Counterpane quilts: L.A. artist goes improvisational

The quilts of Los Angeles artist Pauline Boyd stand out not only for their surprising mix of materials -- remnants of Moroccan silk tunics and African wax prints, Balinese sarongs and Mexican embroidered cotton dresses -- but also for their unconventional, freehand style.

"It really is an improvisational thing," she said of the way she assembles her handcrafted quilts using textiles that traditional quilters might find maddening. Boyd said she has long quilted in her spare time, exploring color and form on the bare floors (significant because many quilters like to compose on sheets of flannel hung on the wall).

She began selling her Counterpane quilts online in January, and the business has been gaining momentum ever since. She was a vendor at the Unique L.A. craft fair in February, and was featured in a gallery show last month in Echo Park. She recently shipped quilts to the boutique Beautiful Dreamers in Brooklyn. 

Growing passion fruit: It's easy if you can beat the bugs

Passion fruit vines have been threaded on a chain-link fence between the Fountain Avenue Community Garden and the school next door. For about two years, the plant’s growth was lackluster. But once its roots got established, the vine exploded with, well, a passion. Now it’s up in the pine tree over the garden and is spreading around the corner, covering at least 50 feet of chain link.

“We plan to have crawling vines, a wall of green, all around the garden,” gardener Charlene Gawa said. This winter the plant was loaded with fruit, but gardeners couldn’t enjoy the harvest. Schoolkids picked the fruit, usually when it was still green (even though it won't ripen when off the vine).

Considered a pest by some and even banned in some community gardens, passion fruit comes in more than 500 varieties. Originating in Paraguay, Brazil and parts of Argentina, passion fruit is grown throughout the tropics now. Its juice is used in processed drinks, but it’s best enjoyed raw: guava-like flavor, flowery bouquet and custardy texture that creates a jelly-like umami moment that would seem impossible to duplicate. For added effect, chew the crunchy seeds.

“We would just go up into the mountains [of Honduras] and pick them and they were quite sweet,” said Jamie Inashima, staff member and resident bug expert at Sunset Nursery. “We’d crack them open like eggs and suck out the inside.”

Long Beach shopping: Cool finds in Bixby Knolls

Long Beach shopping used to mean upscale 2nd Street in Belmont Shore or the vintage clothing and home décor on 4th Street’s Retro Row, but locals know the biggest surprise lies in Bixby Knolls. The neighborhood to the north has been quietly amassing a collection of interesting shops, galleries and restaurants.

Well, maybe not so quietly. On "First Fridays," crowds take to Atlantic Avenue — on foot or by red double-decker bus — to listen to live music, dine on Thai or Lebanese cuisine, and browse stores for antiques and other home furnishings, toys, stationery, clothing and dog treats late into the evening. (That's Paul Alicante, at right, with the letterpress at the Paper Crew.)

PHOTO GALLERY: Bixby Knolls in Long Beach

Atlantic Avenue is home to most of the action, but shops are popping up on nearby Long Beach Boulevard as well. Within the last year, Urban Cottage (home decor), Lucy’s Boudoir (retro-style lingerie) and Salvage Life (Taylor Swift wears its frocks) have opened. Bike lovers can go slightly farther south for the latest on two wheels at Long Beach Cyclery.

Bargain hunters take note: Many eateries and shops in Bixby Knolls participate in Bike Saturdays, a Long Beach program that includes discounts or deals to those who pedal in. Look for the Bike LB decal in the window. The Factory restaurant will give 20% off food any day you bike there. Here's a sampling of what else is out there:

'Dark Shadows': The story behind the grand, Gothic set design

For anyone familiar with the original long-running television series “Dark Shadows,” one of the biggest surprises of Tim Burton's big-screen remake opening this week may lie with what's behind the massive front doors of Collinwood Manor.

Freed from the budgetary constraints of a daily soap opera set and fertilized with the vision of Burton and production designer Rick Heinrichs, the interior of Collinwood was built on a soundstage as a full-fledged, exquisitely detailed character of its own. Fading Gothic grandeur is seamlessly combined with maritime motifs that reference the Collins family's ties to the sea.

