Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 55 – November 24, 2013

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 55 – November 24, 2013

 

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

 

ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit us at www.cajunstitchery.com, www.flickr.com/photos/cajunstitchery, and, www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com often.   We are also on Twitter and Facebook. 

Visit our on-line catalogs at:

http://www.imprintit.biz/cgi-bin/cobrand/site.w?location=olc/catalog-home.w&top=catalog&frasmes=no&target=main&sponsor=000699

and www.companycasuals.com/cajunstitchery.

The Christmas orders are arriving.  If you have any Christmas orders to place, do it soon.

We just finished embroidery on some nice big towels.   The names are 3” tall.  There are a few orders for robes which should be completed this week.  Then we have aprons and jackets.  In the meantime, we are working on a quote for some satin jackets.

The biggest news is receiving the first order for the Mardi Gras mask for glasses.   Mardi Gras is just around the corner.  The butterfly masks are $15.  If you want krewe masks, please let me know right away since they have to be designed before stitching can occur.

I did make a Santa Sack today.  It still needs to be embroidered.  The sack wasn’t too hard to make.  How hard could a sack be?  What took time was deciding to have a cuff around the top and designing that.  The designing is always the time consuming element.

Obviously, this is going to be a short week.  On top of that I am cooking for Thanksgiving, which translates into I will be cooking and not working on Wednesday.  However, on Black Friday I am not leaving the house to get into the craziness.  I will probably be working on Friday.  Sometime this week I have to get to the bank and sign some papers and that sort of stuff.

The red and green tea towels with the fringe arrived and are ready for orders.  We also have black, white, and purple tea towels.

More handkerchiefs were purchased from our Etsy store this week.  I use cloth handkerchiefs and I love them.  It still amazes me that people buy them.  That is a pleasant amazement, however.  Some of the hankies are priced pretty high but those entail a lot of work because the lace is actually made and attached on the embroidery machine.  Other hankies are simple to make and very reasonably priced, especially our all time best seller “You Have A Booger” hanky for merely $10.

HAVE A happy thanksgiving

If you are not a subscriber and would like to receive Cajun Corner weekly, please email cajunstitchery@yahoo.com and let me know to put you on our email list. 

No time to read Cajun Corner?  Visit our blog at www.cajunstitchery.blogspot.com and click the Odiogo button to hear the computer read the blog.

Thank you Bob for the following:

An Illinois man left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day.
When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her email address, he did his best to type it in from memory.

Unfortunately, he missed one letter and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

DEAREST WIFE: "JUST GOT CHECKED IN. EVERYTHING PREPARED FOR YOUR ARRIVAL TOMORROW. P.S. SURE IS HOT DOWN HERE."

Another joke from Bob:

For a couple years I've been blaming it on lack of sleep and too much pressure from my job, but now I found out the real reason: I'm tired because I'm over worked. The population of this country is 237 million. 104 million are retired. That leaves 133 million to do the work. There are 85 million in school, which leaves 48 million to do the work. Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government, leaving 19 million to do the work. 2.8 million are in the Armed Forces, which leaves 16.2 million to do the work. Take from the total the 14,800,000 people who work for State and City Governments and that leaves 1.4 million to do the work. At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals, leaving 1,212,000 to do the work. Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons. That leaves just two people to do the work. You and me. And you're sitting at your computer reading jokes.

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

cajunstitchery@yahoo.com

P.S.  You are always welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me, cher.

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 54

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 54 – November 17, 2013

 

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

 

ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit us at www.cajunstitchery.com, www.flickr.com/photos/cajunstitchery, and, www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com often.   We are also on Twitter and Facebook. 

Visit our on-line catalogs at:

http://www.imprintit.biz/cgi-bin/cobrand/site.w?location=olc/catalog-home.w&top=catalog&frasmes=no&target=main&sponsor=000699

and www.companycasuals.com/cajunstitchery.

The Christmas orders are arriving.  If you have any Christmas orders to place, do it soon.

I finished the BELIEVE sign for the front room.  It looks pretty good except the font that I choose has an I that looks like a J and I’m not crazy about the V, either.  All in all I really like it.

Mermaids are always the topic around here.  While designing Mardi Gras masks, I decided that we must have a mermaid mask.  I took a mermaid design and did an outline and made it fit the mask form.  It was pretty but too tall and the outline of the upper half just didn’t look like a mermaid.  Then I tried a different mermaid and a different tail.  That one looked better but needed more definition with the hair.  Once the hair was changed the design looked good but there were tweaks here and there that needed to be done.  I am still tweaking it, but I do think it is looking much better.

This week was going to be Santa Sack week.  Remember the Santa Sacks that I described that Mama made for Nancy and me?  No one seems to know what they are.  After a search on the internet it appears that these sacks are very popular in Europe and Australia but not in the USA.  That is really a shame because it is such a grand idea.  Anyway, I’ll be glad to make them but custom orders, only.

