Dallas report and bonus needlework

Ooh, this is pretty:

 

From Needleprint; it's an antique piece being sold at a Christie's auction.

I like embroidery. I've even been known to do some from time to time. (If you dig in my Flickr pictures, there are some crazy quilt blocks that I did a few years ago. And I've done a few pieces of cross-stitch and even needlepoint way back when.) And I am fond of scroll-and-vine patterns so it's not surprising that I like that particular piece. I swore off doing any more crazy-quilting, though, mostly because I was spending too much money on silk fabric and silk thread and antique buttons and such. The usual problem. I still have a lot of silk thread around, though, so I guess if I was to get inspired I wouldn't necessarily have to buy anything, though. Theoretically.


Anyway, back to jewelry... here's a bit cross-posted from my Livejournal about my Dallas trip:

One of the places I wanted to go this afternoon was the one and only Paper Source store in the state of Texas, which is at... Northpark Mall, I think? Or maybe Northpark Center? I don't think it's called anything so plebian as a mall, but it's a huge and very upscale one, whatever it's called, and I ended up getting the full tour, because even though I had looked up where the Paper Source store was ahead of time, I went the wrong way coming out of Dillard's, and had to make the full circle, almost, before I found it. (It's a square, actually, built around the four anchors - besides Dillard's, it was Nordstrom's, Neiman-Marcus and I think Macy's. No Sears here!) I didn't go in Nordstrom's but I did go in Neiman's. I was wearing old jeans from Wal-Mart and the aforementioned LLBean coat - which could really stand to be washed, now that I think about it - and oh my god, it was sort of comical to watch out of the corner of my eye as the salespeople sized me up and decided whether to try to sell me anything. A few did; most didn't. I've been in the N-M in Houston many times, and I don't think the employees there are near as snooty. But hey, I didn't buy anything so I guess the snooty ones judged correctly, really. However, I had a very nice conversation with a Chanel lady about Chanel Beige fragrance, which is apparently only available at that particular store. (I don't think that is the original N-M store because I think that was downtown, but it might well be more or less their flagship store nowadays.) I also sampled another new-to-me Chanel fragrance, "Bois des Iles" which I had read about someplace and knew to keep an eye out for. It smelled quite lovely, and so did Beige, for that matter, but not enough to tempt me to pay $200 for a bottle of either. (She should have tried for something a little less pricey, and I might have been tempted. But I think that her assignment at the time was to push Beige.)

I also went upstairs in N-M and looked at the jewelry - I just wanted to see what they were stocking. They had some lovely stuff - massively overpriced, of course. I did see some jewelry that looked like the stuff from that Elle magazine that I posted, but the "trend" I noticed was chain, chain, chain - necklaces with multiple chains in multiple patterns and sizes, mostly in gold. (Although there was some copper that was very nice.)

I am still amused about the salespeople. -- Oh, and also, I think I saw some of that jewelry out of that Elle magazine I posted about last week - the colored pavé stuff.

And a bit more:

The other plan I had for the afternoon was to find some bead shops. I found the first one quite easily - it was on Lover's Lane, not very far from said mall. I bought a few things but I was not blown away. Then I went northward looking for one that was allegedly in Carrollton, north of Dallas. I got very close to the place where I believe it to be, but I missed a turn or something, and by that time I was tired (I fooled around in the damn mall too long!) and I didn't turn around and go back for a second try at it, even though I will probably kick myself later about that. I headed off towards DFW instead and started looking for dinner, which I found just outside Grapevine Mills Mall. Fuddrucker's is not exactly fancy eating but it's not half bad, and I was hungry by that time.

I think the store I went to was called Beading Dreams. It reminded me a lot of Nomadic Notions/Z Bead, actually, although as far as I know it's not connected. I was right about kicking myself later; I wish I'd kept looking for the second store. But too late now - I'll just have to go the next time I'm in Dallas!