It's The Small Stuff

Our simple little bungalow

I've lived in our little Spanish revival bungalow for over 25 years. Larry bought the house about 30 years ago. It was built in 1926. Our house is 91 years old! It's held up fairly well. Of course, we've added on to the original bungalow. Our kitchen and the original bathroom are due for a major update soon.

The general characteristics of Spanish Revival homes from the 1920s and 1930s in Los Angeles usually included a low-pitched flat, gable or a hip roof, typically with no overhang; a tile roof, half-round arches, door and windows; stucco over adobe brick or adobe brick exterior walls, plaster interior walls, ornate tile, wrought iron and wood work. Our house has the roof, a few arches, but nothing else!

Larry bought the house from the children of the original owners. We were thinking that our Wilshire Vista Tract must have had certain choices for each homeowner to make before building the houses. Our house is the simplest home in the neighborhood. There are no fancy Spanish flourishes, only a few arches, no ornate woodwork or wrought iron and no cute little nooks or other extras found in houses of this era.

This is what our house SHOULD look like!

We didn't even have a wrought iron handrail leading up the few steps to our front door. This posed a problem when my Mother came to visit. One of us had to help her up the stairs. Now that we're getting older, we decided that a handrail would be a good idea. Larry rigged up a temporary rail a few years ago with some clamps and a closet rod. It was time to upgrade.

Our New Handrail

We found an iron worker across from one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Taqueria Los Anaya on Adams Boulevard called Felipe's Iron Works. Larry called Felipe and he came over to give us an estimate. One week later, we had our handrail. I love it! 

The Handrail Fits Right In With the Style of our House

Now, it's time to paint this ol' lady and spiff up the landscaping!

Summertime Swap

It's that time of year again. The Annual Dishcloth Swap on Ravelry is upon us. I love this swap! I've been participating for six years. My friend, Eve is in charge of this exchange of beautiful, hand-made dishcloths. I usually help out by offering my dining room table on swap day.

Here are the details: 

IN A NUTSHELL: Send 5 dishcloths (same pattern, various colors) with one SASE to the address below by August 25th. Receive 5 different dishcloths back. No signup, no obligation - if you make it by the deadline, you are in; if not, then there is always next year. Now read the details:

THE RULES: Signing up: There’s no need to sign up or notify anyone in any way that you intend to swap. Have your dishcloth at the destination below by AUGUST 25th, 2017 and you’ll be swapping. If you don’t have them there on time, they’ll be returned to you. We love you to participate in Ravelry group, but it’s not a requirement.

YOUR DISHCLOTHS: Each participant is required to crochet or knit 5 dishcloth/washcloth/spa-cloths in the same pattern. Please do vary the colors as you see fit. 

Please be sure your cloths measure between 6x6 and 9x9 inches square or 6 to 9 inches in diameter. 

THEY MUST BE WITHIN THESE SIZE PARAMETERS OR THEY WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU. 

Label each dishcloth with maker and care instructions. Feel free to include yarn and pattern info. Affix the label with a safety pin or tie it on. No straight pins, please.

YARNS: 100% Cotton or cotton blend yarn – 100% cotton yarn is awesome and is used often for dish/washcloths. Blends are great too but they need to be at least 50% cotton and contain no animal fibers. 

Linen and hemp yarn – These yarns are yummy and last FOREVER. Feel free to use these yarns =D 

No boucle yarns – This stuff is awesome but not for dishcloths. Its spun a little to loosely to take the abuse that dish/washcloths tend to take. Save this yummy stuff for hats and baby blankets! 

Worsted or DK weight – #4 and #3 weight yarns make very scrubalicious washcloths. They clean well and they rinse and dry well when using this weight yarn too. 

Colors – Gooooooo nuts! Solids! Variegated! Striped! Neutrals! Brights! Muted! Its all good =D 

These are absolute requirements and if you don’t follow them, you won’t be able to swap.

