Archive for the ‘News’ Category
We all had such a good time at this weekend’s charity bake sale! We probably had twice as many baked goods this time around, everything from gingerbread mini-loaves and whoopie pies to fancy macarons and red velvet cake pops. We even had homemade dog treats!! I am thrilled as heck to annouce that we raised a whopping $1,843 for the Mutt Scouts dog rescue!! Nikki and Jeff and their crew of doggie foster parents do truly amazing things for abused and neglected pups and we’re thrilled to be able to help them with their cause!
The lesson I’m learning in all this is to never, ever doubt the power of Sugar + Flour = Community.
We would like to thank everyone who plunked down their cold, hard cash and contributed to the cause, and everyone who stayed up late baking delicious treats! Our volunteer bakers this month included myself and my employees Jess and Lauren, along with friends, teachers, and customers like Matt, Nichole, Jek, Kim, Lori, Dani, Polly, Elinor, Anna, Mel, Jenny, Hannah, Inger, Chris, Virginie, Bethany and Karen. (Please leave a comment if we inadvertently left you out!) Hope you can all join us next time…we’ll keep you posted on all the details.
To view more pix from our charity bake sales, click here. Become a fan of our bake sales on Facebook here.
Please join us this Saturday for Round #2 of our new monthly bake sale initiative, entitled Bark at the Spoon! From 11am – 7pm we’ll be offering up all kinds of delicious home-baked treats, all to benefit The Mutt Scouts, a wonderful Los Angeles animal rescue organization. There were some truly tasty items available last month and it looks like this week’s sale will be just as amazing. We’ll have Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate-Guinness Cake available by the slice, The Barefoot Contessa’s PB+J bars, cupcakes of all kinds, cookies, and more. The sale lasts all day (or until we run out) so come on down!
If anyone reading this would like to volunteer to help at the sale, we could use folks to hang out and help price items and check people out. If this is you, leave a comment or send an e-mail letting us know when you’re available.
Feel free to re-post this info, or click here to print out a flyer to hang at your work or fave coffee shop. Thanks everyone!
As you can see from the image above, our Homemade for Haiti bakesale was a big, big success! We raised $1,140 on the actual day of the sale, and our friends from the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild kicked in some additional funds during their Monday night meeting, bringing us up to $1,220 for Doctors Without Borders. It was an amazing feeling being able to donate this money today and we are so grateful to everyone who helped lend a hand. If you’d like to take a peek at the sweet treats and fun time we all had, check out the Home Ec. Silverlake Flickr pool.
The bakesale was such a wonderful time. Seeing our community come together like this was truly inspiring, and something I’d like to see a lot more of. So I’m happy to announce that Home Ec. will be hosting bakesales on a monthly basis, to benefit a new charity every time. Our next bakesale will happen on Saturday, February 27 from 12-7pm and will benefit the Los Angeles non-profit animal rescue organization The Mutt Scouts.
Nikki and her fellow Mutt Scouts have helped save countless shelter animals who are on their last legs and in serious danger of being euthanized. Check out their blog to see the good works they do…especially if you are interested in adopting a special animal of your own!
If you’re looking for a quick, easy, and delicious way to help with the devastation in Haiti I implore you to stop by the shop this Sunday for our Homemade for Haiti bakesale. Many, many of our customers, teachers and friends are pitching in to help and we’ll have a ton of amazing baked goods on hand– everything from Browned Butter Rice Krispie treats to Cake Pops to Elvis Cupcakes (banana and peanut butter!). Our friends at Vegan Bake Sale are bringing some dairy-free delights and the incomparable Clare Crespo is dropping off some goodies too! The sale will last from 12-5pm or until we run out of yummies to sell. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.
Hope to see you there…and please feel free to spread the word!
It’s so fun seeing what customers do with our products, especially when it’s unexpected. Check out these bridal shower invites Kelly created for a friend using our Spring Calico fabric! (Sadly we’re down to our last half-yard of this sweet stuff, but we should be getting more in soon.) Really fresh and cute, no?
