CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1241877
30 | May 2020 30 | May 2020 Stitching memories from a relaxing hobby BY KIM HASTY | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW WONDERLY L ong before a global pandemic led to social distancing and the need for everyone to stay at home, David Phillips was already enjoying the hours of peace and quiet he found sitting in his comfy recliner wielding a simple sewing needle, a leather thimble and skeins of colorful thread. As a lawyer with Cumberland County's District Attorney's office, his workdays oen include constant conversation. His unlikely hobby of meticulously embroidering baseball caps takes him away from a schedule that can otherwise prove hectic. "I just enjoy it," he said. "It's nice relaxation." Phillips has always been his family's unofficial tailor, somehow managing to replace tiny buttons and mend tears and holes despite large hands that made coming to terms with needle and thread a challenge. A Disney cruise vacation with wife Andrea when children Anna and Sam were youngsters broadened his skills from mending to monogramming. "We hadn't been on F E A T U R E that many vacations," he said. "We bought black luggage. We figured out that was not the best luggage to buy. I decided to put everyone's initials on them so that they stood out, and it worked pretty well." A lifetime love of the beach provided the inspiration to continue his newfound hobby. As a boy, he and his family spent summer vacations with his grandparents, Elva and Harry Schmulling, at Nag's Head on the Outer Banks, along with a slew of cousins, aunts and uncles from up north. "Nag's Head was the place," Phillips said. "ey'd rent three or four houses side by side and we had a blast. We'd have a big ole time." ose memories provided a natural inspiration for his new hobby. On one of his early projects, he stitched a couple of sprawling green-roofed Nag's Head cottages, sand dunes and blue ocean, on a baseball cap for his grandmother. He took a look at the finished product and decided to add a fishing boat adri on the water. His grandmother loved it. "It's fun seeing what