Crushing on Color

I'm adoring the new issue of Martha Stewart Living for May, all about finding the "hue for you."  I write about pink a lot and sometimes purple, and love the palate of both with cream.  It got me thinking about shades, flavors and textures, for example:

A Pink Marc de Champagne truffle from Charbonnel et Walker, a gift my boyfriend brought me from London a few years ago,

lights at the Angel Orensanz Foundation in the Lower East Side,

water kimchi at Bibim-Bar in the East Village.  We weren't sure what it was when we had it a while back, but loved the color (and the taste),

mix for macaroons that reminded me of wampum: beads made from shells highly prized if they were rare purple,

nail art done in Korea with O.P.I. polish in Hawaiian Orchid, so pearly it reminded me of a pink seashell,

and this pic from last spring on Hudson Street.

Pink and purple together can make a gorgeous sunset,

and then it's just a tiny step away to blue, like these hyndrangeas for my Mom's birthday

and at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market in San Francisco.

And in more macaroons.

I've always loved water, and each ball in this display was filled with it at the Dining by Design tabletop event for DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids).

At another event, Zaha Hadid's mobile art installation for Chanel emanated a futuristic blue glow,

and back at Angel Orensanz Foundation, this is their starry ceiling.

Hmmm...I see another blog redesign in my near future.

What's your favorite hue and do you love it alone, or mixed into a palette?

NYC in Bloom

"When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim hath put a spirit of youth in every thing" 
-- from Sonnet 98 by William Shakespeare, 1609

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

Wow, it's been 9 days since the Martha Stewart sewing party!  My other visits to the Martha offices for their Tastemakers Event and Holiday Craft Sale were fun and this was another inspiring night. 

I went with my friend She Crafty, her co-worker Amy and we met another Amy as well. 

The event celebrated the release of the brand new Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts and the book was included in the admission price.

I loved the embroidery section since I've been getting into it these days.

This is embroidery with ribbons.

And little fruity cocktail napkins.

I'd like to learn about patchwork.

And quilting: this was a machine that could do it all by itself.

I love this thread from Gutermann: quite strong and such great colors.

These beautiful displays were sooo Martha, looked like they were right from the magazine.

And there was an area where you could make your own tomato pincushion.

This was a station about dyeing fabric with Rit Dye.

And there was one about stamping below.  We also met the talented Lotta Jansdotter who's teaching a class over the summer about fabric printing, wish I had snapped a pic of her too!

At the end there was a generously heavy gift bag with the book, magazines, scissors, threads, needles, coupons, dye and more!  And the towel on the upper left was machine embroidered at the party.  Now I really have to get started!

Easter Wrapup

Hope everyone had a Happy Bunny Day!  There sure are a lot of baby bunnies in this shop window.

and over at Amy's Bread there were bunny-shaped loaves for sale.

I remember all the years my Mom made this Easter bread out of sweet dough and candied fruit.  I loved the sprinkles and dyed eggs that covered the glaze on top.

She always had great Easter projects: a bunny cake, Easter egg tree, ducky lollipops, chocolate covered peanuts and raisins that we boxed up to give to grandparents, teachers and friends.  I wish I had pictures of all of it, but it's so much harder to sort through prints than to scroll through your digital photo library, but here's one.

This year I had a few projects in mind too.  I started out with 3 sizes of lace doilies from the amazing Boutross Imports in Brooklyn.  Mike and his mother Mary are so sweet that when they sent my package it had candy inside too!

Then I had to find containers that were about the right size to fit each one

because

with a little fabric stiffener they were going to wear them like litle bonnets.

not to make little hats, but when they dried they were little bowls!  Thanks to this Martha Stewart tutorial.

Next I needed to blow out some eggs, kinda messy!  I was really doing more of the pierce-egg-shake-rinse-with-water to get all the yolk out method, but eventually it worked.  The boyfriend tried not to be too horrified when he found this scene on Saturday morning.

and he was also patient enough to help me dye them on our way out the door to enjoy a beautiful, warm, sunny weekend.  This looks like an egg tree, or egg lollipops, but I was just trying to dry them.

Then I cut out designs from some pretty paper napkins

to decoupage the blown out eggs, thanks again to Martha. 

And the Easter Bunny, I mean boyfriend's daughter, left us some cute bunny cards this morning.

and we definitely have more than a few made out of chocolate in the house too.  Not sure those will last too long though...