If you are not local and you get the chance to travel to Raleigh, North Carolina in the Spring, one of my favorite things to do is to wander the North Carolina Museum of Art, especially when the museum holds their annual fundraiser event ‘Art in Bloom’. During this event, the museum, which is . . .
I've learned in retail that there are two kinds of people when it comes to scouting out finds: those that love the thrill of the hunt and digging through piles to find treasures, and those that like to have those treasures curated and presented to them. Nomadic Trading Company in Durham is the best . . .
Sometime last year I started hearing about a place in Chapel Hill called Honeysuckle Tea House. All I knew about it was that they served loose leaf tea, which has long been my beverage of choice. So on a hot summer day last year I decided to make the trek. From my house in Raleigh it is about 45 . . .
This past summer my friend Amanda and I were out for a drive on a business errand. On the way back, a little under an hour from being back home, I noticed a sign on the highway for a spot I had seen a picture of and had saved as something to check out at a later date. I’m a sucker for a long . . .
The Oxford Exchange is a 24,000 square foot coffee & tea shop/restaurant/bookstore/gift shop/interior design studio & coworking hybrid space located in Tampa, Florida. The restaurant focuses on simple meals using seasonal and local ingredients. It has expansive white diamond patterned . . .
Dram Apothecary is a Colorado company that makes bitters, syrups and teas from plant-based ingredients. The owner Shae Whitney’s background includes food science, herbalism and botany. There are a couple of companies in North Carolina who make bitters that we stock at Gather and I use them to . . .
Barista Parlor is a coffee shop in Nashville, Tennessee. They serve coffee from a number of high quality roasters including Stumptown, Intelligentsia, Handsome Coffee Roasters and Durham, North Carolina locals Counter Culture, all coffee roasters at the top of their game. Like many specialty . . .
So to recap the past week and a half of posts here are my recommendations for things to do on a three-day weekend to Asheville, NC. I'm sure there are a ton more things to see and do but I think we covered a lot of ground! To See: The North Carolina Botanical Garden, French Broad . . .
One thing that we are lacking in the Triangle area of North Carolina is a glass studio - or so I've heard from friends who work in this medium. There are a handful within driving distance but not a lot of options locally. Asheville is an artist's haven with cheap studio space aplenty and . . .
If all these shop tours in Asheville don't have you pining for a trip there then I don't know what will. Here is a peek into another lovely shop called Flora that I visited, whose walls were covered in ripped out pages of vintage botanical artwork and every blank space covered in plants. . . .
Heather Knight is a ceramicist based in Asheville, North Carolina. On my visit there last spring I stopped by her studio, Element Ceramics. Her textured and organic patterned pieces are made exclusively with porcelain. She sticks to a white color palette but then on some pieces incorporates . . .
Whenever I visit a new city I like to check out their arboretum. Here are photos I took last spring at The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, North Carolina: I thought this living roof was particularly cool. These pictures make me eager for Spring's arrival. . . .