Cajun Corner – Vol.
4, No. 10 – March 17, 2012
Bon
Jour! Welcome to Cajun
Stitchery’s weekly email and welcome to our family.
ΘΘΘΘΘ
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I have always been a basically lazy person looking
for short cuts. When Mama taught me to
hand embroider as a child, my embroidery never looked as pretty as I wanted and
I would give up and put it aside until I got another urge. Before she passed on and while she lived with
us, I would take out my hand embroidery and accoutrements. She would watch me as I embroidered, or tried
to do a new stitch or whatever. Then she
would say, “My Mama would have been so disappointed in me if I embroidered like
that.” Never put knots at the end of
embroidery thread, it is a big no-no. At
least in Mama’s world it was bad. The perfect embroidery should leave the tail
and weave it into the back of the embroidery so that you do not know where one
ends and the other begins. I took the
short cut, as usual. One of the real
beauties of hand embroidery is that it is 3-dimensional. There are stitches that create all sorts of
knots (the intentional kind of knot), flowers, balls and embroidery that pops
right off the fabric. How in the world
did women of olden days create such exquisite embroidery? They must have embroidered 24-7, but then
they would not have time to do all of their other chores. Some embroidery, of course, was flat against
the fabric. I’ve seen hand embroidery
depicting scenes that looked almost as clear and vivid as a photograph with all
of the proper shading. These were true
artisans.
Why all of this carrying on about hand
embroidery? I have seen and touched some
exquisite hand embroidery this week. The
pieces were the kind of embroidery that you gaze upon and know they are so far
out of your league you shouldn’t even try.
That led me to do some searches online, especially at Pinterest, on fine
hand embroidery where I saw additional remarkable pieces of art.
When I first began looking at machine embroidery,
I was intrigued with sewing machine embroidery (differing from embroidery
machine embroidery). Again, these are
some true artisans. Yes, there are
people in the world today that can make their old Singers do fine
embroidery. The machine doesn’t need any
special stitches at all, just a needle and thread that go up and down. You hoop your fabric in the same kind of hoop
that is use in hand embroidery, except you turn it upside down for the
machine. Take off your presser foot and
use an embroidery presser foot – some don’t even use that. Lower your feed dogs. Embroider.
Initially, I did a few, very few, items using this method.
It wasn’t long after I discovered the sewing
machine embroidery that I found Doris (my
Singer home embroidery machine). Since I
have already established that I tend to be lazy and search for short cuts, the
sewing machine embroidery idea went out the window in lieu of machine
embroidery. With the embroidery machine,
I did not have to think and plan as much.
Then Boudreaux (my first commercial embroidery machine) came into my
life and, well, life has not been the same since. Oh, how I love Boudreaux. Now we have Clothilde. Bet you thought the new one would be named
Thibodeaux. Clothilde works faster than
Boudreaux, is more precise and user friendly.
Basically, she does better work, with more precision, in less time. Of course, it would be a female. Lol
The next challenge is to figure out how to make
Boudreaux and Clothilde stitch comparable embroidery to hand embroidery. Hmmm.
There are some techniques available, albeit time consuming. Please recall last year’s Easter Bonnet with
the 3-D butterflies and fringed flowers.
Admittedly, the bonnet was outrageous but the techniques were solid. What if I could turn those techniques into
fine embroidery?
The technique of making nice, professional
patches used to be reserved for the Merrow machine. Since the advent of embroidery machines and some
ingenuity, professional looking patches are now easily made on embroidery
machines. The Merrow machine uses an
overlock stitch and the embroidery machine uses a satin stitch, but they
basically look the same.
Now that Clothilde has moved in, she brought her
own set of computer programs. One of the
programs has some items about Schiffli machines. I do not want a Schiffli machine. The Schiffli machine holds 1,000 needles and
if you think I am going to thread that many needles, you are out of your mind. The Schiffli machine takes embroidery
machines to the level of repeating designs on a plain fabric creating a fabric
with repeated embroidery motifs that you can purchase by the yard. I’m sure you’ve seen this type of
fabric. These machines are incredible. They also make the lovely lace fabric by
embroidering repeated designs on tulle, I think. All of this can also be done on Boudreaux and
Clothilde but in much smaller increments and it would take a lot more time.
I have carried on about embroidery and I think I
saw one of our beans sprouting today.
The beautiful weather and the yard are calling me outdoors. My annual red snapdragons are still blooming
after 3 years and now we have yellow and white snapdragons that are into their
second or third season. The catnip is
lush this year. In fact, I brought a
bouquet of catnip in the house the other day and George thinks I may have
damaged my cats permanently. They
haven’t been the same since. Ah, well,
those cats need to lighten up anyhow.
Cats can be so serious.
Blackberry cobbler season is right around the corner. Those beautiful little white flowers are
everywhere. I am hoping for a bumper
crop this year.
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INTERESTING…
I found the following Vodka Soaked Gummy Bears
at http://www.thatssomichelle.com/2011/08/vodka-soaked-gummy-bears.html
Shopping List (inspired by Cathy Macomber on the Tuesday
Nite Wildcats)
1 bag of gummy bears or gummy candy of your choice
1 cup of Absolute or Gray Goose vodka (or enough to cover the candy completely)
Place your bears in a large bowl and pour over your vodka, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for at least 24 hours. I wouldn't go further than 48 hours, they may start breaking down.
Pour out your vodka (serve if you like, it will be pink and sweet from the bears) and carefully skewer your gummy bears. Arrange and serve.
1 bag of gummy bears or gummy candy of your choice
1 cup of Absolute or Gray Goose vodka (or enough to cover the candy completely)
Place your bears in a large bowl and pour over your vodka, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for at least 24 hours. I wouldn't go further than 48 hours, they may start breaking down.
Pour out your vodka (serve if you like, it will be pink and sweet from the bears) and carefully skewer your gummy bears. Arrange and serve.
IF YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS INTERESTING, TRY THIS…
Skittle bombs: take bottles of unflavored vodka
and packs of skittles. pick a skittle color and put them all in a bottle. shake
until they dissolve. Freeze to chill before serving.
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C’est tout, mes amis
Cajun Stitchery
(850) 261-2462
P.S. You are always
welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me,
cher.
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