last tuesday afternoon of 2010 in postcards

**this one is to my pal, u. in san francisco. the CDR mentioned in this note is the podcast of Comedy Death Ray. I’m commenting on the Dec. 17 xmas episode. i've never seen "Bored To Death" but i'm a fan of its creator, Jonathan Ames, and actor Zach Galifinakas.**

Tues dec 28^th 2010 – closing in on the end of the year…

After what seemed like weeks of uninterrupted rain we’re having some bright, sunny, warm days here. Warm enough for shorts, but still I’m in pants. The weather reminds me that I haven’t worn flip-flops in 2 mos. TWO MONTHS! What kind of living is this, I ask? Thinking of popping in @ my local nail salon to just say hello. The new year provides a good excuse. :) ¶ Spent some time @ a new-ish used book store near Kaldi: found a 1^st edition of M. Chabon’s “Mysteries of Pittsburgh!” I’m not a collector, but picked it up. $15.oo cheap. I’ve read it so many times. :) ¶ Listened to the CDR xmas special. A Bob Ducca ailment caused me to laugh loudly @ SL Coffee. Good thing the patio was empty but for me. :)

**I once visited with my sister Deb while she made a meatloaf of ground turkey. At one point as I helped her by pouring dried oatmeal into the bowl as she mixed it she asked, “do you put oatmeal in your meatloaf?” Unless lentil burritos are considered “meatloaf”, I’ve never made one. That she thought I had my own “meatloaf method” killed me. this card is going to her.**

12.28.2010

So, Elvis’ cook used saltines where you use oatmeal. Maybe it’s a southern thing. :) Funny, I’ve had this postcard for years waiting for just the right recipient. When I saw it today I said, “yes!” ¶ Thank you for the merry xmas text your sent! @ 6:30 am. You are an earlier riser than the rest of us. The double whammy of broken-foot & torrential rains kept me from my xmas ritual of hiking followed by a movie. Spent the morning putting on soup in the slow-cooker. Spent the evening sitting at an outdoor café chatting w-a woman who reminded me of my pal, Vinnie, drinking cappuccinos. Today is bright & sunny – I’m soaking in sun, sipping iced coffee, writing post-cards & watching the neighborhood go by the café patio. I’m off until Jan. 3. Work is shut. Still can’t walk w-o crutches, so I’m a bit stir crazy. This sun is helping, tho. Spectacular day!

Oh! You’ve got the wrong zip code for me!

**for a couple years now i've received letters from my sister even though she's using the wrong zip-code.**

**this to my friend and college-era housemate, s. in santa rosa.

Hey! It’s the last Tuesday of the year… After the days & nights of crazy rain & cloudy days we’ve got some brilliant, sunny, warm weather. The days are still short: The sun is down by 5pm, but while it’s up, I’m gonna be sitting here. :) ¶ This is the kind of day that has a person resolve to Do Something. To Get Things Done and Be a Good Person. You see Potential. I’m fortunate that I have enough experience w-this feeling tht I’m not writing down any of the ideas for action nthat are popping into my head: the enjoyable part is just considering them all. The good stuff will surface again on a not-sun-soaked afternoon. When I am willing to act on it. :) I think the coffee has plenty to do with it. And the groovy tunes. Man, the advent of the walkman in the 80s changed my young life. And here I am w-an mp3 player & headphones in 2010. But, of course!

**this one to my pal, mel: my college-drop-out-era housemate, and old friend.**

3:15p – from a still sunny spot on the patio of Kaldi Coffee – Atwater Village.

