Saturday, June 15, 2013

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 23


Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 23 – June 15, 2013

 

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

 

ΘΘΘΘΘ

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George and I love to experiment.  Last week George read that you can dissolve the egg shell right off the raw egg with vinegar.  Once dissolved, the egg will bounce.  He took the raw egg and put it in a glass, then filled the glass with vinegar.  Sure enough in a couple of days the egg shell was gone and the egg in-tact.  It felt rubbery, so I took the egg to bounce it in the sink – SPLAT.  Well, that part of the experiment wasn’t true.  I’m just grateful that I tried to bounce it in the sink rather than the floor.

It turns out there is a mystery on Pensacola Beach.  Several of the girls found gnome statutes in and around their front yards this past week.  No one knows who put them there but the guessing has begun.  To make this even more intriguing, the statutes arrived on different days.  Emails have been flying speculating on who the gnominator is. I’m sure this will be a topic somewhere in the next issue of the Island Times.

A friend contacted me for some embroidered towels.  She is helping with a cooking contest on the beach and wanted something to give to the participants.  She explained to me that her sister had given her a kitchen towel that she absolutely loved and would like to get these type towels embroidered.  At first she said they were made from cheese cloth, but I questioned that there would be cheese cloth kitchen towels.  After a bit of research, she sent me an email directing me to where these towels can be located.  They are flour sack kitchen towels.  Off to Wal-Mart I went in search of these fabulous kitchen towels.  They were readily available and I purchased 20 of them.  Once home, I decided to wash and dry to pre-shrink for embroidery.  After they were laundered, I measured to see how much they shrank since the label said 100% cotton.  They didn’t shrink at all. 

The flour sack towels were not cheese cloth but very similar.  Although Wal-Mart calls them flour sack towels, they are not.  I remember spending summers with my grandmother in Woodstock, Georgia.  She was an avid cook and her flour came in flour sacks.  They were more like linen.  The “flour sack towels” would have let you sift flower through them.  The more I worked with these towels, the more familiar they seemed until finally the light bulb went off in my head.  They are made of gauze which is basically cheese cloth. 

When my sister, Nancy, had her first child, Deshawn, our little family began learning about babies.  It wasn’t until Hank was born that Pampers were invented and on the market.  The diapers we used for Deshawn were gauze diapers, exactly what Wal-Mart is selling as flour sack towels.  The only difference is the towels have a hem on each end.  A few years after Deshawn was born, Nancy had Joey.  Then after Joey was Hank.  By that time Mama, Nancy and I had determined that gauze baby diapers made the best dust rags and kitchen towels in the world.  So, here we are and they are selling them as towels.  They are super absorbent.  They would have to be, right?  To be baby diapers they would need to be absorbent.

With the “flour sack” towels in hand, I decided to see how they would handle embroidery.  The first design I tried was a 6” by 3.75” mermaid design.  It turned out perfect.  That towel has now been listed in our Etsy store.  Today I’ve been busy working on my friend’s order.  Oh, and did I mention that we purchased 15 more flour sack towels today?

Another friend is about to become a mother-in-law and asked me to be thinking of something for the newly weds.  The bride is trying to embrace her Philippine heritage and my friend would like the embroidery to reflect this.  At the same time, the bride is not a “bling” person and steers more toward mute/earthy tones.  This weekend I’ve been doing a bit of research on Philippine history and culture.  Since the Philippines are island, the décor is not that different from any other beach décor.  However, I did run across a Filipino legend or two or three at Wikipedia that intrigued me. 

Sirena is a mermaid, a sea creature with a human upper body and a fish tail instead of lower extremities. They attract fishermen and tourists.[1] Sirenas are reportedly often seen ashore by fishermen, especially in the towns bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Siyokoy are mermen, sea creatures that have a human form and scaled bodies. The Siyokoy is the male counterpart of the Sirena. The lower extremities of a Philippine merman can either be a fishtail or scaled legs and webbed feet. They could also have long, green tentacles. They drown mortals for food.[citation needed] Siyokoys have gill slits, are colored brown or green, and have scaly skin, comparable to that of a fish.

And then there is:

The Filipinos in the Medieval Period said that it started somewhere in a place now called "Tandang Sora". There was a fisherman that was attracted to a tilapia, a kind of fish that is abundant in tropical countries. This fisherman was sexually attracted to the tilapia and raped the fish. After 4 months, the fisherman was shocked when he saw that this tilapia was pregnant. He could not believe as for what he saw that night, it was also the very night that the fish will have her delivery. The fish gave birth of a half human, half fish creature. As the fisherman knew that this creature is so valuable, he then named it "GEM". They also said that when a "Sirena" get a hold of a stone called "DARNA'S STONE" this creature can be seen as a whole human.

I think the décor should be mermaids.

Have a wonderful week.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

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