birds of a feather.

oh. okay. okay.

factory showroom.

it has taken us only a handful of days to accumulate a massive karmic debt to leslie at the stitch lab here in austin. she housed us for the weekend, hooked us up with another place to stay for the rest of our visit, gave us a bunch of local tips and now has given us an afternoon and evening of space to commandeer at the stitch lab - her awesome supply shop and workshop hub.

this place is amazing. austin's only source for wool felt, a packed and varied workshop list (tonight it is screen printing in the next room), notions, vintage buttons and samples from all the workshops neatly displayed in every little corner. some places just feel immediately comfortable to me - like a slice of home...only better.

i even spotted a stitch-up of one of the new berkely illustration/sublime stitching collaborative patterns in the washroom. home sweet home, indeed.

well, back to work. opportunities like this are not to be squandered.

all taco, no angstin'.

i possibly just ate the best tacos of my life. i highly recommend the deep fried avocado with arugula. holy crap! these austin food trailers are blowing my mind. they really took the edge right off my sweaty morning of running around town trying to find an small yet consequential part for the new car. thanks for the recommendation, ron and leslie! my angst has been cured by good food.

ps - the title of this post is an attempt to best aitor at obtuse puns. you should visit his blog to see what i mean.

halfternoon.

i think this guy was on 'home improvement'. i like this town.

death and texas (or, things on which to rely).

my favourite screen prints by timber!


custom letterpress coaster station from andrew le & tim cook


examples from heidie kenney's diy doll kits

i am way too zonked to pull actual thoughts together so i am just going to leave you with a few favourite images from today. i was also too zonked to take the whole event in properly - such is the beginning of a tour. the exhaustion of touring can never compare with the exhaustion of leaving home and i am a couple days away from feeling stable again. i know that there were more awesome vendors lurking in the depths of this show that i did not find. what i did happen into was lovely enough but i wish i had the mind power to see more. my photos from the whole show can be found here. yeehaw! now, off to sample some home-infused drinks i have heard about here.

trailer culture.

i have heard a lot about food trailer culture in austin but only just had my first experience today. i feel that this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

lone stars (or renegade austin, day one).

today marked the first day of the second annual renegade craft fair austin. it was our first time doing this specific show and only the second time that austin has figured into our tours at all. texas is big and austin is very far away from everything (by american standards, anyway) so it was a great treat to find ourselves back in the lone start state.

we had a great time checking out all of the incredible interactive programming - including the friendship bracelet making station hosted by renegade (top) and the vintage baseball card set-up presented by local rock star collective, public school.

i even found a few moments right as the show was opening to build a brand new display for my diy security envelope installation kits (constructed from materials aquired on the way down, no less). the installation kits are a hard project to communicate to people, so i am hoping that this visual presentation will at least draw people in to ask questions.

and what launch of a tour would be complete without reunions and new friends? look below for some of the amazing crafters we collided with (berkley illustration, miss natalie/canoe, leah duncan). as per usual, i wish i could have collected so much stuff, but we restrained ourselves to two things on our touring survival list - a big key chain and little wood-burned pocket knife from miss natalie's new canoe line.

and now, if you will excuse me, i have a pool party to seek out.