designed their own. Casually they dreamt-up simple knicker & vest sets, which had a huge response. This included Swimwear the following season. Five years on, Sarah is now the sole director of the company & works with a group of friends in a London-based studio, where a majority of pieces are manufactured in-house, and also works as a freelance trend & design consultant..

Esquire Magazine UK featured St. Tropez Leisure's 'Wild In The Country' collection in a glossy 16 page pull-out supplement in October 2004 & celebrity clients have included Kate Moss, Cameron Diaz, Zoe Ball & Jade Jagger. Emma Bunton quoted in Instyle magazine that St. Tropez Leisure was on her 'Wish-list' ... and TV series 'Sex in the City' also had Carrie in a Jade Green Silk Motif Chiffon Bra. More recently St. Tropez Leisure lingerie has been used for an adaptation of the book 'The Devil Wears Prada', staring Meryil Streep. Sarah was also interviewed for UK television series 'How to look Good Naked' and was featured in a photo-shoot for Evening Standard magazine, December 2005.

new york's take

on the craft store?
Bocage. They used to live on the lower east side near the wburg bridge but alas, they've apparently outgrown the spot and only live online. That's good news to everyone outside of the tristate area. :) some of their items :


button/chain/charm

next up...

as some know, target has high end designers contribute a line for their go international brand. there was luella, behnaz sarafpour and i really don't remember...
next up is proenza schouler. i'm excited about this one.


(image yanked from oh joy!)

Iranians

and their typography from Ping Mag.

tees

My bf is the big t-shirt fan - drawers and drawers full of them - i maybe own about 3 t-shirts with anything printed on them. But he's sort of opened a door for me and I started noticing them a little more.

It's a slippery slope because it seems anyone that can get their hands on a silkscreen will make their own t-shirts. Sometimes it's great, and sometimes it produces yawn-worthy, offensively unfunny, badly designed t-shirts. See - owls, deers, tromphe l'oeil, state love etc. also, "street" wear was big big big this year and even the snootiest high-end luxury designers have followed suit. ANYWAY, enough of that babble - because my readers either know it's old news or find this all terribly boring - i'm moving on to my point.

I somehow found these t-shirts through coutorture.com, on boundlessny.com. And I'm kinda liking them. I can see them really adding texture and color to my otherwise monochrome winter wardrobe. (please visit the site if you want to see them properly, my jpegs somehow have faded through my quark>pdf>photoshop>jpeg process. :T )

leopard, zebra, tribe called quest footprints, and straight stripes.

make pretend time

sometimes i like to pretend i'm dancing at studio 54 back in the day, wearing this:



from girlshop.

naps

I need throw pillows so I can take a proper nap on the couch. And I won't be able to take a nap unless I make pillows out of this fabric :




Marimekko

ideas ideas

Sometimes even though something is affordable, I feel like it's much more gratifying to make it myself. Chocolates, knit scarves, xmas cards - you know. Today I received the daily bargain gift guide email from H&M, (how else am i going to be up on the 'news' and bring it to you properly filtered??), and while the email was about jeans I couldn't help but notice the model's leg warmers. They look cozy, updated from the old, and warm.



(on another note, jeans for less than $8???? so awesome.)

Recently

Things in my life lately:

BB is watching the world outside.



Up to my elbows in chocolate molds.



Someone... is putting up signs that say avenue instead of street.

Surface

Not really my favorite publication but they put out 9th annual important people something or other. Commercial photography zzzzz. but i must say after seeing portfolio after portfolio this week (for work) some of these might have woken me up if they came across my desk. Can't say they were super exciting overall but kinda dug these:









From SusieBubble

Solid Potato Salad

Don't say I never gave you anything.

Everyday food

Once in a while, among the many purchases you make in a year, you spend your precious dollars on a product that really pulls through. You are shocked, pleased with yourself for making the discovery, tell all your friends about it and hope that it never goes out of production. That sole purchase renews your faith as a consumer. Often it's something small but something that I personally claim has changed my (everyday) life.

Here is one:


It's an Epilator!! (Get your mind out of the gutter. I know what you were thinking.) I don't wax my pits. I used to tweeze but my eyeballs started to feel like they're going to roll back into my head and three hours later I was left with a cramp in your wrist and one hairless armpit. This baby tweezes those suckers out in about 8 seconds and you're hairless like the day you were born. This isn't the exact one I have, the one i bought is from Bed bath and beyond and $20 less but was also a braun product. It was sooo worth it. Yup, changed my life.

Every once in a while i'd like to share these life changing purchases. It really would add some excitement to my moments waiting in line at Rite Aid.
Rite Aid Excitement...

Devastation and Heartbreak

If you know me and my habits, it would seem that I have hundreds of pairs of shoes in my closet. I have about 30 pairs, not too many not too little. I would say about half those shoes I have had since high school. About half are used/"vintage", about half are heels, about a third are hand-me-downs - visualize a venn diagram please. ANYWAY, you can imagine that each pair I own I really feel something special for each and every one of them. :D

Where am I going with this? I can't really write it here. It's too painful. Instead let me express myself through video from the help of our friend YouTube. (the sound is a little low.)