The sun is bright & warm today, but it is still winter so it’s low in the sky. Although it’s still early in the afternoon the shadows are getting long. This time of year, at this time of day I am unsettled, trying to remember which café patio has direct sunlight the longest. [I think it’s Silver Lake Coffee – will likely head there soon] I’m looking for the highest ground on the north side of the street. :) ¶ 30 min ago I was feeling all the potential & momentum that a dry sunny day brings after rain. But then I went into the café to order a cappuccino. Had to wait for a while. Then had to put additional coins in the parking meter. By the time I sat down the spell was broken. The breeze is stirring, cool. But then! I took a sip of this coffee: brilliant! AND the song, “Lake Swimming” by Laura Veirs came up on the mp3 player. Gorgeous! ¶ I brought knitting, a novel & postcards out today. Ended up just writing postcards. Something I noticed: when I’m writing letters or p-cards, I spend time looking around @ traffic, people, birds, the sky. When I’m knitting, I’m always looking @ what I’m working on. This is a good enough reason to write at least one p-card every time I plant myself @ a café. Make the most of being in a public place. :) Think I’ll pull out a quilt top in progress from the depths of the closet tonight. Haven’t sewn in months & it’s starting to wear on me. Boxed up this proj. over a year ago. Alright then: IT’S ON! (there’s that potential I was talking about!)

**I notice that while I am writing the last card I am trying to recapture the glow I felt in the third. So much so that I dare to write down a Big Idea when I said I wouldn’t.**

transcription stuff of note:

snax: avocado, cucumber tomato sandwich. xmas cookies from u. in sf!

tunes: richard swift: the atlantic ocean; duke's birth announcement mix

the sad yet much loved life of a two year old's quilt

**in an earlier post i described getting in touch with old friends and sending them a quilt i'd made for their son. a few weeks after i sent it, Eli sent me this letter...**


Ms. Y-von,

Mendel loves the quilt you made him so much that he likes to take it around with him sometimes. He sleeps with it every night. Mendel is also enraptured with experimentation--not in a Sonic Youth or Destroy All Monsters kind of way, but in an "I wonder would happen if..." mode. When you put those two things together, it can (and did) get a little ugly.

I'll preface today's mayhem with a little background. It's not so much that Mendel finds trouble, it's that trouble swirls around him in a cloud of giddy puckishness. For example, Mendel is a runner. When he spots an unlocked door to the outside, he turns the knob, pulls the door and he takes off. This has caused a couple of insanely worrisome freak-outs where we turn our backs for a second and Mendel has opened the front door and run off to take his act on the road. This same free-spiritedness leads him to frequently color on things, put odd objects in the refrigerator and love, love, love to play with the toilet.

We've tried to create obstacles to his mischief in the hopes of slowing him down, but alas the kid is much smarter than either of us. The front door problem is the rare problem that we seemed to have solved. To date he hasn't realized that he can pull a stool over to the front door and climb up to unlock the deadbolt we've become religious about locking. The other problems though just seem unavoidable. We try to put those things that can damage, cut, color or stain up high and out of reach, but with three older siblings, these prized objects are frequent finds. He shadows his brothers and sister like a ninja and as soon as a marker has been left out, in the blink of an eye, he's written all over himself, the floor, and the walls of at least three and a half rooms. We're attentive parents, but the kid can create a mess faster than a Chicago road crew.

Interior doors are also a lost cause. The child proofing industry has produced these well-intentioned little guards that clip over a doorknob and sit loosely around it so that unless you know to grip the metal through the holes in it, you're stuck scratching at the other side like a lonesome schnauzer. After a couple of days, Mendel figured out that the solution wasn't twisting, it was pulling them apart...and the boy won again. We also installed toilet lid locks because he has an incurable interest in the porcelain pool. Somehow, he's managed to figure those locks out as well. As a result, things tend to find their way into the toilet that shouldn't be there.

This morning I walked into the downstairs bathroom and what should I see neatly stuffed into the toilet, but his favorite quilt. Historically Mendel has only managed to throw small objects in the toilet. This time really went for the brass ring this and stuffed in the whole quilt. Perhaps he was curious about absorbency. I suppose we'll never know. What we do know is that as gross as that was, after a couple of thorough machine washings, the quilt was as good as new.

I can't promise this won't happen again. The little curly-headed demon with curiously quick mischief making skills is fickle. One minute he's lovingly carrying around his favorite quilt, lying on it, or wrapping himself in it like a burrito. The next he's flipped and is skillfully soaking up the toilet water. So in case you sensed the abuse of your lovely gift or heard its psychic, disgusted wail, I just wanted to be clear--it's not because he doesn't love it.

I hope all is well.