I’ve spent the last week coming down from a Grand Opening Party high…man what a great turnout! Many thanks to everyone who showed up. It truly was a blast and a half! So many great folks were on hand saying wonderful things about our new space. It was very encouraging, and I can’t tell you what a great feeling that is for a new shopowner. It’s much, much appreciated!
In other news…this afternoon at the shop, I made my very first granny square thanks to our awesome crochet teacher, Cecily Keim. I’ve dabbled in crochet here and there but didn’t always know if I was doing things “properly”—much less what the stitches were called. Cecily set me straight and got me hooking up a multicolored granny square in no time. I’m so excited to try it again solo…my stitches can only get more even in time, right? Anyhow, I’m not the only one with granny square fever, because our Granny Square 101 class sold out in 48 hours flat. (Not to worry though, we added a second session on October 16!) I’ve been a fan of granny squares for a long time, but the lovely Pip from Meet Me at Mike’s (note to self: buy plane tix to Australia immediately) really reignited my desire to learn with her “Granny a Day” posts. Trust me folks, if I can do this, so can you!
Oh and speaking of classes, we have a new Saturday morning class available that’s just for kids ages 8-12! Scrumdilly-Do blogger Jessica Wilson (aka Jek) will be teaching your little monkeys how to stitch up their own custom sock monkeys. Check out the details here.
Psst…it’s here! Finally and truly here. Yes folks, the new shop quietly opened last Friday, August 28 and we couldn’t be happier. Please join us for a Grand Opening Celebration on Friday, September 4 from 7-10pm. We’ll have snacks and drinks, and there will be fun crafty surprise giveaways to boot. Be there!
Home Ec. Silver Lake
3815 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90026
Well, as is often the case with these things, we’ve had to delay our “soft opening” for a few more days, though I hope to have our doors open by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. I’ll post here as soon as we’re open for real (and will of course alert the mailing list as well!). We’re also working hard to get all our web orders wrapped up and out the door in the meantime. Thank you so much for your patience while we get this stuff going!
In the meantime, head on over to the Cinefamily website and pick up your tickets for next weekend’s big movie premiere! Handmade Nation is finally coming to L.A., and we’re helping to produce the event. It’s showing several times over the weekend, but the big noon premiere on Saturday, August 15 will feature tote bags for all the ticket holders, plus Yudu silk-screening demos and a mini-craft fair and Q+A with the director, Faythe Levine! We’ll be raffling off Yudus and giving away special prizes like Cinefamily monthly passes, gift certificates to ReForm School and credits towards free classes at Home Ec.!
Hope to see you there!
Yes folks, you heard right…Home Ec. is moving! After six wonderful months renting space from our pals at ReForm School, I’ve taken the leap and found a storefront of my very own. Home Ec. is still in the same neighborhood, we’re just a block over on the opposite side of the street. The new shop is at 3815 W. Sunset Blvd. LA CA 90026, right between Secret Headquarters (a fab comic book shop) and Dangerbird Records.
We’re still putting the final touches together (you can view some of the early progress in this Flickr set) but will be having a “soft opening” this coming weekend. There will be a big, official opening party later in the month, and I promise to to keep you posted. I can’t wait to celebrate our new location with the community that made it all possible. Thank you all so much!
In other news, there’s a new class on the roster this month: Crepe Paper Flowers with J. Christina Huh. One look at her Marimekko-inspired poppies and out-of-this-world paper roses and I fell in love! Get all the details here.
And sure enough…just a day or two after my last post, one of our Sewing 101 students did buy the vintage gnome/mushroom fabric! She used it to make a pillow for a little boy in her life. See it there on the far left? How sweet!
Our next Sewing 101 session starts June 23 and there are just a few spots left. Act now if you’d like to learn to sew!