The Urban Craft Center is bringing some classy crafting to Food & Wine’s Taste of Beverly Hills. Put on by KCRW, this delicious extravaganza is a series of events, tastings and talks starting on Thursday and continuing through Sunday. We at the UCC are going to be making our crafty contribution in the form of five handmade aprons made from fabric in our studio.

Pics to come!

We’ve recently added a new Intro to Knitting class on Friday, September 24th from 6-9pm. Open to both complete beginners and advanced beginners looking to expand their horizons, this class is a great way to get you started knitting all your beanies and scarves for Fall!

We’re also expanding our Kraut & Kimchee syllabus to include Kombucha, a tart carbonated tea whose unique flavor comes from the fermentation process. Taught by Master Food Preserver Delilah Snell, instructor for our popular Summer in a Jar classes, this class definitely makes the most of produce at its seasonal best. There are still a few spots left, so come take advantage of this fantastic Fall class while you can!

A few weekends ago, one of our favorite customers Amber came in sporting this adorable bag she whipped up with Alexander Henry Willow Berries fabric. I love the drawstring and envelope closure!


Also made from Willow Berries are these yummy reversible kids placemats, handcrafted by our esteemed member Shannon Kors.

You can support a local artisan by picking up a set of these babies here in our shop for only $35! Here at the UCC we look at these beautiful fabrics every day, but always on the bolt. It’s so inspiring when you guys bring in the wonderful things you make with it! Have a beautiful day :))) luv ucc

This weekend, students got to make simple, adorable baby gifts in Shannon Richards’ Bibs and Burpees class. These patterns are great to experiment with pattern matching and practicing sewing binding to projects. I love the fabric pairings everyone came up with, don’t you?

Check out these photos from our most recent beginner crochet classes. Local artist Cheryl Cambras taught a two session class and each student made an incredible Super Happy Crochet Flower. Amazing!

Angharad taught a Crochet Granny Squares and Stars class, perfect for beginners looking for a single session class to get started. I love these little squares because they can be created in many simple variations and colors, then sewn together as a blanket or poncho!

There are tons of books that just arrived here at The Urban Craft Center! Books on how to knit animals & toys for kids, simple projects for you and your children that encourage imagination, green sewing ideas, vintage clothes reconstruction etc. We got a few specialty cook books with subjects like canning, cake decorating, chocolate making with nuts and fruits, candy making, booze cakes (yes I said booze cakes) and a couple of my favorites I wrote about below…

My obsession is with the classic Thai soup, Tom Kah Kai, (I prefer tofu substituted for chicken) a spicy coconut soup with lemongrass and more. The unique flavors of the soup have let me to an obsession with all things coconut. Coconut ice cream, coconut lime cupcakes, young coconuts that I crack open myself with a cleaver, etc. The book “The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato & Sorbetto” has an amazing recipe for coconut lemongrass sorbetto that I tried out last week. The creaminess of the coconut balanced with the light herbal citrus flavor of lemongrass was such a tasty treat! There are hundreds of other recipes to choose from like green tea gelato, Mexican chocolate gelato, pomegranate champagne sorbetto, blood orange sorbetto, and maple gingersnap gelato, just to name a few of my favs. You can even make your own simple syrup, which turns out to be just sugar and water heated up! With all the food science that is often present in manufactured ice cream, it really feels good to know exactly what is in your frozen treats.

Another foodie book we got in is “Porch Parties, Cocktail Recipes and Easy Ideas for Outdoor Entertaining.” This book has over 50 recipes for simple cocktails, as well as non-alcoholic drinks, many of which use blended fresh fruit sure to gussy up any party or get-together. There is so much inspiration here, including simple classics like an Arnold Palmer (lemonade and Iced Tea) and recipes I would never think to make and already love like Hibiscus punch or Agua Fresca de Honeydew. These recipes pair perfectly in glass serving pitchers with spigot tops, topped with thinly sliced fresh lemon. These serving pitchers are fun to find at flea markets and some of them are really fancy, tall, vintage apothecary jars with glass etching and pedestals. To balance out all these indulgent drinks, the book also includes a section of hors d’oeuvres like cherry tomatoes filled with jalapeno pimiento cheese goodness, baby crab cakes w/ lemon garlic aioli and fig and walnut brie.

Friends are always impressed with new things I cook, but I honestly feel like I’m cheating a little, because I’m just following steps from my cookbook! There’s something exciting about cooking a new tasty recipe that makes the energy in the house a little more lively, a little less boring,

In a timeless tale of skill against skill, there is a competition a-brewing here at the Urban Craft Center.

It’s happened to all of us. We see our friends breaking out their most impressive projects and we feel the need to show off our own skills. Occasionally bragging will ensure, and sometimes a dare or two will slip into an otherwise civil conversation. Last night when Amy brought out her new quilt project, she discovered Rhea also had a quilt project in the works. Two crafters, two projects, both at the same stage of completion. What began with a few harmless jokes ended in a challenge; a race to see who would finish their quilt first.

The odds are difficult to judge. While Rhea’s quilt is certainly bigger, Amy is trying a new sort of binding on this quilt and may run into a few problems while mastering the new technique. With the outcome so uncertain, excitement is definitely in the air at the UCC.

Special guest instructor and local artist Nicole Stevenson of Random Nicole is moving north for the winter and leaving us to finish up her masters degree in San Francisco. Not one to fade quietly into the sunset of the Golden Gate, Nicole has gone out with a bang of three fantastic classes; Transform your Tees, Soy Candlemaking and Spa Goodies.

In Transform Your Tees students had the opportunity to explore different kinds of alterations on their favorite shirts, from adding fabric embellishments to screenprinting new designs. Our soy candlemakers left the class with a collection of all natural soy candles, individually scented with a variety of essential oils and personalized in decoupaged jars. Spa Goodies students learned how to make a full line of natural bath treats designed to pamper and indulge, from bath salt sachets to handmade soap to lip gloss!