I’m taking a break to hang out with this little one. Thanks for your patience — I plan to start posting again in the fall!

{photo by Julia Lehman-McTigue/Vision 13}

The 111 bottles in each chair make up 60% of its content; the other 40% apparently gives the chair as much strength as its original aluminum incarnation. Since 2000, Emeco has been collaborating with designers (Philippe Starck, Frank Gehry, Ettore Sottsass); the partnership with a corporation, and the focus on materials over form, is new.

The chairs are pretty handsome. The color of the one in the top photo is, of course, Coca Cola Red. They’re high and lo, just like Hanover’s Emeco. They’ll fit in at Milan and they make snack-sense alongside Utz chips and Snyder’s pretzels. I’m excited to see one in person when they goes on sale next month at Design Within Reach.

(photo courtesy of Emeco)

Paintings by “barn lady” Sherry McVickar.

A Square Deal, whose roster of more than 100 artists go to town on 20cm square masonite panels. Above is “Italian Market Sweep” by Julia Blaukopf.

King of Shabby Chic, Dan Elman aka Kitsch-n-Kaboodle, who saves and restores unwanted furniture.

And Chairloom, a Philly-based artist/designer who’s a favorite at Brooklyn Flea. Molly Worth upcycles old furniture by upholstering it with eco-friendly textiles by indie companies like Hable Construction and Mod Green Pod.

Go forth and shop!

(all photos from Clover Market’s blog, except for the Chairloom photo, from Ready Made’s blog, Design Binder.)

The HALSA steel vacuum flask ($5.99) to load up with coffee before heading out to early-bird the flea markets.

The URBAN chair ($39.99) was always lovely, and now it’s particularly lovely in sky blue (not available yet in Philly stores, but will be by the weekend).

The MIKKE workstation (this combo is $110) in orange and white.

And I love the VARMT HUND fabric ($3.99/yd), now in black and white. Hang it in a window for a glowing hund.

Three favorites from local sellers:

“Peep” ($20; 5″ x 5″ image on 10″ x 8″ paper) by Mike Geno (mgenomgeno) who also makes very cool meat-themed artwork and housewares

“Bee Happy” ($17; 8″ x 10″) by Melanie (spreadthelove), based in Kutztown.

“I Like To Rock” ($25; 11″ x 14″) by Jaime Derringer (jaimers), the blogger behind Design Milk.

And there’s a bonus for furniture-design aficionados: a very substantial pouf custom-designed by Philadelphia artist Virgil Marti for the exhibit’s Salon Cubism room. This room replicates the Salon d’Automne of 1912 both in palette and in the way its “salon-style” groupings are mixed in with sculpture.

Curator Michael Taylor told a group of us you’re meant to recline on the pouf and look up at the very high-hanging Nude Descending A Staircase whose landscape emerges clearly from that perspective. At eye level, he said, the painting has more of a patchwork-quilt effect.

It was funny he used that descriptor since Marti’s pouf is certainly quilt-ish — not in a serene Amish-quilt kind of way but more like “I tried to use up all my fabric scraps in one project.” The fake fur button at the pouf’s center grounds the radiating wedges of pattern (floral, peacock) and texture (velvet, wool) that are footed with curtain fringe. Just like a Cubist painting, it’s a lot to take in.

The exhibit shows how Cubism breaks three-dimensional objects into fragments. Is the Sigmund pouf doing the same with centuries of design tropes? I’m probably just overanalyzing this piece which is inarguably a comfy place to perch and ponder the Salon Cubists. I wonder where it’s headed after the exhibit closes.

UPDATE: Since I posted about Virgil Marti’s Sigmund Pouf, I saw that the Museum of Art has a great pouf post on its blog. Click here to check out a video of Marti talking about how the faux ostrich signifies “denial” and “burying one’s head,” and the eyes fabric alludes to insight. A bonus: There’s footage of the artist and curator demonstrating how to lounge on the pouf.

(photos by Contance Mensh, courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Zepeda rocks a calligraphy style that manages to be simultaneously sumptuous and whimsical. (She also happens to be a fellow journalist and Philadelphian.) With Project Valentine, she’s paired her gorgeous script with groupings of vintage stamps on an oversized envelope that opens to a card with a short (20 words or less) message or quote. At $45, this wee work of art is bound to be much more memorable than the typical chocolate and roses .

Zepeda is taking orders at her etsy shop for these custom valentines until February 6 — she’s only making 100. The full range of stamp sets is here and there’s something to please everyone’s sweetie, from Robert Frost enthusiasts to train buffs to fans of Toto.

This year’s competition guidelines challenged students to “design a ‘tabletop luminaire’ in the style of Marcel Wanders that included a careful examination of historic references, creative use of materials and technology and that appealed to the human experience.” Easy peasy, right? The judges unanimously chose Cammarata’s design, PULL, to receive first prize over 70 other entries. It obviously appealed to those humans. See if PULL appeals to you:

The lamp is a riff on Harvey Hubbell’s pull-chain socket, patented in 1896. In Cammarata’s lamp, the pull is the stand and the lamp. Seven LEDs are encased within polyethylene spheres dusted with a light coating of metallic paint for a traditional brassy sheen. The electrical components are concealed in the base and the lampshade.

Cammarata says he came up with PULL after doing about 20 sketches to perfect a design that “maintains the proportion of a tabletop luminaire and incorporates the pull chain as a stand.” He even found a way to keep the orientation of the pull chain left of center, as it hangs in regular lamps, for that x factor that’s universal in all winning designs: the one that brings the “oh!” and the smile to the end-user.

Calling Kikkerland …

Some samples of the merch:

• Snuggle up on the couch with this luxe purple throw, called Oliver, by Italy’s Cecchi e Cecchi — originally $295, it’s $236 after the discount.

• Or outfit the guestroom in style with a microcotton herringbone queen blanket from Home Source International — originally $290, it’s $232 after the discount.