Peripatetic Designer: Walk Around Designer

(A Peripatetic Designer walks around with her client and has the intentions to convey instruction and information as well as to help to create and bring into being the desires of the home owner.)

Being a peripatetic (walk-around-designer) requires that all of the clients interests be considered...such as...dogs and cats sleeping...wherever they want!

There are so many ways to accommodate this requirement and still leave a beautiful impression (not that they aren't beautiful left alone).

Piled up laundry will always appease the guests, but sometimes it imposes a second laundry day for the host. (these special guests aren't always so thoughtful to take off their muddy shoes or dust themselves off before plopping on the bed!)

As for me,
I have yet to get to the project of making them their own beds. It's a dream, but to date, piled up laundry will suffice. After all, it's their laundry. If they don't mind a little mud, why should I? All I try to do is give them some "laundry" that looks good with the decor!

By the way, I don't know if you have noticed this, but my babies seem to like that fresh laundry smell, they head straight for the cleanest pile. Sometimes I have to scramble to beat them to the laundry that isn't theirs! I don't always make it. (truthfully, sometimes I just let the mud dry and dust it off. Sometimes I just let them have it and worry about it later...life is short. You have to pick your battles and they are my favorite people. If they're happy, I'm happy.)

I was finishing up a beautiful spread in my shop one day and a customer decided she wanted it and her price was right...so I'm back to the drawing board.

I had taken a piece of heavy, upholstery weight designer fabric in the motif of a zebra but with artificial, green and gold coloring. I added an inner layer of interfacing to give it some heft and stitched a row of bullion trim around the perimeter.

The client wanted it so much and wanted it then, that she took it home and stitched the final turning gap closed herself. (Actually, her father had told her he would give her the money for it for her birthday that same day and she wanted him to see it.)

I had planned to use the spread to drape over the sofa for them as a decorative place to lay. Well, I'm back to "their laundry" to suffice for now.

The next "dream" is to make a dog bone pillow for them. Maybe I should just buy this one, it is very reasonably priced, actually a give-away according to my labor standards. I don't know how anyone makes any money!!!!

I was walking around, instructing a client in a high rise condo in Las Vegas a few years back and suddenly exclaimed, "you know what would pull it all together now, a zebra rug." Before I could stop her, she got online and ordered one.