Things To Do In Austin When It's This Weekend

We have reached the unfortunate time in the Austin weather cycle where local residents have 2 choices: retreat indoors or crowd into Barton Springs. Our 2 weeks of spring have ended and it's officially hot here. Bleck. But hope springs high in the form of this weekends first ever Renegade Craft Fair hosted, ahem, indoors

After years of shows across the country, renegade craft has finally made it's way south to austin and is bringing 200 + indie crafters with it. I know that indie crafter often means a booth full of crochet rock koozies, but Renegade is a juried show which helps to leave the hand felted ipod replica makers at home where they belong. Or so I've heard. Don't believe me? Come see for yourself

Even yours truly will be there selling screen prints. I'll be splitting a booth with my fellow craft mafia members, which is basically an excuse for me to get the hell out of my backyard demo and catch up on some much needed gossip.

The craft fair is this saturday and sunday from 11 am - 7pm at the palmer events center. Hope to see you there.

Oh, PS, speaking of prints, I only have THREE HORSEYS LEFT in the whole world. Buy the last ones never to be printed again here.

Nodus Rugs

Welcome back, me! After a long and lovely family visit, I'm easing into the daily routine. Which means that I'm still feeling a bit lazy. I'm looking forward to catching up with y'alluns, but first I would like to thank the fabulous Collyn of ModFruGal for sharing her amazing, inspiring home while I was away. If you were a naughty imp and you missed her home tour, catch it here.

Greetings and formalities are out of the way, so let's get down to bizness -- rug cruising.

Rug? Who? Wha? Yep, it's a little hard to see past the tongue, but there's a rug in there. Somewhere. Designed by Bartoli, the Rosetum is part of Nodus Rugs' enormous, eclectic rug collection. Featuring everything from the merely mundane to the beyond bizarre, Nodus stands at the forefront of the art rug movement.

Take, for example, this twist on the traditional by design duo Studio Job.

Perished Persian's pattern is formed by tiny interlocking forms.

This one's named Eros. Since we are a familyish blog (cough), I'm not going to zoom in on that.

Nodus does feature an array of more classic forms, like these fine specimens:

The intricate Portogallo.

Moroccan themed Mr. Nest.

And the too cool for school, graph paper inspired, Cahier.

But their most interesting offerings seem to fly in the face of traditional warp and weft rugs.

You know you want a Carpet Sail.

And then there's this dude from the ever zany Brothers Campana. Computer: zoom in.

Gold star for the best caption. And.... go!

Trend Alert: Brass Tray Table

There are very few things I remember about visits to my grandparents on my father's side of the family's house, among them: the smell of stale cigars, the sight of an impossibly tall Christmas tree that seemed to stick around all year, and this incredibly loud, incessant banging noise that can only be made when a child's hands discover the drum that was my grandparents brass tray coffee table. Granted the banging noises I remember were probably from my own fists, but somehow I'm not delighted by the sound 20-something years later.

So do you know what noise resounded in my mind (wrapped in the tinge of that yucky stale smoke smell) the entire time I flipped through this month's Elle Decor? Yep, you got it

Our cover girl, Ellen Pompeo has no idea what she's in for raising a child near that nightmarishly loud baby toy.

Perhaps she could take advice from the young couple on page 147 of the EXACT SAME ISSUE

Diego and April Uchitel have small children and they have this table which leads me to believe that they are not home much and they have a nanny. Or (cover your eyes margaret!) (I still love you!) Elle Decor hired the same stylist for both shoots.

Also, it means that this vintage table, having appeared twice in a single issue of Elle Decor, is hot hot hot.

PS Erin has one and I really hope she doesn't read this post today so she can learn first hand how fun it is when Ike takes his first lap around it.