Eli

a weekend in postcards: August 1 - 2

this past weekend i enjoyed a bounty of neighborhood activity. at one point in the afternoon i rolled out a few post cards. i've transcribed them below. there are a few repeated thoughts among them, but i've left them in here.

NUMBER 1:
*note: this first one references a particular beetle. the week before i'd seen this HUGE SHINY BEETLE flying and bumping into my window screen. this thing belonged in Egypt or Brazil. crazy. i sent my pal, suzie, a note about it. she's keen on insects and likely knows just what type of (enormous) beetle it was.
saturday Aug. 1 2009 -- Back patio @ Stories, Echo Park...

ok. crazy beetle update:
this morning i saw two of those same green beetles land in some grass, burrow and DISAPPEAR. i was standing there w/my bike, helmet on, staring at the grass at the base of this jacaranda tree. I'm sure my mouth was agape.
I bent down for a better look, pulled back the grass and saw one. very still. I didn't want to poke it lest it come flying up at me. :|
I'm beginning to think they're some kind of burrowing, years dormant bug that 's not surfaced during my 6 years (!) in that apartment. Both fascinating and unnerving. (I just noticed I have bike chain grease all over the back of my right leg. I'm not one of those cool cyclists. My helmet is goofy & I always get chain grease & tire marks on my legs.) I just came from a new-ish small record store. bought a concert ticket and a 45 rpm of a new Wilco song.
now: cappuccino & shady patio!

NUMBER 2:

*this was sent to my sister linda and brother in law jim*


my initial plan for today ended with me @ work trying to get a little ahead so i could take 2 days off at the end of next week. However. I'm sitting on this shady, breezy back patio of a book store cafe. I just drained the last bit of foam from my cappuccino and thought, "Well, that's not gonna happen." :) so, I will get back on my bike (i rode it here), ride west on Sunset Blvd, from Echo Park to Sunset Junction, where i'll stop @ another amazing coffee shop for a little while. Then, I'll head home. Do a little laundry and a lot of sewing. Bonus activity: I'll box up 4 (FOUR!!) packages to mail tomorrow. There's a shipping place in my neighborhood open Sundays. I love them. One package is a souvenir coffee mug i bought mom in NYC last january. It's been on my desk for 7 months. I've got some good sewing mojo going on. Gonna ride that wave.
also: job interview for next gig next week!


NUMBER 3:

*to my pals, trish and maudie


Saturday (!) August 1, 2009 - sippng iced american @ intelligentsia cafe - one of my favorite chicago exports :)
I just read something that brought to mind the hysterical, and frightfully accurate email re: concert attendees that Trish sent me. It's this, taken from the piece "Disco Hints: The New Etiquette," by Fran Lebowitz: "16 minute instrumentals by West-African tribal drummers are frequently the cause of undue amyl nitrate consumption and shirt removal." in this piece she laments taht while she loves dancing, she doesn't like crowds, and it is unfeasable to bring the discoteque into her home. Again, this turns my thoughts to you all. :)
I've not read Fran L. before. i found this on the "your next book" rack @ the library this afternoon. i'm really enjoying how dated the subject matter is (refs to water piks and answering services).
fun fact: i bought a wilco 45 today that is sitting here on my table b/c i couldn't leave it in my bike basket: it's parked in the sun. NO WARPING!


**wednesday follow up: i never did go into work that saturday. i did sort all my laundry. sunday i washed 10 loads of the stuff. i managed to get all four packages mailed out. this afternoon i got a message from my brother that he received his new shorts. :)

and i got the job!**

no way to finish something

for the last year and a half i've been on a slow and steady mission to clear out some of my languishing craft projects and use materials i have in my apt. this really is the m.o. i've been applying to my entire life. i'm chipping away at the list of tasks, chipping away at the piles of paper, chipping away at debt, chipping away at clutter.

it's been working well, but the urge to start new projects is strong. about a month ago i stood staring into the closet of fabric and yarn, wanting to start a new sewing project. i pulled out a plastic container filled with cut fabric and scraps left over from more than a decade of quilting projects. i started sewing together all the pre-cut squares and cutting more from the fabric scraps.

