nonstop
Monday, September 12, 2005 at 12:02PM 
Hiking with Julia in Griffith Park- so began my weekend. Not a bad way to start it off, I'd say. We left straight from work on Saturday evening to climb the hill as the sun set. In this picture you can see the Griffith Observatory just behind the trees in the lower left. I can see the Observatory from my street if I look up the hill, and no matter how many times I've seen it, I always think of Rebel Without a Cause. On a clear day, from the Observatory, you can see the ocean if you look west. I can't wait till we take the hike on a smog-free day- the view from the top (we weren't even close when we stopped because I was winded to take this picture) promises to be incredible.
From the hike, we drove straight around to the other end of the park (Griffith Park is huge- no walking miles in the dark for us) and arrived at the Gene Autry Western Museum just in time for the beginning of:
Any Sergio Leone fans out there? That's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, which was the movie of the week for the Autry museum- free on Saturday nights, set up outside on the lawn. It was so much fun! Jacob met us with blankets, and dinner. After sitting outside in the dark for a while, I realized two things.
- This is a great movie. Beautiful scenery, compelling story.
- It is getting really, really cold here at nighttime, and we were just not prepared. Holy cow. I was bundled up in a sweater that Jacob brought for me, Julia had Jacob's jacket, and Jacob was silently freezing in his t-shirt. We ended up leaving a bit early so that we all could get home and get warm before the mad rush to leave the parking lot began at the end of the movie. Now I want to rent it so that I can see the ending. I'm guessing there's a shootout.
Sunday morning Julia attended my church with me (on what turned out to be a particularly impassioned sermon... I love my church) and afterward, I had the pleasure of escorting her to her first visit to the downtown LA crafter's paradise, more commonly known as Michael Levine. The downtown fabric district is a bustly, packed place, lined with street vendors and crowded with people on the sidewalks. It looks so peaceful in that photo, I'm not sure what on earth happened that the sidewalk was clear at the moment I snapped the picture. Odd. We each had sundries we needed to pick up for current projects- buttons, fabric, ribbons, zippers, stuffing... this is the one-stop shop. Within just a few minutes, Julia was standing in the middle of their newly re-vamped (and highly respectable) yarn section. Surrounded by tall bins of yarn, she said, surprise in her voice, "you know, I'm really happy here!" I couldn't help but laugh. Julia is happy when surrounded by yarn? That's a shocker, right? The really funny thing about the store is that they really have two yarn sections- the nice yarn up front (lots of novelties, but some cashmere, silk/wool, tons of Cascade 220 colors- the yarn section gets better every time I go) and then, in a far corner in the back, sits all the Red Heart Acrylic, like it is in time-out or something. Hilarious. I'm glad, however, that they didn't get rid of all the crunchy acrylic when they started bringing in the new good stuff- I think having it all is what makes Michael Levine so great. Hard as it may be to comprehend, though, we didn't go there for the yarn. Oh no.
First stop: the button wall. What you see in this picture is... I'm not sure, maybe 25% of the wall? And you can see part of the area where they have rotating displays of buttons just beside the wall. Julia found the perfect little classy buttons for Happy Green. We both decided we need to go back sometime and just buy buttons to design sweaters around. Yes, some of the buttons are that good. I'm always enticed by the sparkly, glitzy, glittery ones, or the vintage frosted glass.... I've never blogged about it before, but I should admit that I have a bit of a button stash- going back to elementary school. I wasn't making garments in elementary school... just collecting the buttons for them.
Next stop: the ribbon aisle. I needed trimmings to finish Komari's little
sundress, and fast! Once again, the picture shows only about 25% of the ribbon selection. Which is why Julia was able to catch a photo of me looking around, overwhelmed at the choices. Good grief. I was really torn- do I try to match the purple exactly? Go with a cute contrasting color, like a fun green or soft yellow? Striped ribbon? Satin, grosgrain, wired chiffon? We put together so many different ribbon combinations- the one that was coming out on top was a bright grosgrain with stripes of many different colors- including a tiny stripe of the exact purple of the sundress. And then I saw, in the trims and edgings area, the cutest little white ruffle with pink polka-dots you could imagine. This, I thought, would be really stinkin' adorable along the bottom of the sundress... and it would give it a little extra Oomph without having to re-do the ruffle! I just knew we'd be able to find ribbon to match it, and I was right.
Ruffled polka-dots peeking out of the bottom, wide grosgrain polka-dots for facing along the top, and thinner polka-dots for the ribbon ties at the shoulders. And lime green sequins for added pizzazz! Just kidding about the sequins, people. Don't know who bought those. After searching around the fabric area FOREVER (at this point, we were both starving and I was totally losing focus) for a fabric for the heart applique (I ended up choosing plain white flannel, to be attached with pink thread) it was time to go. Well, Julia may have wandered back to the yarn section, and maybe even bought something for a sweater... just maybe. After an emergency McDonalds coke-and-fries drive through stop, she dropped me off at home. She was planning on taking a run... bless her for that. I changed into yoga pants, rested, and went over to Jacob's sisters for an impromtu family dinner- me and Jacob, Kuma, Kelly, Komari, and Jacob and Kuma's aunt Sue.
Today... laundry, cleaning, and some Sockapal2za knitting. Ahhhh.
Reader Comments (4)
MH - planned to run is the operative phrase. I made it as far as my sofa. Tonight I plan to spin and lift - let's hope I make it!