If Lella doesn't like it, it goes in the wastebasket.

I hear that.

Husband and wife Massimo and Lella Vignelli on design, and how they work together.


From tv show Interior Design: The New Freedom (1981).
Make sure to see all the other amazing Barbarlee Diamonstein videos in the Duke archive: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/dsva/

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Milton Glaser's Russian Tea Room matches and Maitre D' Gary Sullivan

We found these at the Elephant's Trunk flea market in Connecticut 9 years ago, attached to a big matchbook display.
Walking around with it, a man came over and said "I love your matchbook collection! I noticed the Russian Tea Room matches and wanted to tell you I used to be the Maitre D' there for years!" After a while of chit-chatting we asked him to sign our matches (it's on the inside).
Alas, he died last year, but by all accounts he was as friendly all the time as he was that one time.

more on Milton Glaser on the always fascinating Container List
more on his RTR graphics at the too-infrequently-updated blog of Tim Groen
more on Maitre D Gary Sullivan from the Fire Island News


related: our Mr. Chow matches

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A Navajo Indian Woollen Blanket

How fantastic is this? 

70"x59", $3600 

From Sotheby's Art at Auction, 1973

Related:
The best moment ever on Antiques Roadshow:

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In space no one can hear you quilt.

Vintage Moebius, Heavy Metal, Promethean Sci Fi printed fabric, selectively quilted into the puffy third dimension by a boy's mom circa 1979.
I remember the yard sale where we got this, and how the now-grown-up boy was wearing a "You Are Here --->" outer space t-shirt, and seemed to be longing for his home planet himself. I loved this art, and that his mother made it for him. I remember really going on about it, which made him and his two sisters happy. We even used it and its technique as the basis for the quilted Pucci fabric jewelry box project in our book, where I tell the same story. But as much as I'd like to have it for light years, it's time for someone else to enjoy it, so it's in our awesome FAB.com sale, here.


Related, and fantastically similar, the Prometheus spacescape:



which is itself amazingly similar to the Alien trailer, notably the scream/ping/whistles:




can't wait!

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Fab.com Wary Meyers Vintage sale- tonite

The Wary Meyers shop is up on FAB.com for the next week starting tonight at 7, with some incredible new things that you definitely should check out asap. Click the flyer for an invite, if you're not a member.

Above:
"How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle?" A question answered in the Social Science room of Bowdoin College, October 1975. Original Flyer, printed on thick yellow paper. 10.5" long.

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Close to the Edge

Looking over the sides of Mackworth Island this morning.

The middle view is like looking down onto treetops, until you see the water.
Or like looking down to an epicly flooded forest. Or a Hipgnosis album cover.

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Bean's Oversize Shopping (shells, shoes, canned foods) Bag

The perfect tote bag, and they don't make it anymore.
May be time to take the sewing machine to our log carriers.

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Wary Meyers Vintage Fabric Pillows

What to do with all the vintage fabric we've been collecting over the years? Make pillows!
So far we've made 36, and if you threw them all together you could fall into a fantastic pile of decorating history - check them out here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/WaryMeyers

Above: 1977 print by the legendary New York decorator Angelo Donghia's textile company "&Vice Versa", and an unknown maker's brown zebra stripe, a complement to any coffee table holding Osa Johnson's 1941 memoir
I Married Adventure.

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Valentine's Day at Herman Miller, 1975

Actually it's blue (below). But how fun would it have been if they made them all pink and red, just for the day?

previously: last year's Sottsass Valentine's post, if it doesn't show up below.

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Never get out of the boat

 From the 1977 book Houseboat: Reflections of North America's Floating Homes... History, Architecture, and Lifestyles. by Ben Dennis and Betsy Case. 

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Decorator's Showhouse tote bag, 1981

Courtesy of my mom the decorator, and keeper of old tote bags. (where I learned it)

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this morning on the island

Long Island, Maine

related:

Lobster painting from a few years ago

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Winternational Style

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Trainspotting

Watching a lot of train videos lately- not my choice, but by the 2 year-old sitting on my lap- and as much as I like Alec Baldwin's Thomas narrations, I'll always try to hook Fletcher up with the old classic, Conjunction Junction. ...and all of its cohorts.


And speaking of conjunctions, here's Fritz Leiber's epic final sentence of Swords And Deviltry (1970):
(Spoiler alert)

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Balthazar

Cover by John Alcorn

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