I can't even show you what happened to the marc jacobs.

Friday Eye Candy

Today, S & I were late for work (because I couldn't decide which pair of pants I hated the least and were thus going to be worn today), so we took a cab. (I'm not going to lie, we've taken cabs when not late too.)
ANYWAY, I saw a great logo for ... a plumbing company I believe? that I thought I would share with you.

We snickered. I can't pinpoint what it is. Are we immature? Yes. But is it funny? Also yes.




Also, some of the designers out there may already know about Genevieve Gauckler but she's news to me. And what lovely news this Friday morning she is...

besides..

Besides inventing cures for diseases yet to be discovered, I've been knitting a little. Here's a little preview:

Snakey little number, connected at the ends so you can double wrap. No pesky tails flying about..

pod life

I don't know about you guys but when podcasting first started I questioned why you wouldn't want to listen to the radio in real time, instead of episodes on your ipod. I really didn't understand the concept, clearly.

But earlier this year when Gina alerted me to the fact that npr shows were available on podcast, for free!, i jumped on the opportunity. Since then me and my podcasts have been inseparable. I've subscribed to various NPR shows - Wait wait don't tell me, This American Life and All Songs Considered are among them.

As you can imagine there are many Crafting Moments that can be tedious and repetitive. My nerdy podcasts help me cope. I've also subscribed to Grammer Girl, Basic French and Epicurious' Food and Drink. I now know how to inject olive oil in a turkey, how to tell someone mon oncle lives in Provence and when whom and who are the correct pronouns. A bit tooly of me? Possibly. But you love me anyway.

PS That ravishing creature above is none other than Ira Glass.

Amaryllis

This amazing plant from the farmer's market is growing like crazy. I apologize for the bad condition of the photographs. Bathrooms are difficult to shoot in.


This plant shot up at least 12 inches in less than two weeks. I wish I had known how it was going to grow I would've taken a picture of it when I first got it.




And finally, flowers. i love them. And it seems a new bud is forming at the base so i get to look forward to more flowers in the future.

sorry

i haven't been up on the posting. i've been burrowing under the covers because it's been cold. i've also been trying to watch some good tv. i've been inventing a pink pill for happiness. i've been trying to build an underwater rollercoster while perfecting my bechamel sauce (the stirring, the constant stirring!). i've been pondering the exact amount of water it takes to keep a plant alive enough so as not to be smug and think it could live without me but just enough to eke out some decent leaves and keep me amused. i've been pondering what's cuter - a pug puppy or rabbits yawning. i've been subscribing to as many podcasts as possible because who can get enough npr? who dammit? i've been trying to spend my money on a lot of medium priced stuff so that i end up with nothing to show for it and an account balance of nearly zero. i've started a new ring that's half done but i've decided to start wearing it anyway. i've been thinking that i need to buy myself flowers but who has the money for that (see above). i've been trying to bore holes into the back of peoples heads with my stare. i've also been busy overwhelming myself with the prospect of a million projects but being paralyzed with the pressure decided i need to think about something else. i've been making meatballs and forgetting to put the egg in. i've been trying to levitate dogs with my mind power while they poop.

Imagine

all the people.. are gone!
I came across this article via theapt from New Scientist Magazine. The article imagines the Earth if all humans vanished one day (sounds like the premise of a new ABC show). Here is the link but I've listed some excerpts below:
Fascinating!

"The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook starts to get a lot better," says John Orrock, a conservation biologist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California.

By some estimates, 85 per cent of the night sky above the European Union is light-polluted; in the US it is 62 per cent and in Japan 98.5 per cent. In some countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, there is no longer any night sky untainted by light pollution.
“18.7 Percentage of Earth's surface affected by light pollution”

"Pretty quickly - 24, maybe 48 hours - you'd start to see blackouts because of the lack of fuel added to power stations," says Gordon Masterton, president of the UK's Institution of Civil Engineers in London.

The same lack of maintenance will spell an early demise for buildings, roads, bridges and other structures.

The best illustration of this is the city of Pripyat near Chernobyl in Ukraine, which was abandoned after the nuclear disaster 20 years ago and remains deserted.

"The most pervasive thing you see are plants whose root systems get into the concrete and behind the bricks and into doorframes and so forth, and are rapidly breaking up the structure. You wouldn't think, as you walk around your house every day, that we have a big impact on keeping that from happening, but clearly we do. It's really sobering to see how the plant community invades every nook and cranny of a city."

Nuclear waste already consigned to long-term storage in air-cooled metal and concrete casks should be fine, since the containers are designed to survive thousands of years of neglect, by which time their radioactivity - mostly in the form of caesium-137 and strontium-90 - will have dropped a thousandfold, says Rodney Ewing, a geologist at the University of Michigan who specialises in radioactive waste management. Active reactors will not fare so well. As cooling water evaporates or leaks away, reactor cores are likely to catch fire or melt down, releasing large amounts of radiation. The effects of such releases, however, may be less dire than most people suppose.

Ironically, a few endangered species - those charismatic enough to have attracted serious help from conservationists - will actually fare worse with people no longer around to protect them.