A Stroll through my Neighborhood: Boerum Hill

1. Bedouin Tent, Fisherman's Dawta, Bacchus, Bacchus Bakery, 2. Collier West, 3.&4. Grumpy Bert
5.Belarussian Church, 6. Greenhouse, 7. Malia Mills & Opalia, 8. Darr,  9 &10. City Foundry, 11. Horseman, 12. City Foundry, 13. Acorn, 14. Maleeka

New Zine: The Art of Sewing

My dears I am currently working on a new zine incorporating all manner of sewing goodness. I have been sewing and creating patterns for over half my life and its time I shared some of the projects you've seen here. I'm hoping to have space for 10 sewing projects in my new zine, from easy to experienced. Stay tuned for more news.

Inspired by Bonjour Johanna

I love to see all the lovely textile design and art Johanna is working on and some of my favorite pieces are her hand painted plates and pottery. Inspired by her beautiful work I set out to make one of my little plants a new home to live in. This plant had the misfortune of getting knocked down by a naughty kitten and having her home smashed to pieces. She's been living in a metal mixing bowl until I found a pot abandon on the side of the street so I whisked it away into my Brooklyn apartment and let it sit for two weeks knowing I wanted to paint it but wasn't sure how. My poor plant pleaded with me, "please make my home beautiful and hurry I cannot live in this metal bowl much longer". I whipped out my acrylics and set off to painting and made this, not as lovely as Johanna's but has a slight feeling of inspired by.

Crafty Holidays

As Fall starts to wind down into winter we saw our last leaves and had Thanksgiving with family.

Little Miss Francie takes her last Fall ride in the basket liner I made for her. Reminds me of a scene in E.T.

We had traditional and Cuban fair.

I've also been working on all sorts of cold weather accessories like this hat, it has a detachable pom.

My dad had his 75th birthday and we celebrated on Thanksgiving, I made him the card.

Treats from Betty Bakery
Awesome stage design for the Mike Perry final gala at Wondering Around Wandering, Owenand the Eyeballs played.

Wondering Around Wandering

Mike Perry is a wonderful artist who's pretty popular with a lot of folks outside of the art world which is absolutely great. Mike put this project together, Wondering Around Wandering, a few months ago where he took a raw space in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and converted into a huge gallery and public studio space. He's held free events every week and has had big turnouts and a great reception from neighbors. Mike Perry brought something much needed to a part of Brooklyn that would have never been exposed to art and creativity because no one cared.Neighborhood kids have been pleased as punch to be able to spend there afternoons in here surrounded by lovely colorful art. Inside Mike set up the space with a large retrospective of his work and of friends. He also included a great store made inside a sweet house sitting at the entrance of the massive garage space, build by another artist friend. I was fortunate enough to experience two great events there, an animation shorts film night and another night there was a Moleskine Salon. Tonight is their final event which will be a benefit gala for victims of Sandy, so if you have $30 and are free you should totally come down to the BK.

Remembering Fall

This Fall has been filled with lots of wonderful moments, some terrifying and some magical, here's a little photo collection of those moments...
ramen season
fall flowers
making stuff
getting involved
first snow after the hurricane hurricane relief sweater season making more stuff making decisions
eating warm delicious onigiri

my boy turns 12 years old

Francie embracing her French side

hot beverages and good books

Halloween canceled, Marathon canceled, NYC/NJ in a Serious State

I have been procrastinating getting back on the blog because NYC has never ever been in this kind of state, super-storm Sandy kicked our ass six-ways-to-sunday and I'm just in shock. I try to never write about scary or sad things on my blog but this is my home and this is the second natural disaster I've been in 2 years. You have to understand I grew up in NYC and have seen it go through a lot of bad and good and this might be the worst. In the history of this city the power and subways have never been out of service for this long. The subway tunnels were flooded with water. NYU hospital lost power and patients had to be transferred. Breezy Point was flooded then burnt to the ground, 111 houses lost. Staten Island is devastated with the highest death toll. People have been without food, water, power and heat and the temperatures are starting to be truly Fall temperatures. The list is massive of the damage Sandy caused and the loss of life keeps rising.
Across the river, our neighboring state, New Jersey had the largest loss of power, in their history also, over a million homes. Only 25% has returned. My parents, sister and friends have been without power for almost a week and its getting really cold. A dear friend since childhood had her home ruined and had to make a mad dash with her small children and husband away from the rushing waters of the Hudson river coming down her street the night of storm. She was originally told they needn't evacuate, but she prepared bags and the first floor of her home anyway. During dinner she had the fire department knock on her door and told them to evacuate to shuttle buses waiting down the street, the flood was coming.
Here in Brooklyn I am very fortunate to live on high ground and the floods didn't reach us, our neighbors in Red Hook weren't as fortunate and they had terrible flooding and so many people lost their businesses.
The Mayor had enough sense to cancel the Halloween parade and now the NYC Marathon, I know canceling the marathon was a hard choice but a necessary one. People need all the help they can get and don't need that help diverted to a marathon or parade. There are also lots of animals that have lost their homes or have been transferred from wrecked shelters to NYC and are on kill lists so please please if you can foster a dog or a cat please go here for more info