Pink of Perfection

It was a brutally hot day, and despite best efforts to the contrary, including a striped top and a crisp white circle skirt, our heroine was melting into the blacktop of the Brooklyn Flea. But lo, hark! Spotted in the distance was an oasis of sorts. There, tucked between the vintage tin signs and 1930s feed sacks was salvation: Brooklyn Soda Works. She felt too wilted in the punishing June heat to dilly dally with otherwise delightfully sounding flavor mash-ups like salty plum or jalapeno grapefruit. She needed pure refreshment, and fast. A cup of fizzy ginger lemonade was pulled from a rigged-up cooler keg combo (”How do they do that,” she wondered?) and placed before her. A few sweaty dollars seemed a small price to pay for such an expedient rescue mission. She sipped, she sighed, she was saved.

Continue reading “Fresh and Effervescent Mint and Ginger Lemonade” »

Feeding people graciously and lovingly is one of life’s simplest pleasures: a most basic way of making life better for someone, at least for awhile. –Anna Thomas

On a sunny Saturday, on our way to the farmer’s market, we popped into Paper Love, a sweet shop, perfectly edited, walls lined with charming letterpress cards, notebooks, and other paper delights. I immediately fell in love with these miniature books from Brookfield. The size of a deck of cards — but infinitely more delightful — each letterpress book is filled with quotes and tiny illustrations on a given topic: “Cheerful Thoughts,” “House and Home,” “Incomplete Book of Dog Names.” I picture a pretty bowl on the coffee table, home to a stack of loose photographs, crowned with this gem. Also, what great hostess presents!

When it comes to weekend plans, I have a laissez-faire approach. The weekdays are so chock-a-block with errands, responsibilities and obligations, that when I’m actually Brooklyn-bound for a weekend, I am loath to schedule any commitments. What if I wake up on Saturday morning and just feel like drinking a cappuccino and reading a stack of magazine? Who would want any plans to stand in the way of that?

The Handmade Holiday Craft Fair at 3rd Ward, co-sponsored by the very awesome Brooklyn Based, is throwing a wrench in my plan to stay in bed. From noon to 7pm on Sunday, expect to find LED Hula hoops, custom cut clothes and jewelry, furniture and vintage ware from Brooklyn Kitchen, wrapping paper, pillows and body soaps, custom electronics and Cut Brooklyn knives. For the thrifty, you can enjoy yourself without spending a cent (though who wouldn’t want to support all these great local creatives?) with free gift bags, coffee, and workshops in textile design, electronics and collage. Also noteworthy: a costume photobooth and spiked drinks. Yum. Word is the very chicest attendees will be arriving with a donation for the Food Bank of New York in hand.

Handmade Holiday Craft Fair @ 3rd Ward
195 Morgan Avenue @ the corner of Stagg Street
East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718 715 4961

Saturday, November 15, marks the official grand opening on Flirt’s design studio, class space, and retail shop filled with unique home finds, Home Ec. If you head down to the space on Saturday from 12-6pm, you’ll be treated to free craft tutorials for kids and adults alike, snacks, 15% off purchases and class sign-ups, and a trapeze performance (whoa). The Flirt ladies are super great and just look how cheery this place is!

I love the idea of this space, not least of all because I’m particularly fond of the notion of home economics, especially in its modern incarnation (and one of the many reasons why I love Jean Railla’s Get Crafty: Hip Home Ec). But maybe most importantly, I also love the feeling that comes from a community of people engaged in creativity together. It’s amazing what a sense of connection you can feel for the person cutting out a pattern next to you while the two of you discuss the finer points of  Rock of Love. That is, after all, what the real magic of quilting circles was all about: bringing women together under the auspice of practical creativity, when the end result, of course, was so much more meaningful than a warm blanket.

If you’re in the nabe, go!

Home Ec
303 3rd Avenue
between Carroll and 1st Street
718 852 2889

After a day in the city, when I step out from the mouth of the subway onto Brooklyn pavement, I can feel my shoulders unfurl and my breath get deep. For all of New York’s annoyances (and there are plenty), I love my neighborhood and its million delights: the constant baby parade, the dogs, the husband-and-wife-team restaurants, the creative buzz, the trees with leaves that fall to the pavement and get slick in the rain, the brownstones, the lovely little shops. And while I am mourning the loss of Rare Device, I have some new Brooklyn loves I wanted to share, all of which you can appreciate whether you live in the nabe or not:

D. S. and Durga has some very fancy colognes for both ladies and gents, but its their facial toner that has my heart. The tonic is one maharanis have used for ages; all I know is that it makes my skin super soft and makes me feel like a very down-to-earth princess.

Buttercup & Ivory makes beautiful embroidered linens with a sense of humor. I’m loving the formal place setting tablecloth on which you could serve Chinese takeout or linen coasters with wine spills that take the pressure off.

The soaps from Red Hook shop Saipua are lovely and the hand-stamped paper they come wrapped in even lovelier. But what I truly love are the lush, romantic flower arrangements and the pictures on owner Sarah’s blog that give a sense of the pretty, charming details in her world.

Do you read A Chicken in Every Granny Cart? If you don’t, you should. Ann’s blog captures all the nuances and big, grand vistas of living in Brooklyn with her lovely pictures, great stories, and recipes you want to gobble right up. None of them know it yet, but I totally want to invite Ann, Valerie, and Cathy over for supper.

Two things I want to know: Have any of you ever met blog crushes in real life? And what do you love about where you live? I’m all ears.

• High bandwidth

By far, one of the best things about New York is the people watching. Waiting on a subway platform not too long ago, I developed a little crush on a girl next to me. She wore round toe pink flats, a vintage circle skirt with the intials of its first owner, long since gone, embroidered in a langourous scrawl, and a coat with pretty three-quarter length sleeves. Her hair was tied in a tight, high bun, and she wore a ribbon headband. The kicker, and the reason she’s been the heroine of my daydreams of late, was the 60’s paperback edition of Wuthering Heights she pulled out of her tapestry bag. She was a doll.
And so in honor of fashion week and the unique Brooklyn style we love so much, Sebastian and I took to the streets. We serendipitously ran into a woman who designs her own line of clothing. We were also reminded of the trusty chain standbys and why vintage items still steal my beating heart. And, suprisingly, we learned that men in skull caps are hot. I like to think people really got a spring in their step when we singled them out and cooed over their outfits. Because really, isn’t what Mom said true: When you look good, you feel good.
Continue reading “Fashion Week Brooklyn” »