Necessary Chocolate

The loot

I purchased a few things besides chocolates...

   

Lollipops, miniature Dutch Golden Books, and white lace handkerchiefs from Bruges.

Little tart pans from Brussels and E. Dehillerin in Paris, and Belgian chocolate chips and pearl sugar (for making Belgian waffles someday).

Ribbons from La Droguerie in Paris, a fabric store in Brussels, and, okay, MJ Trims in NYC during the two-hour wait for the train to come home...

Not to mention books from W.H. Smith (the British bookstore in Paris) -

I always check out the British bookstores to see which books I might be missing in the US (although it turns out that Piratica has been in the US for a couple of years). And stuff from Rembrandt's house (but that's not really frivolous), and souvenir buildings (but that's a whole other post), and sugared violets from Laduree, and the macarons from Laduree that I shared with the office (unlike the chocolates) before I took pictures.

Hard to believe, after all of this wonder, that yesterday I went and had a 1/4-pound hot dog, onion rings, and an Oreo flurry. Back to America, I guess.

Necessary chocolates

I'm back. I've been back for nearly a week, and I haven't quite known what to write. Where do I start? How many times can I reiterate that I love Paris? It gets boring after a while. And there was so much frivolity in just a little over a week. But, considering this blog's name, I'll start with the chocolates.

My wonderful hostess in Belgium, Roz, has made it a point to discover the best chocolate in Brussels. For one day, she took my cousin (Heather) and I on a tour of the chocolate shops, including Neuhaus:

      

I'm still savoring the amazing chocolates from Pierre Marcolini's. Here's what's left after a three-day Memorial Day weekend:

This little duck is filled with caramel. The little mound has a crunchy toffee layer surrounding a chocolate ganache.

   

There's a store in New York, which gives me hope that someday, somehow, I'll taste these again. And maybe buy another box, which I will share with others, and lessen the guilt of eating these, one by one, all by myself.

Free roses

In my garden, roses are an annual. I've tried to keep them alive through the winter, really I have. Last year, my father and I made chicken wire cages for each bush, and I filled the cages with leaves and dirt and pine boughs. We had a particularly mild winter. And even so, this is what they look like in mid-May:

And here are the roses that a previous owner planted, which I did not winterize or even feed last year:

I've mentioned it before: gardening is not my strength.

But I do love roses, and I'm willing to plant them as annuals. So I was thrilled when one night, when I came home from work, there in my hallway was a big box from the David Austin company, and inside was a rose:

    

The only note inside (besides planting instructions) was marked "Free Drawing." Wow. I never win drawings, ever. Ever. But I vaguely remember filling out an online survey at their website, and I won!

Someday little "Lady Emma" will look like this, even if it's only for this summer.  And that's probably enough.

Maybe I really like kits better

I decided to resew the front and back of Christina's dress Saturday night and reassemble the dress. So much had gone wrong with the first version that I just couldn't live with it anymore.

I finished it in two nights. It took away a lot of the stress of packing (well, mostly because I was sewing instead of packing), and it went together like a dream. All of the decisions had been made - all I had to do was sew everything in the right order.

Decisions scare me. I have do something mind-numbing for a half hour just to decide how to embroider a collar. I make a decision at night, then second guess it in the morning, then recommit the next night. It can take me a week just to decide what fabric to use for a project.

So there is something so relaxing about a kit - all of the decisions made for me. But I keep hoping that if I keep creating, and learning how to live with and fix the consequences of my decisions, that the whole process will become easier. I hope.

And I love the dress!

   

Hmm, now that I look at the photo - the bottom button is crooked. Oh well. It's in the mail, and I'm done! Unless I want to finish up that slip that I made to go with it...

The posts that might have been (and might still be)

There are so many things that I've wanted to write about this week: sewing, Mother's day, tulips, They Might Be Giants, free roses. I took pictures, I rehearsed what I'd write in my head. I always expect to have so much time before I leave on vacation, but I don't seem to factor in sleeping. Now I'm on the train, and I'm hoping for a long, peaceful time in the airport with a wireless connection so that I can get some of these ideas out of my head and onto the computer. Stay tuned.

