Future Craft Collective project on Craft blog

Our friends at Future Craft Collective have an ongoing guest blogger spot on Craft's Summer Camp and for their most recent project, they used Mod Green Pod's bloom fabric to make a meditation pillow. Check out the concept and the instructions at Craft!

All Things Austin Design

Austin may be geographically challenged in relation to the country's coastal design capitals, our population boasts a remarkably high number of incredibly talented designers and artists. Thankfully, Adrienne Breaux has taken on the challenge of keeping up with the latest and greatest in her blog, All Things Austin Design. If you doubt our little city's mad skillz, have a read and you'll think otherwise.

MGP DIY: Future Craft Collective beanbags

The quest for projects using our scraps has led to a fun collaboration with my lovely friends at Austin's Future Craft Collective.  To read more about the founders and their mission, click here. 

Knowing she would put the scraps to good use, I took some small cutting room pieces to Kathie Sever (the lovely and brilliant designer of Ramonsterwear and co-founder of the Future Craft Collective).  Not only did she and the Future Craft Collective come up with an adorable project--old skool BEANBAGS!--they detailed the instructions as a part of their 3 Day Project series.

Bloom quilt

Here are more photos of the Bloom quilt I've been working on.  It appears finished, but I'd still like to sew a few more flowers to the left side and I'd like to quilt around more of the flowers on the right side.  But it works as it is and is soft, warm, and a great weight (thanks to the organic cotton batting), and the color is cheery and coordinates well with my fuchsia organic cotton sheets (from Wildflower in Austin).   

I included a photo detail of the edge, which I left raw.  I used pinking shears to cut along the edge of the hemmed border to coordinate with the raw appliqued flowers.  When I put the quilt in the washer and dryer, it frayed the edges to give it the soft, three-dimensional look.  

Can't wait to make the next one. . . .

Inspiration: plum blossoms

Oh, SPRING.  **sigh**

Inspiration: spring poppies

From mid-March through mid-May (when the heat begins its oppressive grip on this area) Austin is stunningly beautiful.  Spring rains transform the brown and grey winter landscape into a lush, emerald green paradise bejeweled with color provided by spring annuals, perinneals, and flowering fruit trees.  I don't get much done because I am sucked in by the sights and smells surrounding me.  I spend probably too much time each spring just staring, but I always rationalize it by knowing that I am busy storing away colors and forms that will appear in future designs.   

Poppies are probably my favorite flower, which is why I'm taking the time to honor them.  Poppies are also the inspiration for Mod Green Pod's popular floral, Bloom.  For a very fleeting moment each spring, poppies pop up seemingly out of nowhere and flaunt the warm colors of their delicate, papery petals.  The flowers achieve an impressive state of being both fragile and mighty.  Even their buds and seed pods are natural design wonders.  I think the top of the seed pod might need to appear in a future Mod Green Pod print. . . .   

(The red poppies in these photos are currently sunning at Boggy Creek Farm and the fringed pink ones are showing up the other flowers in my next-door neighbor's front yard.) 

Inspiration: Berthold Haas's grotto wall at Sparky Park

On Saturday, neighbors and design & public space fans gathered a few blocks from my house to celebrate the opening of Sparky Park, a recently decommissioned power substation-turned-public pocket park.  (You might recognize it from a photo I took for our website.)  The most beautiful corner of the park is the grotto wall designed by artist Berthold Haas (pic below), who constructed the wall out of an otherworldly combination of petrified wood, locally-found fossils, shells, recycled glass and found objects.  He also painted some of the flat plaster a simply mesmerizing blue color that I just want to step into and live in.

  

Just a few spaces left in Spruce's green upholstery class!

As we mentioned here, Spruce Austin is offering a weekend-long class in green upholstery at their gorgeous Austin studio in April.  We just wanted to let you know that there are only a couple of spaces left, so call them up ASAP to reserve your spot!  

Val and I will be there to present the line and to talk about our adventures in the world of organic cotton and green furnishings/design.  Then we'll pass it over to Lizzie and Amanda, who will teach you the tricks of the trade as you upholster your own chair to take home at the end of the workshop!  We'll have our entire line of fabrics for you to choose and Spruce will provide an array of adorable vintage chairs as well as organic cotton batting and muslin for the structure.

Email me at nancym@modgreenpod.com if you have any questions or give Kallie at Spruce a holler: 512.454.8181.

See you there!

Inspiration: Shephard Fairey, part 2

As promised, here are photos of the finished wall. 

Inspiration: Shephard Fairey and crew postering a wall today

Stumbling across this moment amidst the hundreds of other SXSW happenings surrounding us this afternoon reminded me of why I love SXSW week in Austin.  We spotted Shephard Fairey and his crew working diligently to cover a wall outside Home Slice Pizza.  It was truly thrilling to watch him in action.

