thrift scoring and instagraming, that's my game

most people, when they get some time off from work, will plan a trip to somewhere relaxing and luxurious.  when I get a week off, I visit every dirty, smelly, crowded thrift store in Los Angeles, and I love every minute of it.

I actually haven't been finding that much, but the hunt is really more the point.  found some more vintage Japanese (far left) and California (center) ceramics.  if it has a drippy glaze and it's blue, brown, or orange, it comes home with me to join the ceram-fam.

I planted a few succulents in the orange pot today, I'm definitely in a spring planting mood!

this bit of bad-assery makes me happier every time I look at it.  it's by an artist named Virgil Thrasher, and the black border and wheat graphics are painted on glass and then the sunset background sits behind it, shadow box style.  the label on the back says it's from 1974.  I paid $4, but I found a few on ebay listed between $25 and $300.  so it's maybe worth a few bucks?  anyway no way I'm selling it, this baby is going up in the bedroom.

I hope you're enjoying this gorgeous spring...flowers are everywhere!  I'm obviously still very enamored with Instagram...so here's one more.

instaddiction

another week, another dumb unexplained injury for Jody...this week it was waking up friday completely unable to move my neck!  no idea why...perhaps I've been sleep-breakdancing.

anyway there's not much one can do when you have to spend whole days lying on your back with frozen broccoli under your neck.  I spent a lot of time playing with my phone, which is why I'm now totally obsessed with Instagram.  I forgot Pinterest even existed, that's how much I love Instagram.

in my stiff-necked state I haven't been able to get out and take a ton of new photos, but here's a few I posted...both new and old ones I found on my phone's camera roll just begging to be filtered and made all pretty.

Daylight savings started today...I wouldn't mind losing the hour of sleep if I didn't also lose all that time changing clocks.

Josh is the best, basically, ever.  He goes to the farmers market on sundays and usually buys me flowers, like a big sweetie, while I stay in bed and drink coffee and check facebook.

this is from 3 years ago, and makes me really really really want to go to Palm Springs as soon as possible. hey Josh, you heard all the nice things I said about you earlier, right??

this is in downtown LA, and completely surprised and delighted me when I came across it.  it's a Jody store!  it also reminds me of the Seinfeld bit where George has the great line he wants to use on his co-worker..."The jerk store called, and they're running out of you".

oh yeah remember last week when I was bragging about all the pillows I was gonna finish...well here's one that's still not done.  but kinda pretty, right?

and yeah, that's me.  from a few weeks ago, when the pink streaks were still pretty fabulous.  now they are faded and sad, and no one cares anyway because I just lie in bed, moaning and alternating heat and ice and playing with Instagram.

so hey, find me on Instagram!  I'm craftnik...I only have 3 followers right now, which is really embarrassing.

measure once, cut twice?

so you've maybe seen this little mid-century bench in my living room?  it's cute, I got it at the flea market years ago...

I made the teal cushion and all the bargello pillows, but I'm taking the whole apartment in a more calm, neutral, ethnic/rustic/modern direction lately.  so the crazy riot of color and retro pattern that was happening on the bench wasn't working anymore.

so, I decided to make some new cushions, and I went with a simple hand-tied futon type mat made from old linen.  I worked on it for a couple hours on saturday.  I was kinda digging it, but then I realized it was not deep enough for the seat.  I was willing to overlook that mistake...

until I realized it was also several inches too short.

wtf?!?  I am a good seamstress, people.  I don't make these kind of rookie mistakes.  I certainly don't make two of them!  I seriously don't know what happened here.  I got so mad about it, I decided I don't even WANT the bench anymore.  that'll teach it, for being all confusing in its dimensions!

it's ok, nobody sits on it anyway, it's just there as a showcase for pillows.  so I'll be putting it on craigslist soon, I think.  if you're in the SoCal area and in the market for a cute mid-century bench (with a teal cushion that fits it perfectly), send me a message!

after the cushion debacle, I decided to make a pillow, which I know I can do properly.  I had some scraps of linen that I had tie-dyed blue at French General's last Woad Dyeing Workshop, so I did a sort of random log cabin kinda thing with it, just to see what happened.

I actually really like it!  it looks like clouds, don't you think?  I was so into this one, I started a second even cooler pillow in the same vein.  I'll share that one with you in a couple days.

I'm serious about selling the bench, let me know if you want it.  I'll even send you the dimensions...but don't be surprised if it's a little bigger than you expected!

 

friday kahlua

Source: frommoontomoon.blogspot.com via Jody on Pinterest

I've started reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, and I love it...I'm too tired these days to read for very long before bed, but I've gotten to the part where Frida Kahlo comes in, and I wanted a clearer picture in my mind of what she really looked like, cause all I could see was Salma Hayek.

turns out she was way more beautiful and stylish than I remembered!