When bad things happen to good dresses

It started in April: I would sew a dress for Christina, who is 4, for Easter. I had pretty blue ribbon, nice soft red/pink fabric, and a pattern. I was set. I could just whip this one up.

The stage is set for the following drama.

1. Start the dress. Go to NYC, and decide that I like different ribbon.

3. Ribbon is perfect with fabric. But, once rolled out, I realize that little red flowers on ribbon aren't continuous - they've used an ombre thread. Doesn't look good. I embroider red over all of the pink flowers.

4. Make collar. Somehow make it 1/4" too small. Make collar again.

5. Sew collar on. Clip small hole in front of dress while trimming collar seam, but hole is behind pleat, so not a crisis. Mend hole.

5. Make first sleeve. Bad sleeve. Make two good sleeves.

6. Just have to sew side seams and hem dress. Catch front of dress in serger, nice large v-shaped hole in front of dress (NOT behind pleat this time). Turn off knife and cutting feature of serger for all future use.

7. Cut off bottom of dress. Because it's a-line, it has a curved hem. Create fake grow tuck by cutting out two... oh, never mind. But it was one entire evening of work to try to add onto the bottom of the dress.

8. Decide that tuck is too bulky, and maybe it would be better to cut it off and sew up a slip to peek out underneath. Spend two nights sewing slip.

9. Decide that tuck really is okay.

10. Last night - finally ready to re-hem. Have to unpick part of  tuck. Manage to rip 3" up the back of the dress from grow tuck. Have to cut 3" more from bottom of dress. Dress is now blouse length (see photo below - slip beneath is only about 1" longer than the dress was supposed to be.

9. Say, as if I mean it: The creative process is a good thing.  The creative process is a good thing. The creative process is a good thing.

   

So now I have to decide: do I send this as a blouse? Do I unpick and rescue the sleeves, collar, and ribbon and just sew up a new front and back? All I know is that it's been almost a MONTH of work, I love the bodice, and the dress hasn't been sent to Arizona.

Update: More of the story here.

And to think that I do this to relieve stress...

The Educational Value of the Bobbsey Twins

I spent one summer studying in London with the interior design department of my college. One night, after a trip to Windsor Castle my roomate sighed, "I wish I had prepared like you did. I wish I was as well read as you are." I was a little embarrassed to tell her my source of information:

The Bobbsey Twins at London Tower. Yep, they go to Windsor Castle, where they see Queen Mary's Doll House, and there are lots of model soldiers for sale. Or so I remember.

Of course, I had learned about England from other books - there were the Happy Hollisters mysteries, and then there were those regency romances that I secretly loved, and the Agatha Christie novels, and...  Of course, I loved E. Nesbit, too. And, in all fairness, I did spend one day retracing the Thomas Hardy novels and Bronte novels; I'd read Austen and other greats. But, in general, the day-to-day knowledge of How England Works came from those childhood mysteries.

My mother recently reminded me of this story. I'm planning a trip to Paris, and was trying to figure out where to stay and how to get around. She asked, "Didn't the Bobbsey Twins go to Paris?" They probably did. I don't remember that episode. I remember Naples, and Japan, and Greece, but I don't remember Bert and Nan and Flossie and Freddie eating croissants in front of the Eiffel Tower.

A year ago, I was in Greece. Wow. My cousin was working on her doctorate there. I visited Athens, and Olympia, and Delhi. And I spent one afternoon walking around Athens taking pictures of the locations where Helen MacInness' Decision at Delphi took place. I also had studied carefully by reading Mary Stewart's "My Brother Michael."

Once, when I was traveling through suburbia in Connecticut, I came across "Silvermine Road." Two of Edward Eager's books take place near Silvermine Road - I had no idea it really existed. Wow. I felt as though I suddenly knew suburban Connecticut.

So now I'm getting reading to pack "Mrs. Arris Goes to Paris" and Elizabeth Cadell's "The Corner Store." I've watched the Dr. Who episode of "City of Death" (takes place in Paris). Literate or not, I'm ready for my Big Adventure.