The floor of the grand foyer is tiled in a blue-and-white pattern that evokes ocean waves, and upon closer examination, the immense chandelier overhead proves to have milky white octopus tentacles snaking among the strings of crystals.

“I designed the undulating floor tile based on a 12th century basket-weave design I'd found,” Heinrichs said. “It was made to our specifications out of extra hard plaster, since a movie production can be a lot of wear.” The production designer said the marine-themed chandelier had to be sketched out and then rendered in 3-D.

Garbage Maven: Recycling cellphones at the ecoATM

Mobile devices are discarded more rapidly than any other type of electronics, yet only 11% of them are recycled, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But something called an ecoATM is working to change that.

The ecoATM is a self-service kiosk that helps people dispose of cellphones and other mobile devices. The machine uses electronic diagnostics and artificial intelligence to evaluate electronics' value and pay customers on the spot with cash or credit.

The company the makes ecoATM is based in San Diego. It began rolling out its machines in 2010 and has been operating 50 ecoATMs at malls around California, including the Glendale Galleria, Westfield Century City and Westside Pavilion. Thursday marked the kickoff to another round of openings, starting at malls in Brea and Orange and continuing later this month in Baldwin, Westminster, Ontario, Burbank and the South Bay.

Recycling needs to be convenient, financially rewarding and immediate to prevent people from throwing cellphones in the garbage, ecoATM Chief Executive Tom Tullie said.

Although California is one of the few states that bans electronics from landfills because of the hazardous materials they may contain and their potential to be reused, many cellphones still end up in landfills. Recapturing raw materials such as copper and plastic saves the energy, expense and environmental cost that go into mining and processing new materials.

Critter cams: Natural History Museum's videos of wild visitors

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County's new garden employs, as one would expect, a cadre of groundskeepers to groom 3.5 acres. But it also has a senior media producer, a full-time staffer who with the help of motion-activated cameras, or critter cams, documents animals living or traveling through the space.

"They really allow us to get an idea day and night of what animals are hanging out here," said Sam Easterson, the producer for the museum's North Campus garden and nature lab, scheduled to open next year.

Easterson said seven cameras are in continuous operation and have captured thousands of images of animals such as the California ground squirrel, a specific species that Easterson said hasn't been spotted on the museum grounds for 20 years, and a baby opossum born this spring in the garden's opossum den.

Today the museum is launching a dedicated Fickr link to these photos and videos, which highlight the mission of enticing wildlife to the North Campus.

Six most-viewed home photo galleries of 2012

Modern apartments and a rammed-earth house. A manse in Santa Monica and a sliver of a home in Echo Park. Shoestring budgets and high-priced dreams. It's always interesting to see which of our home profiles click with readers, and with the following list we present to you the most-viewed home photo galleries from January through April:

1. Lisa Ling and Paul Song's new Santa Monica house, top left. Contemporary design as a prism for Chinese and Korean roots. Posted in December and still at the top of our list for 2012. Full article and photo gallery. Photo credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

2. Simon Storey's Eel House, top center. Architect makes a 15-foot-wide house feel larger. Full article and photo gallery. Photo credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

3. Alejandro D'Acosta and Claudia Turrent's rammed earth house, top right. Architect couple experiment with reeds, dirt, lime and liquid from nopal cactuses. Cover story to the last stand-alone print Home section. (Sniff.) Full article and photo gallery. Photo credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

4. Centre Street apartments, bottom left. Rental living for a new generation. Full article and photo gallery. Photo credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

5. Mini modern, bottom center. The 495-square-foot house was published in November and is still going strong. Full article and photo gallery. Photo credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

6. Marmol Radziner's cinematic sweep. Perfectly framed views in a house for a photographer and cinematographer. Full article, photo gallery and 360-degree interactive panoramas. Photo credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times 

 

 

ALSO:

Montecito house, green to an extreme

Time-lapse video: Eames House moves to LACMA

Photographer Jill Greenberg's house in 360-degree pictures

Valerian: sleep aid for humans, catnip for felines

The Global Garden, our series on multicultural L.A. as seen through the lens of its landscapes, returns to the Fountain Avenue Community Garden this week, where Charlene Gawa has planted a soothing bit of botanical history called valerian.