Check out his groovy OBEY wallpaper, still wet with glue.

We didn't stick around to see them finish, but I'll return tomorrow to snap pics of the completed wall.

MGP eats: Spring Radish Sandwich

I just picked up this perfect bunch of radishes at Boggy Creek Farm, then stopped on my way home to buy fresh, crusty bread and some pastured organic butter.  Topped off with some flake salt, it tastes like a perfect spring day.   

Spring Radish Sandwich

a handful of radishes, in thin slices

butter (preferably organic & from pastured cows)

fresh crusty bread 

flake salt

other substitutions or additions: arugula, goat cheese, sprouts, avocado

inspiration: spring sky blue and new leaf green

Sneak peek of a very cool MGP project

My husband, modeling his new custom Ramonsterwear shirt using Mod Green Pod fabrics, by awesomely talented Austinite, Kathie Sever.

Many more photos, as well as the full scoop, coming very soon!

Inspiration: Boggy Creek Farm

I just returned home from one of my Happy Places, Boggy Creek Farm, with a bag full of beautiful organic food and a mind full of inspiring sights, smells and ideas.  One idea I returned home with is to bring my love for cooking onto the blog.  I might as well--when I'm not working (and luckily for me, pondering the impossibly vivid colors of beets at the farm stand is actually work!) I'm usually cooking.  So after this post, I'm hitting the kitchen then I'll return to the blog with some photos and recipes.       

Today's array of greens and reds were especially stunning lit by the rainy morning sky and I was happy I had my little camera with me.     

 

And here are the always-inspiring Carol Ann and Larry, owners of Boggy Creek Farm.  I love them for being, among many other things, amazing organic farmers (obviously!), local food activists, quintessential Austinites, artists, and story-tellers extraordinaire.  

Mod Green Pod at Austin's new Hotel St. Cecilia

Saturday night, I attended a small party at the new Hotel St. Cecilia, the even-hipper sister to the Hotel San Jose.  The rooms, pool, grounds and bar are a sight to behold, especially at night, illuminated by its otherworldly lighting.  

The party hosts, who were spending the night in one of the bungalow suites, opened the well-appointed drawers of their room to show me the laundry and hair dryer bags, made from my Wee Jubilee organic cotton in Licorice, which I proudly displayed on the bed to complete the evening's photo series.   

Inspiration: silhouettes

LOVE this spread in a recent Country Living:

and I'm flattered they included Butterfly Jubilee in the mix (top right).  I have that exact wallpaper in my library and while I am typically not a theme-y person, I've hung a few silhouettes on those walls.  

These are silhouettes of my daughter, Clara.  I made the top piece by combining two photos I had taken.  The lower one was snipped in a matter of minutes by an artist wielding the biggest pair of scissors I have ever seen.  I'm still in awe of the magic we witnessed when she perfectly captured Clara's profile while Clara sat patiently in front of her for just a few minutes!

I don't love all silhouettes, but good ones can be wonderfully mysterious and haunting.  They represent that which once was, a fleeting moment in time, captured only by a shadow.  I've always been fascinated by the Surrealist concept of the "phantom object" and good silhouettes possess this quality.  Like this piece:

Rodney and I purchased this collage by Mike Miller at Yard Dog in Austin.  Miller collects vintage photographs, cuts out the subjects in the photos, then reverses the images in his signature collages. 

Slow fabric?

Here is a link to a great article about "Slow Fashion," roughly defined as "durable, made from recycled or organic materials, and made by someone paid a 'living wage.' 

IS THE TIME RIGHT FOR SLOW FASHION?  (Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 10 edition)

This article perfectly defines Mod Green Pod's mission to create something that is beautiful, lasting and made with integrity.  Our fabric is about safety for the planet, the workers involved in the production process and your home and family.  We're "slow fabric."  

Mod Green Pod fabric might cost a little more than similar fabric you can buy for half as much at a chain store, but do you know where that fabric was made and what chemicals were used to make it?  Is it safe for your family?  And was its production safe for the people whose hands touched it throughout the manufacturing process?  Most fabric is NOT made with integrity, the safety of the planet, producers and your pod (and your peeps!) in mind, but ours is!

Shout out to the fabulous Kathie Sever of Ramonster, who is mentioned in this article.  She and I are currently collaborating on one of her signature western shirts using Mod Green Pod fabric.  I can't wait to blog about it very soon!      

Sneak Peek of MGP's new Austin headquarters

MGP is now headquartered in an adorable late-40s bungalow in central Austin. We all love our convenient, well-lit space and even though we still don't have a sign out front (we still have the sign for the former inhabitants, an art gallery) we feel happy, comfy, and productive in our digs on the inside.

Here are some photos of the front display wall, the first thing you see when you walk in:

I love this pair of old flashcards I recently found when I was in Savannah, GA. Together, these cards perfectly sum up our fabric: