Makers Market » Markets of New York

Weekend Market Picks for June 25-26 and It’s Strawberry Season!

We’re in the middle of Strawberry Season in our Farmers Markets! The berries are just getting plump, juicy and ripe — perfect for enjoying one delightful bite at a time, or for burying your face in to win the Messiest Eater Award at this Saturday’s Strawberry Shortcake Eating Contest at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket!

This weekend boasts several brilliant annual markets, including Funday in Carroll Gardens, the Makers Market in the Socrates Sculpture Garden, and the new Independent Designers Pop Up! Check out all these unique events this weekend:

Saturday & Sunday

Independent Designers Pop Shop at Chelsea Market: I just posted about this fabulous collection of clothing and accessories designers, as well as our fine friends from Australian Scent with their highly effective and wonderful smelling beauty products. The event runs through Monday evening.

Makers Market at Socrates Sculpture Park: This is the third year for this outstanding collection of over 30 makers from across the country. “Experience the convergence of design and contemporary craft in an open-air marketplace.” The Market runs Friday – Sunday.

Saturday

Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket: According to GrowNYC, strawberry season is “almost over.” Wha?!! Where have I been? The good news is that you can get your fill of strawberries at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket’s Strawberry Shortcake Eating Contest! It starts at 11AM, and anyone can participate if you mosey on over to the Market Information Tent a few minutes before 11. The fastest, messiest, and cleanest eaters get an award!

Hester Street Fair: Hester Street has a KILLER lineup of sellers this week – looks like 75 top notch artisan, food, and flea vendors. I love their picnic tables at the back of the market, and also the grassy space beyond the fence where you can snack on your pickles, lobsters, meatballs, macarons, pies, and so much more!

Shout out to Jersey: Not Yo Mama’s Craft Fair: Jersey City is hosting almost 100 local artisans at this third annual event! I know they put on a great show, so head over to The Morgan Lot at 107 Morgan Street on Saturday, 11am – 7pm!

Sunday

Carroll Gardens Greenmarket: The Carroll Gardens Greenmarket is a big part of the Sunday mornings in the neighborhood. Once time I visited this market on a day they were holding a grape stomping demo. You could pop off your shoes, jump inside half a barrel of grapes, and stomp away. Then you could rinse your feet off in a bucket of water. It reminded me of this. This weekend’s market doesn’t have grape stomping, but it will have 19 farm stands, so you can pick up everything you need for your table this week.

Smith Street Funday: It’s “Brooklyn’s most exotically perfect bazaar,” according to Carroll Gardens Blog Pardon Me for Asking. Local artisans, independent designers, food purveyors and more make up the eight blocks of this event. There will also be music and entertainment at 4 different venues. Stinky Bklyn sponsors the Fourth Annual Stinkfest and Cheese Eating Contest, which starts at 2:30 PM,! Who’s in?!

Have a great weekend at the markets! Let me know what treasures you find!

The 2010 New York City Holiday Market Guide

Happy Holidays from Markets of New York City!!!

See you at the markets in 2011!!!

Photo of the Day 10/11/2010: Silver Kooshball Ring from Wits Productions

Silver Casting Koosh Ball Ring by Natalia Porter

The jewelry designs by Natalia Porter of Wits Productions is seriously fun. At first glace, her pieces are beautifully cast in silver, with fine details and bright accents. But look a little closer. That star burst ring? It’s a kooshball, cast in silver. Those brightly colored necklaces with bright blue or red cabochon links? They’re fluffy cotton pompoms, the kind that edge the pillows in your grandma’s house. Many of Porter’s jewelry is made from toys and castings from unusual items, like tiny silver pigeon feet earrings cast from taxidermy model feet. Natalia makes pieces for women and men, and you can meet her in person at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory.

NOTE: The Makers Market has rescheduled their Minds Over Matter themed markets, which will kick off the Holiday Season on 11/21/2010 with Sugar. So start thinking up your Wish List today!