Source: monk3y.tumblr.com via Jody on Pinterest

Source: bestsoylatte.blogspot.com via Jody on Pinterest

Source: fuckyeahfridakahlo.tumblr.com via Jody on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Jody on Pinterest

Source: thebeanandthebear.tumblr.com via Jody on Pinterest

I also found this fantastic quote from her, which makes me love her even more:

Source: brianna-mccarthy.tumblr.com via Jody on Pinterest

not to mention, she somehow rocked a unibrow and made it work.

(oh, and the title of this post is a reference to a legendary college game of Taboo that went terribly awry.  and it's a fitting end of the week post name!)  

thrift scores

Source: streetartutopia.com via Jody on Pinterest

it's the last couple weeks of the worst part of post production on the movie I'm working on...then I'm looking forward to a little break and a chance to work on all my projects.  until then, my weekends are spent re-charging.  this morning I stayed in bed till 10:30!  haven't done that in years...not sleeping, just reading blogs and snuggling with Stoli.

I even had breakfast in bed!  Josh made banana walnut muffins...

saturday I did some thrifting, and came home with a few things...like another vintage Belgian apothecary jar...I have several of these but I always grab them when I see em, not sure why.  I'm always on the lookout for blue ones but so far no dice.

this kind of drippy-glazed California pottery is hard to pass up as well...I'll probably plant a cactus in it when I have some time.

and then some clothes and shoes...yellow leather heels, Dolce Vita sandal booties, brown leather boots (candidate for some crafty embellishment), a big red sun hat (the kind I look for in July but can't find one that fits my big head), a silk robe with big roses, Donna Karan leather backpack, Ella Moss sweater, and a silk mini-skirt.

I know, boring weekend, boring post... I'll have more to say in a couple weeks, I promise.  now I'm going to make some popcorn for dinner and not watch the Oscars.  have a great week!

knit kicks

I was reading today about Nike's big new innovation in running shoes...they're knitted!  apparently, what runners really want is a sock with a sole.  (NOT a grilled cheese sandwich and a massage, which is all I want when I try to run anywhere).  googling "knit sneaker" led me down the internet rabbit hole to discover all kinds of knitted shoes...

(these are not Nike's fancy high-performance state of the art shoes, but it would be awesome if they were)

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then there's the OG knit shoe, these ancient Tabi style ones:

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these remind me of those awful shoes with the toes that you see now.  those creep me out.

would you ever knit a pair of shoes?  I didn't think I would but then I saw these knitted Mukluks on Ravelry and now I want to!

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...but not until I block the Bosc scarf.  :(

blind hatred

I've lived in a lot of apartments...just in Los Angeles, I think it's been almost ten.  there was the one with the roommate who decorated the whole place like a cheesy Moroccan restaurant, the one with the drunk upstairs who would frequently lay on the floor and scream until he passed out (only lived in that one a month) and the one where my roommate and I were convinced there was a gypsy curse...we found a small door with no knob that opened onto a crawlspace, and inside was a wooden cross, a bowl of salt, and burnt matches...

apartments can also be awesome, as evidenced by my current apartment, which is so quiet and spacious and gets wonderful light all day.  but there are always tell-tale signs that you're in a rental, and for me one of those signs is vertical blinds:

I can't tell you how much I hate them!  other people think they're innocuous, but they get so dusty, and they're always getting stuck, and the cats love to run through them and make that terrible sound of vinyl clacking together.  yikes...do I sound a little bit like Nadine from Twin Peaks right now??



anyway we have fantastic landlords who told me I can do whatever I like to the apartment, so this weekend the blinds all came down!  SO much better:

I think in most of the apartment I'll probably just end up leaving the windows bare, we don't really have a problem with neighbors being able to see in.  we'll see how I feel about that in the heat of summer, but for now I'm loving the soft winter light streaming in and no crappy plastic "valances" ruining the lines of the windows.

in other news, I finished the Bosc scarf tonight!  now I just need to block it...blerg.  but it's sooo soft and cuddly and such an amazing color, I'm motivated to block it so I can wear it right away!

and the jaw is much better...even was able to finish off the bag of swedish fish!

open wide

sorry I've been missing this week...the last few days have been taken up with two things:

1.  I sprained my jaw!  well, that's my self diagnosis anyway.  I was eating swedish fish while watching Hugo (amazing movie, btw) a few days ago...and all of a sudden my jaw popped out of alignment.  and then I couldn't open it for about an hour, and it's just today that I've been able to eat anything more solid than a banana.  so that's been a blast.  and...

2.  we had our first appointment with the cat whisperer!  I'm going to reserve judgement until we try her suggestions for improving Mal's behavior.  but it was...underwhelming, I guess?  I wanted definitive answers and a solid plan, and that didn't really happen.  but I know with animals that's hard to do.

it's going to be an interesting few months of experimenting to see what works, and even though it's not craft, it might fall into the realm of art!  anyway I'll probably blog about it because we haven't found much online advice that's really helpful.  so I hope you don't mind more cat related posts!

