Lovely Day with Vicki: National Design Museum, Ristorante Il Melograno and MGMT

Our plans for Tuesday the 17th revolved around finally seeing the Otto Dix show at the Neue Gallery and lunching at the museum's Cafe Sabarsky. Stepping ceremoniously onto the first step, I almost landed in a pool of wet cement. The Neue Gallery and the Cafe were closed.

Standing in the center of New York's museum district, we were not completely disheartened. A few moment's indecision past, we were heading towards the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The National Design Triennial: Why Design Now? exhibition encompassed the first floor of the museum and featured some amazing energy saving and alternate energy prototypes as well as some inventions that we often take for granted like twitter and the iPhone. No photos were allowed, so my apologies. I bought some incredibly designed ribbons to use in dresses which I will post as soon as they are realized.

After a walk across the park, we headed down to Ristorante Il Melograno for an early dinner before the concert. Il Melograno is Vicki's favorite restaurant to go before heading to the Met (Opera), and I am incredibly thankful to her for discovering it. We started off with a Caprese salad, which has been our go to appetizer since our first trip to Italy: delicate slices of fresh mozzarella and tomato drizzled with olive oil, balsamic vinegar of Modena and a basil pesto sauce on a bed of arugula. Incredibly delicious! Vicki had pasta with shrimp and peas in a light sauce and I went for rack of lamb over broccoli and roasted spinach.

I do not know much about MGMT and decided to go on the knowledge of one song and hoped for the best. The past few weeks many of my friends have been mocking me for going to a hipster concert, but alas, I gave it a chance and it was a lot of fun. Not all the songs were as successful as others, but it was an entertaining evening full of dancing and singing along where one could. Vicki took a video of "Time to Pretend" which you can find below.

I had an amazing day and look forward to many others once Vicki finally moves back to the city.

Fire Island with Daisy and Lola

My usual beach spot is Robert Moses Beach, but this past weekend Daisy and I decided to give Fire Island a try. Fire Island is wonderful beach spot known for its gay scene and beautiful surf, and the beaches are rarely crowded.

An incredible number of New Yorkers head to Fire Island every weekend, so although it is a multi-step process, the transit authority has set up a very streamlined time schedule which was incredibly easy to follow. From Penn Station, you can take the Long Island Rail Road to Babylon, cross the platform and a few moments later take the train to Sayville. At the Sayville station, white vans wait for you a few steps from the platform which take you to the Fire Island Ferry.

A half an hour's ferry ride, with the scent of salt water and nail polish, deposited us on the yacht strewn port of Fire Island with at least two dozen bikini clad men waiting to see the newcomers. The walk to the shore is amazing. A raised wooden platform leads through a forest of bamboo hiding beautiful newly built summer houses, already equipped with amazing fairyland landscapes of tropical ferns and seasonal flowers, arching trees and flower boxes exploding with vines and begonias. Houses are on tiny hills surrounded by foliage, only accessible by somewhat haphazard wooden bridges.

The beach was beautiful and almost completely vacant and the surf incredible. The water carved out a three foot recess in the sand, so we set up our camp on the edge of the cliff and watched the crashing waves from above.

The water, was chilly and refreshing and a good cool off from the sun. Lola was terrified of the water and refused to let it go past her ankles. Most of the afternoon was devoted into tricking the three year old to get close enough to the water for the waves to hit her legs. No easy task.


We had a great afternoon and a picnic on the beach and escaped with only second degree burns.

My New Handmade Bed

For the past few months, my tripod bed has been supported by a stack of my heaviest and most sturdy books. Since shoving the precious volumes under my mattress, I have had an increasing longing to flip through their pages.

Over a month ago, I purchased a beautiful piece of live wood from eBay with the intention of making it into a platform bed. Since then it has been leaning against the wall gathering dust. This Sunday, I finally purchased the rest of the wood I would need, four casters and a $1 phillips head screwdriver, since my power drill refused to work.

Here's how to make a platform bed:
1 Beautiful piece of live edge wood
1 piece of 3/4in wood cut to same dimensions as live edge wood (15x79in)
3 pieces of 3/4in wood cut to 30x15in
2 2x4's cut down to 70"
6 2x4"s cut down to 43"
4 4in caster wheels
16 washers
16 L brackets
a plethora of screws

The 2 long pieces of 2x4" and 2 of the shorter are built into a rectangular grid, and of the remaining three, two are placed 4 inches to either side of the center of the long piece, and two, 8 inches from the foot and head of the bed, to support the wooden slabs placed on top. The joints are secured with an L bracket on either side. A caster is attached to each corner, wheel parallel with the shorter sides.

The four pieces of 3/4" plywood and my live edge slab are arranged as seen above and screwed into the 2x4"s. My three legged fold out couch bed is released from its remaining three legs and placed on top of the platform. Tada!

Although I sustained excessive bruising in my left hand from putting in over a hundred screws with a screwdriver, I am excessively proud of my slightly creaky platform bed on wheels! I no longer have to worry about dust under my bed because I can just move it out to sweep.... My dad said I couldn't do it, I feel justified.

Tiny Dress for Tiny Girl

Walking around SoHo, I constantly pass by kids stores displaying tiny mannequins donning frilly dresses and striped onesies with piles of hand-made toys and blocks spilling around their feet. These constant visions cannot help but make me daydream of dressing up my own son or daughter, if I am fortunate enough to have one in the future.

My mother made most of my clothes when I was a child. She made me adorable sweaters that I still tried to pull over my shoulders when I was fourteen. I had amazing summer dresses and crochet collars on my shirts. My first attempt at sewing, I remember clearly. I woke up early one morning, before my parents or grandmother. I found a piece of fabric in the kitchen, which I decided to make into a shirt and skirt set for myself. I cut out a rectangle, and cut a big hole in the center for my head, and wrapped the rest of the fabric around me like a sarong skirt. My mom freaked out and tried to make something decent out of my blunder. I have learned since then, and I look forward to making all of my kid's clothes.
My friend Daisy's daughter Lola recently turned three and I got to make her a dress. My first dress for a little girl. I bought Alice in Wonderland fabric from Purl Soho and a lovely pink fabric for the lining and bow. I love the idea of a tiny person with a huge frilly skirt that makes them look like a squishy triangle that is soft and comfortable to wear.

Boy do I love kids.