Natalia Porter’s Wits Productions

Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory

Photo of the Day – October 4, 2010: Darin R. Gehrke Ceramics

Celadon Tea Set by Darin R. Gehrke Ceramic at the Ceramics in Brooklyn Autumnware Show

Sunday’s Autumnware Show, curated by Ceramics in Brooklyn for the Minds over Matter series at the Old American Factory (Makers) Market, featured many talented and unique ceramic artists. The celadon green of this teapot drew me to the wooden table of Darin R. Gehrke of DRG Ceramics. Gehrke’s work has a distinctly Asian sensibility in the colors, decorative details, and the objects themselves. His style combines the “looseness” of the Japanese style with the structure of the traditional Chinese traditional. This combination of great ceramic traditions is not something you see every day. From his artisic standpoint, Gehrke has the benefit of seeing the beauty and value in each of these styles and combining them to come up with designs featuring the most beautiful, and often practical, aspects of both.

Gherke is a studio potter with the TriBeCa Potters and teaches advanced adult ceramic classes at the Educational Alliance Art School.

Darin R. Gehrke Ceramics

Ceramics in Brooklyn

Minds over Matter, The (Makers Market) at the Old American Can Factory

Market Events This Weekend – Never Mind The Weather!

Chicken Biscuit from Pies-n-Thighs at the Madison Square Market

Don’t let the inclement weather prevent you from going to the markets this weekend! Put on your wellies, grab an umbrella, and go! In addition to the fantastic weekly artisan, farmer, food, and flea markets around the city, there are several special events taking place. Most of them are indoors too!

Tonight, October 1, 2010:

First Friday at the Loom: First Fridays are back! Meet and mingle at The Shops at The Loom in Bushwick. See the works from local designers at the Better than Jam Coop, many of whom sell at the artisan markets. The Bushwick Print Lab (and special guests) will be making silkscreen prints LIVE in water-based textile inks. If you bring a garment, they’ll print right on it for you! Check here for details.

Greenpoint Open Studios: This weekend event opens Friday night and runs through Sunday evening. It features “open studios for over 150 artists collaborating with many local galleries and businesses to exhibit shows and performances throughout the weekend.”

Madison Square Market: This market features handmade artisans selling everything from clothing and jewelry to toys and artwork So many great things to look at, and don’t hesitate to ask the sellers about their products! Plus, the food vendors are fantastic (like the chicken biscuit in the photo from Pies-n-Thighs)! This market runs 7 days a week through October 23.

Saturday, October 2, 2010:

Crafts on Columbus: This pillar of the craft fairs opens this weekend. Stroll through the booths select from the high quality crafts. It runs for three weekends through October 17.

Jersey City Craft Mafia and Art House Productions: This event features 20 artists with wonderful handmade wares, plus loads more activities, including craft demos, and a showcase of the work by Kayt Hester’s surreal work using hand-ripped masking tape. It goes Saturday and Sunday, 12PM – 6PM. Free admission.

Greenpoint Open Studios

Madison Square Market

If you are in Washington, DC this weekend, many New York artisans are participating in Crafty Bastards!

Sunday, October 3

Ceramics in Brooklyn: I’m very excited about this event, a one-day sale of contemporary ceramics made by Brooklyn artists. It is the second event of its type, and part of Minds over Matter at the (Makers) Market, a series of ten weekly shows of handmade products made of a different material each week.

Crafts on Columbus

Greenpoint Open Studios

Jersey City Craft Mafia and Art House Productions

Madison Square Market

See You at the Markets!

Photo of the Day – July 6, 2010: Ceramics by Michiko Shimada

Humpty Dumpty Sat On Your Bookshelf - Ceramics Designs by Michiko Shimada

This Sunday is Summerware: Ceramics in Brooklyn! This inaugural event “brings together the New York community of clay artist, potters and progressive ceramic designers.” Some of my favorite ceramics artists will be there, including Michiko Shimada, who creates fine, lovely, and unusual pieces in her Brooklyn studio. I first saw her distinct designs at a Homemade Brooklyn pop-up shop, and then again at the Renegade Craft Fair in McCarran Park. This Sunday, you can find her at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory.

