one perfect day

One day in New York City without kids, stroller, husband, or busy agenda. What to do?

8:30 AM: Enjoy freshly made waffles and breakfast at the home of my good friends and their two sweet boys.

9:30 AM: Catch a ride to the subway station in Brooklyn. See a disoriented man fall onto the subway tracks, and be helped out by several kind New Yorkers, luckily before a train approaches (never in my 10 years in NYC did I ever see someone actually fall!)

Pop out of the subway at Canal and Broadway, start walking North. The weather just happens to be perfect, bright and sunny, but not too hot. I have to remind myself that NYC is only like this about one week out of the year.

10:00 AM: First stop: the MUJI store. I've been a fan of MUJI ever since I spent a semester abroad in London. Purchases: City in a Bag (drawstring bag full of NYC blocks, like little cabs and skyscrapers), colored pencil set, a perfect canvas tote bag, pencil sharpener.

10:45 AM: Walk up to Pearl River, a huge Chinese import store. Purchases: a small coin purse for Bee, a tin rocket for C, some pretty packages of rice candy.

11:15 AM: Continue up Broadway, almost walking right into the actor Aaron Eckhart, who I see near the corner of Spring Street. (Act nonchalant, because that's what New Yorkers do.) Stop in at Dean + Deluca to grab a raisin scone from Sarabeth's, just because I can.

11:30 AM: Walk up Sullivan Street so I can wave at Liesl, who's teaching a class at Purl Patchwork this morning. Peek through the window and see Liesl sitting at the sewing machine, right in the middle of explaining something to a big group of students. Decide against interrupting her.

Cross Houston and head towards the West Village, my favorite neighborhood in the whole city, to meet some of my oldest and dearest friends for brunch.

12:00 PM: Brunch at Tartine. We don't mind waiting for our table since there's lots to talk about and catch up on. Plus it's one of the prettiest blocks around.

1:30 PM: My friend Renee talks me into walking up to the Gagosian Gallery to see the Picasso exhibit, which closes this weekend. We wander up through the Chelsea Market, grabbing an applesauce donut from Amy's Bread (I used to live around the corner from their Hell's Kitchen location). The Picasso exhibit is worth the detour, a huge wonderful collection of paintings and etchings from his later years.

We walk over to the E train and take it north, to the 53rd Street and 5th avenue location so we can walk across the street to the MOMA.

3:00 PM: I haven't been to the MOMA since it's redesign, so I love walking through from floor to floor. Some of the paintings hanging there seem like old friends, and I'm so happy to see them once again. There's an interesting exhibit upstairs called Tangled Alphabets (on display through June 15th) featuring the works of Leon Ferrari and Mira Schendel. I love all the hand drawn type. Purchases: two small windup metal bugs for Bee and C from the museum gift shop.

5:15 PM: Walk down 5th Avenue to visit the Kinokuniya Japanese import store near Bryant Park. Wave to my old office as we walk by the Martha Stewart offices on 43rd Street. Purchases: new Japanese sewing book I haven't seen before, some beautifully packaged pastel crayons.

6:00 PM: Wander through Bryant Park (the most beautiful day!) admire the newly refinished NY Public Library and then hop on the F train to my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens. Meet up with my friend Sara who is getting a pedicure before we meet up with friends for dinner. Soon I am getting one too.

7:00 PM: Walk through my old neighborhood to the restaurant Alma, which has the most beautiful view of the city. By the time we sit down to eat (lucky us, we get the table with the best view) the sun is setting over the city, dinner is served, and I'm surrounded by my old friends.

10:00 PM: Drive back to Fort Green where I'm staying that evening by way of First Place, our old steet. Wave at my old apartment, where JR and I dated, were newlyweds, and formed our little family.

12:00 AM: Rest tired (but pretty!) feet. Fall into a sound sleep.

Things I wish I could have fit into my day: a stroll through Central Park, a visit to the paper stores down on 18th Street, some fabric shopping in the garment district, a walk down the Brooklyn promenade, and a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery. But there are only so many hours in a day.

Note: I've put together a little Google Map of my day, with addresses and phone numbers for the stores and restaurants. You can easily swap out the Met for the MOMA, and then get to see some of Central Park as well.

i'm back

Such a whirlwind trip. I flew into New York Tuesday night, immediately drove up to a photo shoot upstate, spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday shooting and drove back into the city Friday night. I had Saturday to run around the city as quickly as I could and then flew home Sunday morning.

Do you want to know how to spend one perfect day in New York City? Stay tuned.

n.y.c.

Tomorrow I fly back to New York for the first time since we moved away over one year ago. I'll be in town for almost a week, but the majority of that will be spent out in the country working on a photo shoot with some of my very favorite people. I've got Saturday to run around the city and have already made arrangements to meet friends for both lunch and dinner before I fly out Sunday morning. Much too fast, but I can only be away from my little family for so long. I will be back to my regular program here next Monday.

These photos are from a series I took for my friend Emily of her father's plane, someday I will show you the whole series (but right now I've got some packing to do!).

the juggling act

I hopped on a plane on Thursday to fly to a little town in Northern California to art direct a really lovely wedding. (It was beautiful all on it's own, I can take no credit. My job was just to make sure we documented it's loveliness as well as we could.)

