Happy Valentine's Day!

A vintage Valentine's Day card from my collection. And one with a cat - how cute is that?

cats and elephants and bears, oh my

These are easily the cutest thing I've ever purchased on Ebay. And can you believe that I was the only person bidding? It's a set of 18 animals printed on fabric (pretty sure they're 1930s) and designed to be appliqued onto quilt blocks, then embroidered, then everything put together to make a baby quilt. There were no instructions included but I've seen enough of these kits to make a good guess.

A calico cat

There are three each of a cat, elephant, rabbit, puppy, pig, and bear. Some of the fabrics are prettier than others but they all coordinate well together and there are a lot of blues so it won't be too girly when finished. I really love the yellow floral and polka dot print, although there are only two animals with that pattern—the cat shown above is one.

And a pink gingham elephant

I'm going to scan and trace these so I can share the pattern. I think they'll be really cute with more modern fabrics. Not sure if people will be turned off by the applique part (maybe that's why no one bid on them?) but they could just be used for embroidery patterns, too.

macarons

A delicious, melt-in-your-mouth novel featuring the sweet pleasures of French pastries and the exotic scents and sights of China, The Color of Tea is a scrumptious story of love, friendship and renewal. (Amazon.com)

I recently finished reading this book by Hannah Tunnicliffe and loved it. It's about a woman who relocates to China with her husband, finds out she isn't able to have children, learns to bake macarons, and opens a tea shop. Of course, there's more to the story than just food, but the descriptions of the macaron flavors and fillings that the author uses to open each chapter (like gunpowder green tea with sweet mandarin buttercream or provençal lavender with sweet fig buttercream) left me craving macarons.

The history of macarons is a bit hazy—some say they're French, some that they were originally developed by Florentine pastry chefs and brought to France by Catherine de Medici. Who knows for sure.

Basically, they're two crunchy shells baked from an egg white, almond, and powdered sugar meringue sandwiched together with a creamy flavored filling. The shells are usually brightly-colored and often have flavors added. I've never tried them before.

And maybe they're best when freshly-baked? I picked up a small sampler box of them at a local gourmet food shop—pistache, citron, and fraise—and I wasn't all that impressed. Not bad, but not worth swooning over either.

I saw a small notice in Vogue that Ladurée, the Parisian patisserie famous for their macarons (they've been making them for 150 years), recently opened a branch in New York City (864 Madison Avenue). If I'm in the neighborhood, maybe I'll stop in and try a few. I probably should have just started with the best.

Have any of you made these yourselves? What do you think? Am I missing something?

a fresh start

A new year, a fresh start. I seriously neglected blogging last year and I paid the price for it with less comments to the posts I did publish and less traffic to my website. I'm going to try to do better this year.

The problem for me, and likely for most bloggers, too, is coming up with ideas for posts. In my case, I always feel that I need to say something important, or at least something worth saying. And when I can't find my voice, I don't say anything at all. But, maybe I'm over thinking the whole thing (I'll admit that I do that...a lot). Maybe it's enough to say a few words or post a photo with no words at all. Maybe each post doesn't have to be such a big deal. I'm working on that.

Some other resolutions are to start working my way through the pile of half-finished and not-yet-started embroidery projects in my studio. I'm really good at starting things—choosing colors, planning the stitching, etc.—but not so good at the home stretch part. With all this snow we've been having (more so far this year than the entire winter last year), curling up indoors with needle and floss doesn't sound half bad.

I'd also like to offer some new products on my website this year. I'm still sourcing materials and making prototypes so I won't say too much about them just yet. But I will be adding new embroidery patterns very soon.

Happy New Year to you all!