Fired Clay Artists

Hi, there! The family arrived home this afternoon from our short stay in New York. It was quite pleasant - the weather was sunny, we saw friends and had a fun time, and the Short One actually SLEPT this trip, which was a pleasant surprise. The S.O. directs our recreational itinerary these days, which means that we visited one of the playgrounds in Central Park, the Central Park Zoo and the Children's Museum of Manhattan (the Short One gives CMOM "two thumbs up" and highly recommends the model fire truck on the third floor), and that was pretty much it on the cultural end.

Okay, I managed to squeeze in two visits to Bruce Frank Beads (on the Upper West Side - 83rd b/t Amsterdam and Broadway) - which just happens to be right across the street from CMOM, but that was it on the bead and knitting front. Bruce Frank is a fabulous little store. They can be a touch on the pricey side, but they have some unusual items. And their sale walls had a lot of tempting things, this time - I came away with some strands of carnelian, garnet and shell pearl for really decent prices. Plus, I found some blood red Czech glass drops for my "Something Wicked" necklace. They have a website, but it doesn't do justice to the breadth of stock in the actual store, in my opinion.

We also ate really well. Sometimes I think we go to New York just for the food. My husband's and my favorite restaurant is Gobo - a sort of fusion Asian vegetarian restaurant (now that I think of it, it may be vegan, but I'd have to take one more look at the menu to be sure) that, along with Terre a Terre in Brighton, England, are the two best vegetarian restaurants anywhere, in my opinion. I am not a vegetarian (my husband is) but the cuisine is so imaginative and delicious that I would definitely pass up meat dishes in favor of most of the items on the menu at these two restaurants. We also had stunningly good Japanese at Roppongi (and the waiters were extremely polite about the amount of rice that the S.O. managed to dribble all over the floor, which is a plus, in my books). Hmmm, sadly, I can't seem to find a website for Roppongi in NYC - it's located at 81st and Amsterdam, for any interested parties.

The icing on the cake for this trip? When I came home today I discovered that I've won the Summer Design Contest sponsored by Fired Clay Artists. My wood nymph necklace was the winning piece. The funny thing is, I submitted several works to this contest, but I almost didn't submit this one, as I was worried that the colors were too earthy and autumnal to be considered a "summer" piece (which was the theme for the contest). I guess it just goes to show that you never can tell. At any rate, Fired Clay Artists is an association of very talented ceramic bead artists, for anyone not already familiar with the organization. Go here to learn more about them.

Really, the only drawback to the whole weekend was that we were so busy with the Children's Museum etc. that I completely forgot about Earthenwood Studio's Labor Day weekend sale and missed the deadline to place my order. I remembered at 12:20am this morning. Argh. I have a memory like a sieve.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope everyone had a nice weekend.