Michiko’s tiny stump card holder is a sweet conversation piece, and this Humpty Dumpty is the perfect adornment for every bookshelf. Her Vita collection of vases is more abstract, representing both the curves of the body and its internal forms. Michiko will be on hand to talk with you about her work this Sunday. For a preview, visit her lovely Etsy shop.

Summerware: Ceramics in Brooklyn at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory, Sunday July 11, 11AM – 5PM

Photo of the Day – April 7, 2010: Adair Vinyards

Cayuga White from Adair Vinyards, Community Market at the Old Can Factory

I tasted the Cayuga White from family run Adair Vinyards in the Historic Hudson Valley and was blown away by the strong caramel flavors. Cold and refreshing, this wine is perfect for a springtime picnic. You can find this and other wines from Adair at the Community Markets Farmers Market at the Old American Can Factory.

Photo of the Day: March 31, 2010

Makhani Simmer Sauce from Calcutta Kitchens

Using traditional methods and spices combined with the freshest ingredients, Calcutta Kitchens make it easy for us all to enjoy wonderful complexities of Indian cuisine. The Makhani Simmer Sauce that I brought home took me no time at all to heat up with chicken, and it made for a sensational dinner! Calcutta Kitchens is a part of the Community Markets organization, and you can find their chutneys, simmer sauces and other Indian delicacies at these markets in and around New York City. (Market Schedule)

The chutneys and simmer sauces from is the perfect way to satisfy your frequent cravings for Indian Cuisine!

Community Markets

Meow Meow Tweet – Vegan Soaps Handmade in Brooklyn

Markets of New York City is an official sponsor of the Brooklyn Lyceum’s Spring Food and Craft Market (May 1 & 2). This week’s Vendor Spotlight is on Meow Meow Tweet!

This morning I finished up the last teensy sliver of Fennel Orange Oats soap from Meow Meow Tweet. I bought a whole stack of their great smelling soaps over the holidays at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory, thinking I would put them in people’s Christmas stockings. But I didn’t. I used a Black Tea and Honey bar and decided that everyone else would be getting jellybeans. Yes, I totally gave the soaps to myself.

Meow Meow Tweet proprietors Jeff Kurosaki and Tara Pelletier set out to create healthful, natural inspiring soaps, and I am happy to report that they have succeeded! The soaps are made from “an all-organic base of olive, palm, castor, and coconut oils with an addition of shea or coco butter.” They are vegan and never tested on animals other than humans.

The soaps are inspired by flavors, like Grapefruit Mint, and Lavender with Lemon Peel. The Cinnamon Coffee is like a breakfast appetizer in your shower. The ingredients are widely known to nurture your skin, such as tea tree oil, oats, kelp, and honey, and coffee grounds and black walnut powder are natural exfoliants.

I also save the labels because they are tiny works of art in and of themselves, each one drawn and printed by hand by Jeff or Tara on 25% hemp and 75% post-consumer recycled paper. I love that the images don’t necessarily have to do with the ingredients in the soap, except for the Yeti and raccoon in a pine forest on the bar of Citronella Fir (this bar is actually designed for campers).

You can buy your bars of Meow Meow Tweet soaps on their website, or you can meet Jeff and Tara in person on Sundays at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory. Meow Meow Tweet will also be participating in the Brooklyn Lyceum’s Spring Food and Crafts Market on May 1 & 2, 2010!

Photo of the Day: March 16, 2010

Shaya NYC ’s beautiful geometric jewelry is just the touch you need for any occasion. Light and airy, these earrings, necklaces and rings are perfect for a casual weekend or for a meeting with your biggest clients. You can meet designer Shay Mehubad at the Makers Market at the Old American Can Factory and at the Old Cathedral Market on Prince Street (between Mulberry and Mott).