Planting plenty of onions for the Italian herb garden while people are putting up Christmas decorations and having fun at parties. December brings out the best in folks. Manufacturing, you see a repeating theme of 6 points on successful fashion asks during agriculture booms. Cotton prices are bringing them to mind for 2026 sucess trends: Custom embroidery Metal work in gold, silver, and bronze Dark Dyes (especially blue, purple, and deep red) Higher quality fabrics like: wool, linen, silk, and leather Cool trims Excess fabric turning into fluffy garments and tents for festivals and outdoor live events The list isn’t new and embroidery always works BEST. Wonder how many craft shops will sell AI SORA embroidery kits for 2026? The...
Roughly every 20 years, a fabric staple in agriculture gets a bumper crop and fashion gets a win the next year. If you’re VERY lucky, more than one. We have various beautiful European aristocratic collections that have come down the centuries to us today. Especially Italian wool. 2025, it’s cotton as trading 15-30% below normal. YES. If you wanted to design something period over the top, 2026 is your year to swing for the fences. A LOT of styles are made with cotton, including American. You can almost feel the trim machines switching on to spool up yards of Mexican and Indian trims for American-British fantasy and reenactment for 2026. Fancy embroidery? Check please. The Texas Cotton Exchange Market is...
It’s such a great feeling when you finish a hard project. A garden in the US takes about a year to get up and running. Gardens improve every year you have one, but the first year is the hardest. Putting down winter mulch for Italian herbs for spring year two feels pretty good which is excellent because pumpkins and squash have been selling out like crazy at the local farmer’s market. Most of the heirloom stuff is gone a full month early (bummer), but you have to give all the happy farmers a high five for a year of successful hard work. It took 10+ tons of mulch, a bunch of fertilizer add-ons, oceans of cardboard, and a year of...
Time to play around with modifying celtic potato bread recipes for sweet potatoes. British, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh cooking really shines in fall where the simple ingredients and fresh food make the dishes at local festivals popular. Tryon Palace is famous for it’s fall pirate festivals and events thanks to Blackbeard, America’s most notorious master rebel on our high seas, lots of fun. North Carolina’s coastline is perfect for filming too. The seafood is great too. Keep expecting someone to reboot the Pirates of the Caribbean with a fantasy twist from the Jim Butcher air pirates series. If you’ve ever seen Stardust with Robert De Niro and the lightening pirates or Japanese anime which has plenty of airship themes, you...
Wow, after the NC State Fair knocked it out of the park 12/10 this year, trying to make a list of classic and new events to try this winter season. The Ren Faires are jamming. Oceans of white lights and decorations are going up for families to drive through neighborhoods in a few weeks for the Night of Lights at Dorthea Dix and other spots though WRAL normally doesn’t publish this year’s list until Dec. 1st. Most of them are free or $20/car. There was a lot to love at the State Fair last week with all the events, booths, food, and rides. Didn’t really know where to put this in the list, but the PR and word-of-mouth around the...