Whether it is clothing, a sewing project, a wreath, wrapping paper, bring it in! It is so much easier to help you find exactly what you need and what will work when you bring it in.
A good example of this happened just the other day. A woman was sewing these very beautiful and unique pillows. She had some antique drawings of body parts (They really reminded me of Leonardo DaVinci type of drawings) that she was layering on top of a velour type fabric. She came in wanting chocolate velvet ribbon to use as a border of the picture and the velour fabric. Well, I showed her my chocolate ribbon (being right after the holidays, I was completely out of chocolate velvet, so I showed her other chocolate textures) We soon found out that chocolate brown was NOT the color for these pillows. That color didn't compliment her picture or the fabric at all.
What we did find, was a taupe velvet, and a maroon velvet that ended up looking fantastic. When we first looked at the maroon velvet, we both didn't think it would work, being too red. However, when we put the ribbon next to everything else, it really brought out the picture and the colors and everything. This is why this is a great example of bringing things in. What she came in for, didn't look good. What we thought looked too red, but decided to try any way, turned out great!
I love helping people with their projects, I don't always see the final product, but they usually end up coming back in and telling me how great it turned out :)