I have ordered some more red and green tea towels, which should arrive in the next week or two.  If you are interested in festive or even monogrammed towels, let me know.  We also have black and white tea towels.  The black tea towels with the gold fleur de lis are always a good idea for your local Saints fan.

The last black flannel scarf with the gold fleur de lis was sold this past week.  We are now out of the black flannel fabric but I’m sure we could find more if anyone wanted one.  However, flannel may be a bit heavy for this climate.  The scarf can always be constructed from a lighter black fabric.

HAVE A NICE WEEK

If you are not a subscriber and would like to receive Cajun Corner weekly, please email cajunstitchery@yahoo.com and let me know to put you on our email list. 

No time to read Cajun Corner?  Visit our blog at www.cajunstitchery.blogspot.com and click the Odiogo button to hear the computer read the blog.

Thank you Bob for the following:

Two gas company servicemen, a senior training supervisor and a young trainee, were out checking meters in a suburban neighborhood. They parked their truck at the end of the alley and worked their way to the other end. At the last house a woman looking out her kitchen window watched the two men as they checked her gas meter. Finishing the meter check, the senior supervisor challenged his younger coworker to a foot race down the alley back to the truck to prove that an older guy could outrun a younger one. As they came running up to the truck, they realized the lady from that last house was huffing and puffing right behind them. They stopped and asked her what was wrong. Gasping for breath, she replied, "When I see two gas men running as hard as you two were, I figured I'd better run too!"

A visitor from Holland was chatting with his American friend and was jokingly explaining about the red, white and blue in the Netherlands flag. "Our flag symbolizes our taxes, the man said. We get red when we talk about them, white when we get our tax bill, and blue after we pay them." "That's the same with us, the American said, "only we see stars, too."

Little Billy wanted $100 badly and prayed for two weeks but nothing happened. Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the $100. When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to God, USA, they decided to send it to President Bush. The President was so impressed, touched, and amused that he instructed his secretary to send Billy a $5.00 bill. President Bush thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy. Billy was delighted with the $5.00 and sat down to write a thank you note to God, which read:
Dear God,
Thank you very much for sending the money, however, I noticed that for some reason you had to send it through Washington D.C. and, as usual, those crooks deducted $95.00.
Thanks,
Billy

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

cajunstitchery@yahoo.com

P.S.  You are always welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me, cher.

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 53

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 53 – November 10, 2013

 

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

 

ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit us at www.cajunstitchery.com, www.flickr.com/photos/cajunstitchery, and, www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com often.   We are also on Twitter and Facebook. 

Visit our on-line catalogs at:

http://www.imprintit.biz/cgi-bin/cobrand/site.w?location=olc/catalog-home.w&top=catalog&frasmes=no&target=main&sponsor=000699

and www.companycasuals.com/cajunstitchery.

Before we go any further, let us bow our heads and say a prayer for the people of the Philippine Islands.  The photos that I’ve seen are horrendous.  They remind me of Ivan and Katrina, only worse.

This past week was certainly a creative week at Cajun Stitchery.  I have a lace mask design that the girls absolutely love.  We had a survey on their likes and dislikes of the mask awhile back and since that time, I’ve tweaked the design as they suggested.  These girls are professional mask wearers.  As a business owner, the mask is pretty high in the stitch count and hence pretty pricey for a Mardi Gras mask.  However, it is gorgeous.  I looked only at Etsy and various searches to see what other embroiders were charging for the mask and if I decide to make and sell these masks, I’ll have to stay in the ball park of others who are selling this mask.  The ball park it turns out is $25.00.  Of course, the lace mask that I make has been tweaked and is a bit larger than the original design.

Personally, I do not like to wear masks.  They just are not comfortable to me.  The worst, of course, are the hard masks.  As we get older, glasses become an issue with masks.  We may be older but we still enjoy the masquerade.  I am not aware of a mask created for the visually impaired glass wearers.  I determined to create “the” mask.  In the process of doing so I was discussing this issue with the owner of our local Mardi Gras store.  She said that her krewe was having the same problem and if I do create Mardi Gras masks for glasses, she wants to see them and put them in her shop.

My first thought was that I need a really good basic mask design.  I took the lace mask design and used it more or less as an outline for an appliqué design.  It took a few tries and tweaks.  What I discovered was most masks have one tiny hole on either side for the ribbon or elastic that goes around the head.  I tried making the hole large enough for the arm of the glasses to go through.  The problem with that idea is that when you put the glasses with the mask on your face, the mask wiggles and just doesn’t fit snug.  I ended up with the idea of 2 holes on each side of the mask.  Each arm of the glasses goes in one hole and out the second hold; it weaves.  The second hole seems to stabilize the mask on the glasses.  The holes are created with the boring needle which creates an eyelet.