Every once in a while I get to run off and do a photo shoot, thanks to JR who will step in and take a day off work when needed so I can run and play "art director" once again. Photo shoots on location sound glamorous and exciting, but they are long hard days. We were up at 6 AM shooting clovers in the morning light, and still working at 8 PM trying to capture the last few minutes of daylight after the sun dropped behind the hills. Then we would race off to make it into town (a 40 minute drive away.. longer than that if you have to wait for the cows to move off the dirt road) before the only sit down restaurant closed their kitchen at 9.

Most of you know I stopped working full time at my job when I had my son C, almost 5 years ago. Now I work freelance for a few of my favorite clients, usually late at night when the kids are asleep, squeezing in a book design project when I can. It's a juggling act, trying to balance the work and being home with my family. I have tipped the scale to the "work" side, and found that I am a very cranky mother if I am staying up late each night working and always sweating a deadline. I have then tipped the scale to the "family" side and found that (after a few months of carefree bliss) I feel a little lost when I am not working on any projects. I need to be gathering inspiration, playing with color swatches, working and reworking a design until it is finally just right. I don't feel quite like myself when I'm not designing something.

So I try to balance my scale somewhere in the middle. There are times when I feel I am doing poorly at everything.. that I don't have enough hours in the day to be a good mom and a good designer and a good wife. But I think I'm getting better at the balancing act.

I flew back home Saturday night, as the wedding was in full swing, so I could be back in time for Mother's day. (Homemade cards and JR making dinner? How could I miss that?) As I walked out of the airport and saw my little ones through the car window, I was happy to be home. My children are never as cute as when I have been away from them for a few days. I am always so happy to see their little smiling faces.

On the ride home I filled JR in about how the shoot had gone: the long days, the many shots, how tired I was. He looked over and said "And you loved every minute of it, right?". I smiled. He knows me too well.

Image from one of our favorite alphabet books, Bruno Munari's ABC.

when daddy's away

JR has been off on a hiking trip the past three days and the kids (and I) are eagerly awaiting his return this evening. My husband isn't gone very often (he takes maybe 2-3 business trips each year), but we've started sending photos back and forth from our phones when he is away. We make a sign (Bee and C let me know what they want to say) and I take a photo of the kids holding it from my phone.. when JR gets it, he takes a picture holding his sign and sends it back to us. The kids think this is amazing, Bee especially is fascinated with how daddy got inside the phone. But I always like seeing the photos JR sends back.. sitting in the middle of a serious corporate event with a big smile on his face, holding a hand drawn sign for his little ones.

a shoot in vermont

I'm amazed at the responses to my little giveaway.. I wish I had 50 books to share! I don't know how we'll pick between them all. Comments will close Tuesday night at 8 PM PST, so you can still enter if you haven't had the chance yet.

I promised some pictures, so here is a sneak peek at our first Weekend Sewing photo shoot (1 of 4) located at the charming Blueberry Hill Inn in beautiful Goshen, Vermont.

That nice guy in the green shirt is John Gruen, photographer extraordinaire, balancing a white board on his very expensive camera. Heather Ross is in the doorway, getting ready to model an apron. Various other people making sure her apron is on straight and that Heather doesn't have any spinach in her teeth. Children (mine and others who will be modeling later) left to entertain themselves on the lawn.

Because little ones have a hard time entertaining themselves for long, we soon learned they could be entertained with all different kinds of camera equipment by their new best friend Alex, John's photo assistant. (thank you again, Alex!)

A typical set up.. the photographer is hard at work setting up the shot (napkins on a wooden table). The photo assistant is making sure the lighting is right (the big scrim shades the table from direct sunlight). Heather is ready to step in and swap out a tablecloth or move things around as necessary. The art director/designer is there to approve polaroids and to make sure the shot is going to work with the layout. (Bigger shoots need bigger crews, but a typical book shoot can get by with about 4-5 good people, especially if they already know each other and work well together).

My first trip to Vermont, and I can see why people love it so. The grounds surrounding Blueberry Hill are amazing.. one morning I woke up early with my kids and we walked the grounds around the inn for an hour or so. It was a gorgeous morning with the sun just rising and fields upon fields of grass and dandelions. Blue sky, happy kids blowing dandelions.. I can't think of a better way to start a day.

Update: Looks like Heather is planning a Weekend Sewing workshop, where you can see Blueberry Hill for yourself and sew with Heather all weekend.. more details here.

back to reality

I'm back from a very busy visit to Houston, and very happy to be home. My children never look as adorable as they do when I've been away for a few days. I'm compiling my photos and will be posting soon about the lovely things I saw at Quilt Market. But for now, I've got cupcakes to make, and Halloween parties to prepare for.

to market, to market

I've been lucky enough to be a part of launching Oliver + S, a lovely little company that makes children's clothing patterns (created by the talented Liesl Gibson). Designing patterns and tissues and paper dolls and booths for trade shows is all new to me, but it's been such a fun ride.. We're off to Quilt Market yet again, in Houston this time. I'll post a full report when I'm back on Tuesday!