This weekend is the Duke Gardens Plant Sale. The gardens are beautiful and if you like bees or butterflies, it’s flower central. Weirdly there’s no real scifi films or books being released this fall season which gives us a chance to catch up on local flavors. Visit a few Ren Faires. Maybe a State Fair. Check out our tourist spots. If you’re in North Carolina, the most popular pollinator plant to grow is the Mountain Mint all up and down the Eastern Coast. This is a bit of a side marketing gimmick, but I thought that eventually we’ll see a trend of instead of farm to table restaurants, garden to bar around mint themes. Girls love butterflies and mixed drinks....
My grandmother’s favorite book was the Thorn Birds. It’s also a famous 4 episode series from the 80s which is an epic Catholic Australian tragedy. The story is of a priest who meets a family and falls along with their only daughter. Pride. Ambition. Human weakness. Faith. Death. Intrigue. With all the tax credits floating around the Outback right now, you have to wonder if some film crew will grab it for inspiration and cash in. Need to find the right redheads to play it though. It’s a beautiful dark love letter to Australia. Plus most of Europe is seen in a flattering light post-WW II from England to Germany. What would be the equivalent for the US? Has anyone...
Alright, we're through basic pricing and custom 101 so let's move on to the fun stuff while we sew orders and get ready for September Fashion Week. Wow, good job Dior with your nature themed cruise collection and sweet bagpipe music in Scotland. We absolutely loved the whole Italian Dulce and Gabbana artisan rooms, but the other clear 2024 fashion winner is Dior. English and European traditional castles and greenery are flattering for most clothing photography sold in the West. The small bags, the gold accents, etc. all came together perfectly. It beat the other runways. It’s interesting how the 1930s art deco and art nouveau comeback translates to fashion. Black, gold, nature, and red color schemes are popular worldwide....
Welcome to a fun summer week, if you haven’t checked out the winners of this summer’s Olympic Fashion Week Shows, Dolce and Gabbana has our vote. This week we’re talking about the King of Style book and talent stylists using specialty fashion shops to snag custom deals for clients. It feels like a good topic as Horizon landed a deal for Netflix to produce all 4 parts which feels like an industry win for everyone. Good on Kevin Costner and Netflix. Getting tickets to see it in Raleigh was incredibly difficult as it only played in niche arthouse theaters, probably as marketing for winning the Oscars, so thanks streaming. My 70 year old mother was bummed. We’re holding out hope...
Alright, the industrial sewing classes which we’ve done for a decade plus. Our once a week courses always do much better because it gives people a chance to make real products so that’s our teaching focus this fall. One of the key weaknesses of compressing the industrial sewing course into a single week is it prevents students without prior sewing experience from having enough practice time to catch up with more advanced stitchers. Spreading it out over several weeks should help students have more fun. Class refunds are accepted until 72 hrs before they start. September 15th- October 13th Sundays 2-5 pm Costume Rigging $100/person A hand sewing class for people learning to do theater alterations and costume rigging for quick...