August 2008 Archives

I made these cookies using this recipe (via design sponge, my current favorite design/interior decorating blog). It's more of a chocolate shortbread cookie, reminiscent of those French sable cookies.

They required a lot of chilling, which wasn't my idea of easy, but they were extremely yummy.

I just realized that it's been weeks since I've actively drawn or painted anything. Sure, I've doodled an odd sketch or two in my non-online journal, but that's about it. Must do something about that.

I'm getting hooked on yard sales. Especially the kind of yard sales that happen on my street with beautiful antiques for ridiculously cheap. This petite writing desk is at least 100 years old and belonged to the owner's grandmother. Not only was it a steal, Kumi and I got to meet some really nice neighbors with a darling 6-year-old daughter.

It opens up to look like this:

And it's so compact that it fits nicely in a wee corner in our space-challenged apartment while I decide its permanent home. I love it. It's a little like this desk which I've lusted after (but would never in a million years buy because it's so expensive). In may ways, I like the desk I bought better.

So now it's time to rearrange the apartment again. Busy, busy.

Kumi has two best friends. She's known them since she was born, and she's played with them almost every week. For most of their first year, Aya, BJ and Kumi ignored each other. There may have been an accidental head loll in the direction of one of the other babies, or sometimes they cried in unison.

But it wasn't until a couple of months ago that they started to really play with each other. It's been a joy to see them develop and interact, to watch them voluntarily hug and kiss and chase after each other with glee. "Kumi come over here!" Aya says. "I want to see BJ," Kumi says. "You're kind of like funny," BJ says to both Kumi and Aya.

So for Kumi's birthday, I made her an Aya and BJ doll. I plan to make more outfits like I did for the Kumi doll but for now they're stuck with this one (the BJ doll ended up with unintentional hunched shoulders, giving him a shoulder-padded look).

It's amazing how two dolls made from the same pattern came out so differently shape-wise...

Here's the dress I mentioned the other day. So simple to make -- from start to finish, it only took me about 20 minutes. It's the same pattern as the one I made for her birthday. I tweaked it a little so that the back isn't so low and the hem is a bit shorter too. I also omitted the pocket since the colorful birds seemed enough. The pattern is from another lovely Japanese craft book (ISBN978-4-579-11054-4)

This is what the fabric looks like close-up:

With continuous 90 degrees plus weather, it's the perfect little dress. Tomorrow it's supposed to cool down significantly and rain. I can't wait.

Getting back to our regularly scheduled programming, here are a couple of things I made for Kumi recently. I made a new dress today as well, but I'll post that later.

The patterns for both the top and shorts are from my stockpile of Japanese craft books but I will have to dig through some big messy piles to find them...

I am in love with these shorts. I like the top fine, and I really like the fabric (from my mama) but these shorts are fabulous. I'm not sure what the fabric is, but it's a thin, feathery light material with iridescent highlights in pinkish, purplish hues. The blue trim on the pockets is from a gift wrap ribbon that was part of Kumi's birthday stash. These shorts go with everything and is the perfect summer garb.

With that whole shoplifting debacle, my spirits had felt broken for awhile, but I feel my energy returning and am itching to create a gazillion things. I'll be back shortly with that dress. Have a good day!

My husband wanted me to title this post "America's Most Wanted". But I'm sort of a literal kind of gal, and this is a story about false shoplifting accusations.

It all started with this little unassuming kitchen set that I got for Kumi's birthday and the broken green door in particular. After Kumi played with it three times, the green door came off and when I checked the product, the drilled holes were worn out and clearly defective from the start. So last Thursday, I went back to the store to find out their return policy (but didn't have the product with me) and had this unbelievable conversation:

Owner (glaring at me fiercely): "I can give you the manufacturer's phone number but I'm not comfortable doing an exchange for you."

Me (confused): "But your store policy says that you do exchanges and store credit..."

Owner: "I'm going to be honest with you. I don't want you to come to my store any more because you've been stealing from me. I've seen you."

As you can imagine, I was shocked and appalled. So shocked and appalled, I was momentarily stunned into silence.