The 10th century name stems from the Latin verb meaning "to heal." It was popular among ancient cultures from Europe to Asia; one variety was used by Native Americans, sometimes as a food. The root of Valerian is used as a relaxant and sleep aid, its popularity as an herbal medicine diminished with the rise of the synthetic Valium.

Although the flowers smell pleasant -- a cross between vanilla and cherry pie -- the feathery leaves and roots are odoriferous. Old socks is the most common descriptor. Cats adore it. If not planted away from felines, it will be reduced to a nubbin quickly. You can rub cat toys with the leaves or make a satchel to keep Tabby happy. Dogs and rats also like the smell.

Discourage digging by planting valerian firmly in the ground and mounding rocks around the base.  Originally a marsh plant, this perennial is a heavy feeder. It can take partial sun or shade, getting as tall as 5 feet. If harvesting the roots is your aim, clip off flowers to encourage growth below soil. Wash and clean the roots and then toast (don't burn) in a low-heat oven until they become brittle.

'Magic City': One of TV's best-designed shows?

Reviews for the new Starz series “Magic City” have been mixed, but the critics seem to agree on one thing: The show looks stunning. Set in 1959 Miami Beach in the luxury Miramar Playa Hotel, "Magic City" looks like it was shot entirely on location in a period-perfect resort, but in fact its living rooms, bars and suites were built on a stage over nearly four months. The look is a mix of gold, glitz and glamour that betray the deals that go down after dark.

Production designer Carlos Barbosa and set decorator Scott Jacobson said they worked hard to stay true to the period in all aspects: the Midcentury Modern furniture, the television consoles that would have been appropriate for a new luxury hotel, even the typography on the matchbooks and signs.

“It was such a fascinating time both socially and politically, especially in Miami,” Barbosa said. “There was the Jewish Mafia. Sinatra. Castro took over that year. Later the Kennedys would visit.” And there was one architect in particular who captured the glamour at that time: Morris Lapidus.

The production designer said he took inspiration from the Miami Modernist architecture -- or MiMo -- of Lapidus, who designed several Miami Beach hotels including the Foutainebleau, Deauville and Eden Roc.

Like Lapidus, the production team mixed styles -- including Modernist, classical and baroque -- to create the Miramar Playa's distinctive interiors. To save money, the production made much of the furniture rather than tracked down period pieces. “In order to achieve that look today, in that scale, many things were not available,” Jacobson said. “And even if they were, it would be too cost prohibitive. It’s easier to design what you want and select the textiles that are right.”

Nothing was leased from a prop house. Jacobson, who is based in Miami, said he scoured Florida antique shops, EBay and the Brimfield antique market in Massachusetts. "Estate sales were a gold mine for me," he said. "There were several where I walked in in the morning, took a look and told them, 'I'll buy everything.' " Keep reading for a closer look at some of the residential environments, as well as the back story to the bar pictured at top ...

Mother's Day gift ideas: The perfect day in bed

What does a busy Mom want most? We’re guessing more than a few votes would go toward a perfect day in bed — no work, no worries. We’re not saying you’re a headache, but … what mom wouldn’t love fresh flowers placed bedside in a novel vase? Or fine tea steeped in a clever gadget she can use for months to come? There is joy in the find that Mom might not buy for herself.

For ideas, click through our finds for that indulgent days of rest and relaxation:

PHOTO GALLERY: Mom's perfect day in bed

One pick not in the gallery: The Stress Ease Comfort Reader Pillow, designed by Dr. James B. Maas, a retired Cornell professor and sleep expert, and produced by United Feather & Down. It provides lumbar support with fill that is 90% gel fiber and 10% Tencel Lyocell, plus separate hot and cold attachments and -- most important -- no ugly wrap-around arms, like the kind found on so many reading pillows. It's $49.99 from Bed Bath & Beyond.

MORE SHOPPING:

A new Shop Central in Costa Mesa

The emerging scene in Highland Park

Uptown Design District in Palm Springs

Photos, clockwise from top left: Flat-packed vases. Credit: Unison. Dishwasher-safe stainless steel and silicone bag for loose-leaf tea. Credit: Eva Solo. Fleece Flounce pillow. Credit: Anthropologie. Stress Ease Comfort Reader Pillow. Credit: United Feather & Down.