Monday, March 4, 2013

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 8


 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 8 – March 4, 2013

 

Bon Jour!  Welcome to Cajun Stitchery’s weekly email and welcome to our family.

 

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Our customer loved the ball caps; however, we forgot to take pictures.  Luckily, we took some pictures when we were working on the design in the beginning but it would have been nice to have a photo or two of all 65 ball caps. 

Now we are working on a towel order.  The customer wants a peace sign, mermaid, and fish embroidered in all white on her bath towels, wash cloths, and hand towels.  George is working on this order, too.  He is quite the little embroiderer.  The designs worked out well except for the little fish that the customer requested.  The fish is an outline type design and the lines were so thin that the loops in the fabric covered the outline.  The design had to be altered to thicken the lines.  They are working fine now.  To hold the loops in the terrycloth down to embroider, a special overlay stabilizer is required.  The stabilizer is basically starch made into sheets.  Once the embroidery is done and the tearaway stabilizer is removed from the back, the towels need to be washed to remove the stabilizer on top.  Recently in one of the embroidery periodicals that I read there was an article on this suggesting using a thin plastic, rather than the water soluble overlay.  That would not work in this situation because of the outlining in the designs.  It would work nicely on fill or appliqué designs.

What have I been doing?  Mardi Gras put me terribly behind on all of my birthday gifts for the girls.  I have everything to make the gifts but there are a few steps to the project and all I can say is that I’m working on it in my spare time. 

In the meantime, I’m combining a couple of projects.  When I use my Embird digitizing program to download true type fonts, they usually look great on the computer screen.  That does not mean they will stitch out okay.  In fact, when I send anyone a “computer simulation” of a design, any design, that is exactly what it is, a computer rendition of the embroidery design.   A computer screen does not have depth or drape or any of the issues involved in hooping and stitching.  The computer simulation could stitch out horribly or beautifully.  You just never know until you stitch it out.

Nevertheless, I have recently downloaded a whole bunch of true type fonts.  They are more in thee area of antique, heirloom type fonts.  It takes awhile to create one of the samplers, so I decided to make little in-the-hoop purses with the girls’ initials in some of the new fonts.  In addition to that, there are fonts called ornaments and wingdings.  If it is a true type font, I should be able to change it into embroidery stitches.  Some of the ornaments that were downloaded are beautiful curly cues and swirls to enhance the monogram.  I am using some of these around the monograms on the little purses to see how they look and stitch out.  One that I did actually stitched out pretty nice but the columns were so thin that it kept breaking the thread.  Remember:  not everything done with pen and ink can be duplicated in embroidery. 

The purses themselves are a design that I created.  The entire purse is made in-the-hoop.  Once the purse is taken out of the embroidery hoop, the only thing left to do is attaching the handle/strap with grommets and attaching the snap.  It is a really awesome process and we can make these purses up to 10” square.

Now that the house next door a/k/a the green house is remodeled, we are working out decorating ideas.  Our garage still has Mama’s apartment furnishings in it.  I never had any place to put her stuff, nor did I have the heart to go through it.  Now is the time. 

The house is going to be a multi-purpose house with Cajun Stitchery occupying a portion.  So, it will be a semi-business, semi-home thing.  It needs to be available for my Nereid girls to meet and spend the night, so, beds are going to be important.  There are a lot of beds, tables, ottomans, chairs, drawers, etc., that George is going to have to make for me if I cannot find what I want in Mama’s apartment, or at the Salvation Army or Waterfront Mission.

In addition to the furniture, there are 20 windows that need curtains and I will make those.  There are rugs, towels, etc., needed.  All sorts of things that I need to buy or make and, of course, embroider.  If you are local and want to get rid of tee shirts, send them over.  It doesn’t matter if they are ripped or stained.  I plan to make some rag rugs out of them.

We have had a few cold days lately, down into the low 30’s.  Today is like Spring and absolutely beautiful.  None of our newly planted seeds have sprouted yet.  That’s probably a good thing since the sprouts would have been injured by the cold.

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Did you know (found at http://www.funfunnyfacts.com/Fun-Amazing-Facts.html):

66% of home based businesses are owned by women.  
Insulating your attic reduces the amount of energy loss in most houses by up to 20%.
Rain contains vitamin B12.
Real diamonds can be made from peanut butter!
Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours!
Rubber is one of the ingredients in bubble gum.
Salmon can jump as high as 6 feet.
Snails breathe through their feet.
Sound at the right vibration can bore holes through a solid object.
Sound travels fifteen times faster through steel than through air.
Surgeons who listen to music during operations perform better than those who don't .
The American Film Institute has named composer John Williams score for Star Wars as the greatest film score of all time.
The average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year!
The average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day.
The banana tree cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.
The Bible is the most-shoplifted book in the world.
Peggy Henshall
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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