weekend, O! weekend!

i've had this children's quilt on my couch for about the last 8 years. i made it when my friend eli & chava were expecting a baby. we had been friends up at humboldt, then in l.a. sometime before i finished the blanket we fell out of touch.

at this time i was trying to add pieced borders to my quilts. i'm particulary proud of the pieced stars in this one. :)
it's got a nice orange flannel back (another first for me back then).
pardon the wide, bland pic with the yard stick at the end. it was taken with my laptop for
someone interested in using it in a shoot. here is a nice detail shot:
those little shapes in the blue squares are fish. with smiles. i am very fond of this old fabric. :)

over the years i've considered giving the quilt to other friends who were having kids but never did. i like to make things with the recipients in mind, so giving it to another family just felt odd.

a couple of weeks ago, through the radness of f/b, eli and i reconnected! turns out we'd lost touch b/c he and his wife moved out of state. i'd completely forgotten. their family has since grown, and their youngest is a two yr old boy. i told them the story of the quilt and asked if i could send it to them. it's now in a box, awaiting a mailing label. this week it's off to my friends after all these years. awesome. (lord, my fatigue has depleted my vocabulary in a powerful way. sigh).

i'm happy about this for all the obvious reasons but also b/c now i have reason to make another quilt for home. woo! how cool would it be for all the blankets at my place to be handmade? one long-cooker of a project i have is to mend the afghan my grandma irene crocheted. just needs a little mending where the granny squares have been attached.

boy, this was a terrific weekend. got a few things done, did some knitting, watched "Dinner at Eight," had some unexpected social time with my neighbors, had two bagels, saw a movie, wrote a few postcards, went to the record store, and spent a good deal of time reading "wonder boys."

this evening as i rode my bike home from an afternoon at good & intelligentsia mmj's version of the velvet underground's "oh! sweet nuthin'" came up on the shuffle and just broke my heart. such a terrific song.
where effie st. crosses hyperion there is wide open view of the neighborhood. there were some low grey clouds over the hollywood sign and griffith observatory as the sun was setting. the area jacaranda trees are all in full bloom: luminous lavender everywhere! dotting the hillsides, along every street. one of those beautiful, cool evenings in the neighborhood.

(this pic came from a forum for landscape architects. i couldn't find a photo credit.)

and with that: off to bed. big week coming up: ira glass is coming to town for a this american life screening and i'm going to a new dentist. excited and a little terrified. my last dentist recommended gum grafts. this is how he became my Last Dentist. :|