I need to interject a little history here and in some ways, I am embarrassed by my own foolishness of repeatedly going to the place. This particular children's store is located about 10 blocks from my home. Because of proximity and a good selection of toys, I have shopped there frequently in the last few months. However, I had noticed that the owner seemed to follow me around the store and that she would often respond to my questions in a curt and unprofessional manner. It made me uncomfortable, but I assumed that she was paranoid and lacking in customer service skills. It never crossed my mind that she had pegged me as a shoplifter. In fact, I often thought it was my imagination. This had been going on for months, but again, I was too focussed on the toys than on her.

The one time I couldn't ignore it was when -- after I had purchased the kitchen set -- I was in search of one of those inner tube/float things to take to the local wading pool. I tried all the other stores but no one seemed to carry them, and thought I would cover my bases by asking at the uncomfortable store. I was outside of the shop and saw an employee right by the door so I asked if they carried what I was looking for. The owner immediately came out and yelled "NO!" at me. Her answer was so hostile, her employee flinched as well.

Back to the false accusation. What was reeling through my head was "I wasn't imagining it! She really was horrible to me all those months!" and "She is calling me a thief!!!!!!!" At this point I found my voice and told her how immensely offended I was and that her behavior was unacceptable and that her accusation was completely untrue. She looked at me and said "You know, I'm still not sure. I know someone is stealing from me and I'm just not sure about you. I want to believe you but I just can't."

The whole scene was quite ugly. The worst part (aside from the tears that were now pouring down my face) was that this woman was accusing me in front of my daughter. Kumi was visibly shaken by how upset I was. "I want to go home!!!" she wailed.

The owner went on to claim that she saw me put a pair of shoes in my pocket months ago. She also implied that I had stolen from her multiple times. There are no cameras in the store. There are rarely other customers. Neither one of us could prove anything.

You know, I really tried to understand her perspective. She is a business owner. She has been subjected to shoplifting. She thought she saw something and so decided to keep an eye on me. Yet, when I look back on the way she treated me for months, the way she confronted me, the way she humiliated me and wronged me in front of a child -- my child -- I felt that a very basic sort of human decency was missing in her.

In the end she said she believed me. She apologized. As I stood there racking with sobs, shaking from anger and shock, she offered to exchange that toy.

And then she tried to call the police on my husband when he went to exchange the toy. He left puzzled and even more offended. We still have a broken green door.

So bizarre. Then when I talked to several of my friends about this strange situation, I found out that others had been trailed from room to room at the same store. What was disturbing was that they are all non-Caucasian. Including me. I am still talking to a lot of people, still trying to figure out how someone could possibly accuse a regular customer who has spent hundreds of dollars, still trying to wrap my head around whether this could be some throwback to a pre-Civil Rights era.

I debated whether to write about this. I mean, it's a children's store for crying out loud. It should be a place of wonder and imagination and nostalgia and not a battleground over racial discrimination. After the incident I read about a young woman who died of cancer and I cried big sloppy tears. I know that what happened to me is so minor. I actually feel sorry for that store owner. But I keep going back to that idea of human decency.

What should I do?

I adore a good naan. The first time I tried to make them, I used a recipe from a book that has proven useless time and time again and ended up with hard, lumpy, tasteless, sorry excuses for naan.

Then I found this recipe online, and viola! Fluffy yet tender, soft and chewy in all the right places and total buttery goodness. Perfect with a classic chicken curry. The best part was being able to make them in a cast iron skillet. MF and Kumi could not get enough, and I inhaled at least half a dozen myself. Rolling each of them out is a bit of a pain, but otherwise, it's a fairly painless process. Well worth the effort, I say!

This top, along with the summer dress, is from the Japanese craft book ISBN978-4-579-11054-4. This cute dotty top should have been a breeze, but I was exhausted from all the other birthday preparations and had to use my seam ripper more times than I'd like to admit. At one point I sewed on the skirt piece backwards. It was tough.

But see how darling this tie detail is in the back! And the print! Oh, how I love this fabric. I got it at the local fabric store and it's Japanese.

And here's my pint-sized model, hard at work again: