warning: very long post coming up where ann and dabney talk about new crafts and old friends

superette returned to boston last night after an absolutely fantastic weekend in new york.

on friday night the lovely people at sockit projects and fred flare hosted a pre-renegade craft fair mixer at supreme trading in williamsburg. a mere hint of a rumor about amy sedaris providing cupcakes for the event meant that ann and dabney arrived promptly at 6:01 pm, well in advance of other arrivals. although the funny woman herself wasn't in attendance that night (something about traveling for her upcoming movie, blah, blah, blah, whatever) she had left behind a batch of homemade cupcakes. the best part is that they were decorated with cut out photos of herself dressed up as all the various characters from strangers with candy. ann and dabney were happy to snag two and stashed the decorations away in their bag.



while happily munching away on the cupcake in one hand, and sipping a gin and tonic in the other, ann received a tap on her shoulder. she turned around to find her friend sumana from high school -- who she hadn't seen in about 15 years. it's rare enough to run into old friends in a strange bar in a strange city thousands of miles away from where you went to high school. but it's even rarer when your graduating class had only THIRTEEN people in it.


sumana and ann

and it gets even weirder when you realize that you are now pursuing similar ventures. because sumana, along with brother nick and another high school friend roy, have started a fantastic stationery company called imaginary friends. they have a very smart and creative line of cards called haikudos, where traditional greeting card sayings are replaced by... and this is brilliant folks...haikus. it's enough to make girlladyfriend, and her annual haiku contest, proud. here's a sample:

A baby's bottom- Nine whole months in the baking, A cute pair of buns. Congratulations

The open-backed gown, Everyday wear for luring Hunky physicians. Get Well Soon

sumana and her group of friends made for a great party in and of themselves. ann and dabney wound up chatting with devon of ihotto for hours about one of their favorite topics: japan. it turns out that the three all share a love for japanese crafts, 100 yen stores, and cell phone charms. ihotto, run by devon and her fiancee, peter, sells these great road trip t-shirts that are worth checking out. erika of the very fabulous mini minimarket in williamsburg was great to talk to and had lots of advice about what it takes to run a store. ann also met her new filipina sister, des, of creme fame.


devon and erika

over the next two days ann and dabney were camped out in mccarren park with their wares.



they were so pleased by the positive response to their things (how gratifying after sewing for weeks alone in the batcave) and were pleasantly surprised when they sold out of most things by the end of the day on saturday. that this was a happy problem was not lost on ann and dabney, but it still made them have nightmares about sitting in front of an empty table all day long on sunday. superette got a few nibbles from stores about carrying some items. and a woman from a nationally-distributed magazine came by to talk about featuring their sewn crochet hook case in their next issue. cross your fingers.

in their spare time, ann and dabney were able to run around and look at the other booths. the amount of ultra-talented people in attendance was both inspiring and humbling. in particular, they loved julie meredith's graphic cards at etui, maryink's totes and t-shirts, jill killjoy's kitty wrist pincushion, amy tavern's silver circle jewelry, and last but not least, the momomoogie booth. in addition to being a fantastic illustrator, stella im hultberg is also just quite possibly the cutest woman on the face of the earth. ann was also so happy to finally place an order for a belt buckle from erica at steel toe studios.

our booth neighbors were the collective girls from the polka dot life, whose website dabney has admired for quite some time. ann and dabney were very lucky they were there. whenever the wind threatened to carry superette's things (and at one point the entire booth) to the opposite end of the park, a few kind souls ran over to retrieve goods in flight. thanks again guys.