even if i pack all these bits of fabric back into that box and put it back in the closet i've done enough piecing to reduce thier number by 75%. what was once 4 pieces is now one.

this may not be any way to finish a project, but it's a great way to get something started. :)


fun facts: among the fabrics in these pix: there are pieces from a quilt i made my brother during President Clinton's impeachment trial, a quilt made for Vinnie's baby son --who is now a junior in high school, another quilt made for a friend when i was cutting Animal Planet shows.

surprising the little bits of personal history and context that bubble up with this kind of stuff.


in this pic: bowling pin & candy corn fabrics!
these pix are representational of conditions in my dining room: both desks and two chairs covered in fabric stacks and sewing equipment. if my bicycle wasn't dirty i'd likely have fabric piled on it, too.

further craft note: am also in the midst of a knitting hanger marathon. will have used 8 balls of yarn from my stash, and 10 hangers from the box in the closet when all is said and done.

HELL.
YES.



snack of note: while sewing: leinenkugel's amber ale, pita chips & hummus quartet; while typing: triple vanilla late and mango slices.

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. :|

craft on!

finished: the knit headband listed in the "now knitting" sidebar of this page.

woo!

it was an experiment, knit for my friend, jen. i would have gone for a solid color, but this cool cotton/elastic yarn came only in muted earthtones and the pink/raspberry variagated color.

i really dig it! i have enough yarn to whip one up for myself. it's been MONTHS since i've had a haircut, so i'm in the market for a headband or two.
technical bits:
the band is a strip of stockinette st with a 3 st. border on the sides. the border is made by purling on both the wrong and right side. creates kind of a horizontal rib. neat!
i just sewed the ends together in a way to make the seam flat. (i want to say i used a mattress stitch, but i think that's a sewing, not knitting term. eh. it's all mish mash of technique.)

i had been putting in some quality time on a whole cloth quilt. i'd hoped to have it done by now, but traded some sewing hours for live music in the last month. and i worked more than usual. maybe next week. ;)

ambiance: a solo jeff tweedy acoustic performance of "i'm always in love" just came on. i do love this song.
food & beer of note: al wazir, leinenkugel's amber

knit-tacular!

since mid-december i've been on a bit of a craft tear. i'd been in a bit of a creative lull, but i got a request from roberta for a green scarf. my friend petra turned me onto some amazing yarn: rowan cocoon: merino wool and kid mohair. SOOOOFT! then, she showed me a terrific pattern: kim hargreaves' "haven."
roberta and i exchanged a flurry of texts while i was in the yarn store re: color and yarn weight. after "green," "chunky" and "city over sporty" she gave me license to knit what i wanted. now that she's received it in the mail, i'll post some pix.
this is a close up of the lace pattern.
(the fabric behind it is the back of a quilt i made)


---> in this shot you can see how long the scarf is. that is a queen size bed! for the record: i did NOT make that quilt. it's from the company store. :)

i knit this scarf in coffee houses across los feliz, silver lake, chicago, new york, and coast to coast on virgin airlines.

back to it: this scarf stoked my creative bug. since i started it, i've also been working on a beret made of pale green alpaca (oh lord, again with the softness!), some covered baby hangers for baby hoover, come close to finishing the supa-bright kids' quilt, and made this rad bag from an urban craft center pattern: i love the bee fabric. it's lined with some purple fabric from the stash in my closet. woo!
one last highlight: i've been pulling together some pix of my old quilt and knitting projects. this is a baby sweater i knit for roberta's son, beck:
that is a slice of buttered toast. r & i were housemates at humboldt. properly preparing toast was an art form in our apt. :)

this sweater is the first project i knit using the intarsia method. the pic is off-center. alas. there is a companion sweater to this: features an eggplant.
(if any of you have a pic of this one, let me know!)

also: this morning i decided what phrase will go on the bright kids' quilt.
i'd been waffling between "i will not fail you rainbow chicken" and "there will be snacks!" when i woke up this morning i was singing andrew bird's "tables and chairs." so.