(that's my old kitty Grimy up there, yawning in the way she did where her whole face kinda unhinged.  I'm jealous of that ability right now, yawning is hard to do when you can't open your mouth!)

mixology

I've been thinking a lot about watercolors lately...I miss painting!  I haven't done it in so long, and I've pretty much never painted just for the fun of it.  it's always been a rendering for a costume, or a background for a short film, or an illustration for one of the craft books.

anyway in preparation of doing some painting I pulled out this color chart I made years ago...it's all the colors of Dr Ph Martin's Radiant Concentrated watercolors (the only kind I use) and how they all combine to make new colors.  It's actually pretty hard to figure out how to mix watercolors without wasting a ton of paint, so this way when I need to make a dirty olive green, I look it up on the chart and I know to combine Chartreuse and Antelope Brown.  it's kind of a work of art on its own, don't you think?



hopefully soon I'll have some time to sit down and do some painting again...it's definitely going to suck at first, but I'll try to show you what results.  :)

sunny days and mondays

really, mondays suck regardless of the weather, don't you think?  in fact waking up to a beautiful sunny monday kinda makes the fact that you have to go to work even more of an insult.

anyway it was a lovely weekend, we enjoyed the weather and hiked in Griffith Park, I thrifted, and nobody watched the Superbowl, which is fine by me.  and I had lots of time for knitting.  the Bosc scarf is getting so close to being done!  I'm alternating between that and my new pattern, which is half done now.  here's a sneak peek...

 
what else...thrifting was almost a bust.  I picked up these Japanese hand thrown cups for 50 cents, which I put in my medicine cabinet to hold eyeliners and brushes:

and this funny goose bowl, which I'm keeping by the sink to toss earrings and stuff in:

and I stopped at the hardware store and got a couple ferns.  I love ferns, but they don't do well in the LA heat in my experience.  I've had some before and they got burnt to a crisp once summer arrived, so maybe I'll bring these inside once it gets hotter.  for now they make the balcony all shady and lush.

oh and we are hoping to make an appt with the cat behaviorist this week, so I will fill you all in on how that goes.  Mal does her best to look innocent but hopefully the Cat Whisperer will see through it.

hello friday

uuuugghghh.  this week has been a bit rough.  too much work, too little sleep...and I started drinking Diet Coke again, which is know is terrible for me but it's a late-night-at-work habit that's hard to break.

all I want to do is work on my new knitting chart, but it requires some focus, which I just don't have late at night anymore.  I'm excited about it though...maybe I'll make some progress this weekend.

Stoli gets jealous when I pay attention to anything other than him these days.  knitting and cats is a tricky combination.

but with a sweet boy like this, it's hard to get mad when he lies on my yarn in protest.  I can knit when he's sleeping.  :)

extreme thrifting

if they can make a show out of people clipping coupons, they could surely do one on thrifting.  wouldn't that be more interesting than watching people get excited about 2 for 1 toothpaste deals?  the best part of thrifting for me is the drama of it...it's never the same twice.  some days you strike out and come home with nothing, other days you can't stop finding great stuff.

but you have to be willing to deal with some crazy situations, which is where the extreme part comes in...my current favorite thrift store (I'm not telling you the name, that's how good it is) is deep in the San Fernando Valley, totally huge (I spent 2 hrs there saturday and didn't see it all), packed at all hours of the day, and only takes cash.  people there are totally intense and will take things out of your cart if you don't watch them.  I even once saw a man there have a seizure and fall down and crack his head open, sprawled out bleeding on the floor, and people did not stop shopping.  now that is good television!

anyway I was so happy to have a few hours on saturday to thrift, I went a little crazy...in addition to a ton of cute clothes, here's what I picked up...

this little guy.  did I need more blue art glass?  no I did not.  but $2!!  so home he came.

I did not find this brass butterfly sculpture saturday, but I've never snapped a photo of him so I thought I'd do that.  found at some thrift store, not sure where.  incidentally, if "Black Coffee and a Sidecar" is taken, "Brass Butterfly" would also be an excellent title for a memoir.

this is pretty certainly not C. Jere, but it's got that vibe so it's all good.

this pink and grey woven, probably South American, sexy throw is also not needed...but I'm on an ethnic-folksy textile kick these days...

let's get a closer look at those colors...so eighties!  I love it.

and lastly...and bestly...these guys.  I don't know, I guess I'm collecting antique shoe forms now?

I just couldn't resist them...that patina!  the one with the red handle kills me, the paint is all cracked and worn, so perfect.  these are so quirky and random, they feel a bit like a prop in a Pottery Barn catalogue, so I'm not sure how to display them, but I still love em.  check out these great stamps:

fantastic.  and come to think of it, "Oil All Moving Parts" isn't a bad title for a memoir either.