THE ACTUAL SWAPPING: After the dishcloths are received, your hosts are going to get together and have a grand time looking at all of your gorgeous work and selecting 5 different beauties to send back to you.

The goal of this swap is to produce and receive little pieces of fiber art. Use beautiful yarns, color combinations, and patterns. Don’t feel pressured to use teensy little crochet cotton. Thicker cottons like Tahki Cotton Classic , Rowan Cotton Glace, and Elann Sonata make great washcloths. Have a ton of fun.

POSTAGE AND ENVELOPE: US participants need to include a self-addressed, postage-paid, large First Class Envelope (SASE). Please do NOT use those super-bulky 1/4” thick full-of-shredded-insulation type envelopes for the SASE, as they will cause over-weight and require extra postage (the envelopes themselves weigh 3 ounces or something ridiculous). Best are plastic envelopes or Tyvek®-style (though NOT the free priority ones the PO provides). Please put the P.O. Box address (PO BOX 1492, La Canada Flintridge, CA 91012) as the “sent from” address on the SASE. Do not leave it blank - the USPS will not accept a package without a return address. AND, if the return address and the mailing address are the same and the postage is short your package will get stuck in the DEAD MAIL box (details, details…I know…snooooooze).

The current first class rate for a large envelope weighing up to 13 oz. is $ 4.35. We will make sure all packages stay under 13 oz. so that we’re sure your postage is covered. You will have to purchase the stamp(s) to cover this.

Also, as much as we love people sending us cash, do not send cash for postage instead of buying your own stamps. Your return envelope should be complete: mailing address, return address and adequate postage.

Non-US participants 

Please see our Non US shipping page for details.

We’ll need to receive your dishcloth/washcloth/spa-cloth by August 25th, 2017. Please mail them to:

Swap Headquarters 

PO BOX 1492 

La Canada Flintridge, CA 91012

Also please include your Ravelry-name on the outside of the envelope that you are mailing all your stuff in. That way we can keep an easy list of whose package arrived and you can see when we got your package.

INSPIRATION AND PATTERNS: We have a page and a thread in the Ravelry group for pattern and yarn suggestions. Please add to it!

QUESTIONS: Feel free to post in the discussions section. PM one of the mods of this group.

TAG for projects in this swap: Annual-DC-Swap

LOOK at all of those dishcloths I've made in the past six years! I've received that many and MORE back. It's so much fun on Swap Day, piling up all of those beautiful dishcloths for distribution. Usually, Lisa, Eve and I have a very difficult time deciding who gets what! We try to be fair.

2016 Swap Committee, Diane, Eve, Lisa, Ellen

I'm not sure which pattern I'll use for this year's swap. There are TONS of free patterns available on Ravelry for knitters and crocheters! JOIN ME this year. It's so much fun!

Summer Solstice

Sun scarf designs by VERA Neumann

SUMMER! It's the longest day of the year. Living in Southern California, we are fortunate to almost always have sunny weather. I'm a native. I love sunshine and all it represents. Of course, I do not like it when the temperatures reach over 90 degrees. In parts of sunny Southern California today, we're having record temperatures.

We live in Mid-City Los Angeles, on a mild hill. The cool breezes from Culver City waft over our neighborhood. I work in Santa Monica, not far from the beach. It is relatively cool here today too, while other parts of the City, especially the San Fernando Valley are rather warm.

This type of weather makes me want to crochet sunny things in golden colors.

Amigurumi Sun

Sunny Spread

I added a sunny Willow Square to an afghan

Floppy Brim Hat

I think I'll look through my yarn stash and see how many different shades of yellow I can find. Maybe I'll crochet another Welcome Blanket in sunny colors!

Pink Slipped!

My good friend, Brit e-mailed this article to me this morning, saying that this is close to my neighborhood. True. Wow! Three PINK houses in a row. It's an Instagrammable art project by "The Most Famous Artist" and his company "The Mural Agency." Architectural firm, M-Rad hired The Most Famous Artist to paint the homes. They are also the firm designing the proposed 45-unit apartment complex for this corner of Hi-Point and Saturn in Faircrest Heights (between Fairfax and Crescent Heights, south of Pico, north of Washington Blvd.).