as a bonus, that phrase always makes me think of my friend, natalie. :)

churro of understanding

this is a pic of the "churro of understanding" quilt when it was nearly finished. you can see the unfinished binding along part of the blanket. the left side of the pic is the back of the quilt: the right side shows part of the front with the finished binding.

one more pic: this is an in progress shot of "we can swim any day in november." there were still safety pins basting the layers together in some spots, and no binding.
and with that, i'm turning on the colbert report and picking up the "endless striped blanket" i've been knitting for SIX YEARS. honestly, if i had been knitting it more often, it would have been done long ago. i'd intended it to be a baby blanket, maybe 3' x 4'. the last time i checked it was at least 4'x 5'. ha!

i'm working a little later than expected tonight. nothing dramatic, but it made me think to update the desk posts...
changed the desktop images on my avid last night: on the left: allison (of SUPERSCHEIN) and brian standing in line outside the riviera in chicago last february during the wilco residency.
on the right: jeff tweedy during one of last year's letters to santa living room shows. that white square hanging from the mic stand is one of the printed pot-holders i made as a souvenier of the potluck & musical revue. :)
you can also see a "rampant badassery" sticker taped to the bottom of the left monitor. WORLD WIDE, YO!
both pics taken with my analog cam, by the way.

b/c it's a cool visual, here is a pic that is an overview of how i constructed the potholders:
from left to right:
1. gocco printed square (kind of lo-fi screen printing)
2. example of backing fabric
3. printed square, batting and backing during quilting process
4. a finished quilted square trimmed up
5. cloth strip to be used as binding
6. potholder with binding being turned to front & pinned
7. done! it's even got a loop at the corner.
the back row shows many of the different fabric combos i used. they're all pinned, waiting for the top stitching on the binding. i all i made 40 potholders in 16 different fabric combos. i took this pic standing on a chair in my sewing room.

for the potholders i used the same binding technique i use for my quilts. SEGUE! last night i made considerable progress sewing the binding on a kids' quilt that's been kicking around unfinished for about six years. i am THIS close to finishing it. last night i laid on the couch under it watching the colbert report. (if i've ever sewn or knit something for you, i have tried it on, or slept for a night or two with it on my bed. i just like to enjoy the finished project before sending it out in the world. note: i do NOT try on the baby stuff i make. nope.)

i've been laying pretty low the last few weeks: i was too sick to go out for awhile so i just got into the habit of spending evenings at home. all day yesterday i was thinking about going home to sew and check the blocking of roberta's scarf. tonight, i'm having to stay a little later at work, but i'm pining for the knitting needles. (say what you will.)
the only thing left to do on the aforementioned kids' quilt is to embroider a phrase, my signature, and the date on it. i like to use a phrase that is related to something going on when i finish the blanket. past phrases:
-"we can swim any day in november." from the postal service song, the district sleeps tonight. i finished the quilt right after thanksgiving. a thanksgiving i spent swimming in my friends' pool until 2am. brilliant. :) this was for nora.

-"this is the new year." from the death cab for cutie song, "the new year." i dated the quilt jan 6, 2006. it's not as obvious a choice as it sounds: jan 2005 started off with my sister in the hospital on life support. it was a statement of reclaiming the new year, dammit. i kept this quilt.

-"churro of understanding" is a reference to my friend moe's short film, "corndog of tolerance." i sent him a letter addressed to moe "churro of understanding" g. then i wrote a postcard to our mutal friends tiff & duane explaining the whole joke. this quilt went to tiff & duane for their son, barrett.

those might be the only ones...i used to just embroider them with the date and "Yvon."

totally unrelated, but truly cool: last weekend the western regional barista competition was held in l.a. (i was working, wtf?!). the top three spots were won by three of the guys who pull shots at intelligentsia. WOO! i am such a fan girl. i believe i blush when they slide those cappuccinos across the counter. *swoon* GO TEAM! last year's national championship was won by a barista at the los angeles branch of intelligentsia. (recently noticed that they've expanded their late hours to thursday! if i get out of here before 9:30p, think i'll head over. dude, it is 9pm now. there is no way i'm getting out of here in time. ahh, well: overtime, yo.)