“…My Kinda Town…”

We recently moved house and sewing studio to the fabulous city of Palm Springs, California! It’s taken awhile to unpack and organize but we are settling in quite nicely!

Known as the mecca for Hollywood royalty getaways,  mid-century modern architecture and trendy pool parties and tiki bars – there’s plenty to do here and the town is super hip –  hosting such huge events such as the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Modernism Week, and Coachella Music Festival and Stagecoach Music Festivals.

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Similar to our previous residence in Pinehurst, NC – the permanent year-round Palm Springs population is about 45,000, and doubles during the winter season with part time residents from the north and vacationers galore.  To the east of Palm Springs, are several other desert cities including Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Desert Hot Springs, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, and Indio.   

Big Bear Lake is just a short half hour away or so –  Los Angeles is just over a one hour drive to the West – and San Diego just two hours to the South.    And there’s o end to the shopping experiences –  a vibrant downtown area (that’s a statue of ex mayor Sonny Bono in the picture to the right), the upscale El Paseo shopping district (think Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills) and a super huge outlet mall just a mere 10 minutes down the freeway.  Entertainment and year around activities include two modern art museums, countless tiki bars and lounge acts, three regional repertory theaters, and two huge resort casinos/spas that host an array of super star entertainment like Lionel Richie, Tom Jones or Bette Midler in any given week.  Hollywood king pins such as Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope (see his house below – it is wild!), Dinah Shore, Lucille Ball and more all built homes here, adding a touch of stardust and old Hollywood glamour to certain areas of the town.  And of course, the famous Rat Pack played and stayed here…so it doesn’t get any much better than that!

Although the desert heat of summer pushes daytime temperatures into the 100s, it’s a dry heat and believe it or not, much more comfortable than the humid conditions we experienced while living in North Carolina!   The area boasts more than 350 days of sunshine with less than 5 inches of rain a year and winter temperatures average in the 70s with nights in the mid-40s – now that sounds like a fabulous way to spend Winter!

With all that – the pace is very relaxed, living is easy and fun is the name of the game! What attracted us to the area was the vibrant and colourful Palm Springs downtown  – streets lined with majestic palm trees, a vast variety of boutique shops, art galleries in abundance and the absolute mecca of mid-century art, artists and architecture that flood every corner.  Inspiration and colour is found in every niche of the city and surrounding areas.

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Our new home and studio is just outside the Palm Springs downtown area and we have fondly named it the Colourwerx Dezign Haus.    It is a challenge working and living in the same space especially when there are two of you and you are married!  And to make it doubly challenging – even after 6 weeks we are still unpacking, decorating and setting up the design and sewing studio – we promise a post on this progress soon!

We’re having so much fun exploring our new town and  all it has to offer!  A favorite getaway is the Thursday night Palm Springs Village Fest – over 180 vendors and local artists line the downtown streets.  A terrific find from last week’s visit was this colourful camel print we purchased from a local artist, Jutta Malry.  Of course, many more of her prints will be added to the Colourwerx Dezign Haus in the near future.

Quilt 2

Quilt 1

Palm Springs is a fabulous town to live in or just visit –  in short, as Frank Sinatra use to say….”it’s my kinda town…..”   (I know….I know….he was singing about Chicago….but oh well…)