Hi-Point Street between Airdrome and Pico has seen some major development in the past few years. There have been many apartment buildings and those mega-box houses constructed on this street. In a way, I'm sad that the character of those sweet little Spanish Revival homes of the 1930s are gone, but this started happening in the 1950s when the dig-bat apartment houses were being built.

Here is the Artist's statement on his Instagram Account:

themostfamousartist1500 hi point street -- until it's demolished -- an ephemeral conceptual art project as a jumping off point for a conversation about community, development, public art, and social media. A real life manifestation of paintings I've been working on for years. Obvious references to #christo's large scale public color works, #louisenevelson's assemblages, the #dada movement, and #julianschnabel's pink building in west village. With this project I'm encouraging the viewer to formulate their own meaning behind the work. As the artist, I start and the viewer finishes the work. And I'm excited to see where that exchange takes us as a community. Ps -- if I had the budget + time I would have painted the entire structure, but I think we got the message across with the resources we had.

The pinkness started on June 7th. There were some models and photographers there this morning for photo-shoots.  I read that some of the neighbors were upset with the jarring color. Not sure if the houses will be re-painted a more subtle color before demolition starts.

It was super fun walking around the houses this morning snapping shots! I just couldn't stop! Pink is such an infectiously happy color!

Photographers and Models

It might just be the right time to high-tail it over to Hi-Point and Saturn for our annual Christmas card photo shoot!

Before these houses were tickled pink! Photo, Google Maps

UPDATE: June 26, 2017

My friend and neighbor, Lisa, just sent me the photo below. It seems that the pink houses have been re-painted white, about 4 days after the construction fence went up. What's the deal with that? Since the houses are going to be demolished, I wonder why the developer even bothered. I guess the neighborhood kvetchers were REALLY complaining!

Photo by Lisa Clark

Jax Are Here!

Jacaranda Trees on South Fairfax Avenue, Mid-City, L.A.

It must be spring because our streets are filled with the purple blossoms of Jacaranda trees! Lots of people hate the sticky residue that these blossoms leave on their cars. I don't care, the purple is gorgeous...glorious! In 2008, L.A. Times staff writer, Francisco Vara-Orta referred to these blue/purple flower trees as "purple people pleasers."

The Jacaranda tree in front of our house

When I moved into our neighborhood, over 25 years ago, many of our neighbors wanted to plant trees on our parkways. We have the widest street in Wilshire Vista...we consider it the center of our neighborhood. Since jacaranda trees are fast-growing, that's what we decided to plant. Many of our trees are now tall and full of flowers. 

The view from our front door

We had so much rain this year, that ALL of the flowers in our garden are blooming! 

Roses and gladiolas near the driveway

Yellow daisies in the front yard

Welcome spring!

Downtown Culver City

Washington and Culver Boulevards, downtown Culver City. 1961. Herald Examiner Photo Collection

I've been driving through downtown Culver City for decades. It has changed drastically. When I was a young bride in the mid- 1970s and lived in the area, this portion of Culver City was run-down and filled with thrift shops and bars (not that there's anything wrong with that). Today the same area is thriving with high-end restaurants, a movie theater complex, a legitimate theater, book shops and boutiques. There are still thrift shops and bars, but way more posh than in the past.

Washington and Culver Boulevards, downtown Culver City. 1971. Google Image

In some ways, I'm happy to see the gentrification of this area. It's accessible and loaded with personality and possibilities. With gentrification comes parking difficulties, crowds and higher prices. This gentrification is happening across our City of Los Angeles. We are now a world class city with world class problems and crowding.

I have a love-hate relationship with gentrification. I like having new restaurants and shops readily available. I just don't want anyone else to know about them!

Downtown Culver City in the mid-1950s