Taste and see

Today, my sister and I had an adventure that took us to many colorful places. The first was to a lace shop in Fletcher, North Carolina called Corns Fabric Outlet. Oh what a Treasure! Corn's has rows and rows of lace in every color and trims that I could just pitch a fit over. Sadly Corn's is closing soon, so this land of milk and honey will not be open for much longer. If you are in the area it is definitely worth seeking this place out.

After we stopped at a few antique stores and drove through historic Flat Rock, North Carolina (which took us about 8 seconds) we decided that we needed ice cream to successfully conclude the adventure. And thus I had my first experience at Luna Rose, a gelato Cafe in downtown Greenville....I am going to try and limit how much I say about how amazing the gelato was there because my place of business also serves gelato....But I have a new conclusion that heaven may taste something like gelato.

I was standing in front of this massive case of gelato and I wanted to try all the flavors just to make sure I wouldn't have any regrets later. I was slightly embarrassed to ask the guy working behind the counter for that many samples though and I know what it is like to be on the other side of counter. So I asked him which one he liked best. He said a few flavors but then he said "It doesn't matter so much what I want, it matters what you want." I think indirectly he was saying " I am surrounded by this stuff all day and none of it looks appetizing anymore" but it hit a strange chord with me. Go with me a second: Lets say You are standing in front of a huge gelato case and God is on the other side. And God has all the flavors of gelato in the world (symbolically this gelato could represent blessings). And I am standing there wide-eyed and God asks me " Which one do you want Julia? Pick any of them that you want". (Because God wants to give us good gifts!) I want to be able to say back "Its doesn't matter so much what I want, it matters what You want." And very soon I would realize that what He has for me is even sweeter that anything I could pick for myself.

The one with all the ties

I have a strange love of neckties and I use them for the handles of my bags. About 2 years ago I bought 86 off of an older man I met at an antique show. Those ties have served me well for quite sometime but as I have been making a lot of bags recently, my supply has been dwindling. So I went on eBay and won an auction for 350+ ties. I only paid total of about $24 for them ( $1.25 for the actual ties and the rest was for shipping).

Yesterday there was a loud knock on my apartment door. When I opened it I found a very tired UPS man standing there. He told me he was sure I wasn't going to be home because of how heavy the box was and he would have to carry it back down if I wasn't. Prior to the box arriving at our apartment I was cleaning. All cleaning stopped once that treasure chest of neckties arrived.

The picture to the left is about 170 of them laid out by color on my floor. I don't know who this guy was but he sure did take some fashion risks, as a good portion of these ties are magenta, orange or purple. There are only about 12 that I can't use at all, (this group includes one with dolphins on it and one with Santa Claus and the Rockettes). The rest (I have counted about 370 in total) all have destinies as handles on my bags (especially now that I have so many new color options) or they may be made into the seat of a chair if I get back into making those. Pretty much I am so thankful for my abundance of ties! What are you thankful for today?

Sew much Sewing

I have been quiet on the blog and on etsy for a few days because I have been very very busy sewing. A store on Main Street in Greenville, Liz Daly's Designs, is going to carry my bags and cuffs!! So take a look at what I dropped off there yesterday. If you are from the Greenville area or can make it up here I would love for you to stop by Liz's shop. If not and you are interested in a bag or cuff similar to the ones pictured below let me know and I will see if I can recreated it or something like it (click on the picture to see a bigger image, if you still want to see a bag or cuff more close up let me know and I will email you one). Thanks so much for supporting my sewing endeavors and for reading my blog!