The Big Apple

I'm back from NYC, and I am relieved to say that we did not melt in the ovens Metra stations.   It's a hot summer in New York these days! You can tell by this photograph that New York was a soupy 95 while we were there.  It was hot in Chicago too, but I was elated to wake up and find that our back porch was a cool 73 yesterday morning.  Hooray for Lake Michigan breezes!

We spent most of our trip ducking from one air-conditioned place to another, including a few shops in garment district to fill up on some much needed pearl cotton.   This is my preferred thread for embroidery.  Unlike six-strand floss, pearl cotton can not be separated into unique threads, which I think is great because it's a time saver.  Embroidery takes long enough without messing around with thread!  It doesn't tangle up like the six strand, and it comes in tidy little balls instead of skeins.  It's just better.  I also just like the way pearl cotton looks- it has a great sheen and comes in most of the same colors as the six strand floss. Unless, of course, you live in Chicago, in which case I've only ever been able to find the size that I like (8) in black, white, ecru, or red.  So, every time I'm in New York, I try to stop into Daytona Trimming on West 39th street and get as much as I can afford.  Here are the colors I got this trip:

There seem to be a lot of Precious Moments pastels going on in the back row here, which seemed strange as I was unpacking them, but I was trying to even out the collection and get some colors for highlights.  I am drawn to intensity- hot orange, bright green, scarlet red, chartreuse, but sometimes these pastels are necessary to make the other colors pop.

What I didn't buy, but did admire at Daytona was a wall of ric-rac:

Isn't it inspiring?  Endless shades and sizes of the rainbow, all in zig zag form.  I stared at it for a long time, and then laughed when I found this display in their window on the way out:

 Think Trim!  What are your favorite spots in New York or elsewhere to buy materials?  Leave a comment below....