Belts - and more belts!

Remember when you thought it was a good idea to take your dad's belt and tie it around your waist for a belt? Well, we've taken that idea and made it a little more.....beautiful! We match two of our gorgeous ties and sew them together, put in a few strategic pleats to make a gorgeous, wide wrap around belt that fits all sizes. Our wonderful friend Talia at Squash Blossom Boutique in Decatur has taken several of them - go check it out! or visit our website www.tiesthatmatter.com.

Showing off the bags

Now I'm buying outfits to go with my bags! This grey and pink bag just needed something silvery and swishy to go with it. I love matching all these colors together. The boots were the final touch. Can't wait to get another bag so I can go shop for another outfit. Love these bags!!

Hats!!!

Hana and I had a fabulous day in the studio making hats out of our beautiful ties. See Hana (look left!) in one of them. My friend, Dayle Gordon, had the great idea that in addition to bags and pillows, we should make Ties That Matter hats as well. We've been thrilled with the results so far. We've made two - well, we've made a lot more than that, but two that we're claiming - and love, love, love the way they turned out. We've shown them to Carolyn Helmer at the Cancer Wellness Center at Piedmont and she was super excited about the idea. We'll see. Ideas are never the problem for us.....it's the time it takes to actually stitch all those ideas together that seems to be a stumbling block. But, we love what we do and we love the thought of creating another product.

Some ties matter more than others

One of my favorite things about this business is designing the products, mostly different kinds of bags - like our every-popular cross body slouch purse or our little minis, perfect for keeping everything from makeup to pens to coins to keys - it's our "whatever" bag.
With the help of my interns, everything that comes out of the studio is carefully designed. We have about 2000 ties to work with right now, which sounds like a lot (and it is a lot, thanks to the wonderful people who donate ties to our project!) but it takes a broad palette of colors and designs to put together a really beautiful bag. I've been known to get stuck with a design and spend WAY too much time looking for just the right color of blue or a tie with just a touch of bright pink or whatever. I absolutely love doing this because the ties are always beautiful. Believe it or not, I never get tired of working with the ties. Which is a good thing, yesterday I shipped off 70 POUNDS of Ties That Matter products. They'll be on a great website called Globalgirlfriend.com. check it out! P.S. We ALWAYS need more ties so if you have some to donate, send them to : P.O. Box 11914, Atlanta, GA 30355.

Interns

I love working with my interns! I have four of the best, most dedicated, most wonderful interns in the world. Linden has been with us since last March - this is her last year at SCAD and she is (1) beautiful (2) dedicated (3) wonderful and it makes me happy to work with her. Hana has worked with us for several months now. She has a real passion for working with non profit groups and hopes to combine her considerable skills at fashion design with some sort of n.profit work. I hope that her work with us helps her fulfill her dream.
Leidy and Nnbuchi sort of came in together. They are extremely skilled sew-ers and I'm grateful for their help. Today they learned to make the fancy bags with rosettes - a huge help to me because to date, I've been the only one to make them. They are excited about working with us and have dreams and schemes and ideas of making a wonderful life in the fashion industry. I feel lucky to have them on board.
It is such a pleasure to me to work with these young women. It makes me feel lucky. I AM lucky!

St. Anne's Show

I have now begun my life as a blogger.
Cameron, Elizabeth and I started Ties That Matter a little over a year ago. It's been an amazing and exciting 16 months. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible!
Our sew-ers and stitchers are the best and we couldn't do what we do without them. What do we do? In a nutshell, we use recycled ties to make all kinds of gorgeous and wonderful handbags and pillows. We work with about 4000 ties at one time, which gives us a large enough palette to combine the most beautiful colors and patterns, making unique and stunning products.