Something else that was an issue was keeping the mask sturdy enough.  The girls all mentioned that the lace mask was a bit flimsy.  From the beginning, rather than embroidering the lace mask as a freestanding lace mask, I used organza.  The sturdiness of the lace mask was rectified by using 4 layers of organza.  The sturdiness of the mask for glasses is fixed with the use of heavy stabilizer.

After several searches on Pinterest, Google, Bing, etc., I decided to make a butterfly mask.  There are some gorgeous masks out there.  My friend at the local Mardi Gras store absolutely loved the first butterfly mask and I have hopes of getting them in her shop.  Sure hope someone buys them.  By creating the mask as an appliqué, I am able to keep the stitch count down somewhat.  The butterfly mask should sell for about $15, depending on the detail work in the mask.  The first butterfly mask was made using purple velvet and purple thread.  Later butterfly masks incorporated metallic thread and other types of fabric.  Even though the mask is created to be used with glasses, they can also be used with ribbon or elastic connected in the holes.

Well, that’s as far as I’ve gotten on the masks.  I’d like to create several more designs, including a jester mask and fleur de lis mask.

Sometime around mid-week the glass panel in one of our bi-fold doors shattered.  George was a bit upset about it but I immediately decided that the broken bi-fold doors could be used in the Studio for display purposes.  George removed all of the glass in the one bi-fold door and painted it white.  It is perfect and now resides in the front room of the studio.  Some of our tee shirts are hanging on it.

Stores are all decorated for Christmas now.  Even the radio has begun playing non-stop Christmas music.  It is a bit early in my opinion but that’s what they are doing.  A friend of mine on Facebook owns a second hand store in Mobile and was decorating her store and taking photos.  I fell in love with some of her shabby chic Christmas designs and decided that I want to decorate the studio for Christmas and put out some of our stock in the front room.  The bi-fold door is already in there.  Our Christmas decorations need to come down from the attic and we need to separate out the decorations that we use at home and I’ll take the leftover decorations for the Studio.

One idea that I saw was “Believe.”  You’ve seen the signs and stuff with “Believe” on them.  I want to do shams with a single letter for the wall in the front room, spelling out “Believe.”  In my mind, it is beautiful.  I just need to figure out how to hang them.  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Tomorrow Cajun Stitchery will be closed in honor of Veteran’s Day.  In fact, I’ll be in the beach parade all dressed in red, white and blue.

 

 

HAVE A NICE WEEK

If you are not a subscriber and would like to receive Cajun Corner weekly, please email cajunstitchery@yahoo.com and let me know to put you on our email list. 

No time to read Cajun Corner?  Visit our blog at www.cajunstitchery.blogspot.com and click the Odiogo button to hear the computer read the blog.

Thank you Bob for the following:

Late one night, a burglar broke into a house he thought was empty. He tiptoed through the living room but suddenly he froze in his tracks when he heard a loud voice say: "Jesus is watching you!" Silence returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward again. "Jesus is watching you," the voice boomed again. The burglar stopped dead again. He was frightened. Frantically, he looked all around. In a dark corner, he spotted a bird cage and in the cage was a parrot. He asked the parrot: "Was that you who said Jesus is watching me?" "Yes", said the parrot. The burglar breathed a sigh of relief, and asked the parrot: "What’s your name?" "Clarence," said the bird. "That’s a dumb name for a parrot," sneered the burglar. "What idiot named you Clarence?" The parrot said, "The same idiot who named the Rottweiller Jesus."

A blonde, wanting to earn some money, decided to hire herself out as a handyman-type and started canvassing a wealthy neighborhood. She went to the front door of the first house and asked the owner if he had any jobs for her to do. "Well, you can paint my porch. How much will you charge?" The blonde said "How about 50 dollars?" The man agreed and told her that the paint and other materials that she might need were in the garage. The mans wife, inside the house, heard the conversation and said to her husband, "Does she realize that the porch goes all the way around the house?" The man replied, "She should, she was standing on it." A short time later, the blonde came to the door to collect her money. "You're finished already?" he asked. "Yes," the blonde answered, "and I had paint left over, so I gave it two coats." Impressed, the man reached in his pocket for the $50."And by the way," the blonde added, "it's not a Porch, it’s a Ferrari."

One morning this blonde calls her friend and says, "Would you mind coming over and helping me out with this killer jigsaw puzzle I bought - I can't figure out how to get started." Her friend asks, "What's the puzzle of?" "From the picture on the box, I'd guess it's a tiger," replied the blonde. The friend obliges, and when he arrives the blonde greets him at the front door and then shows him the puzzle spread out all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then studies the box. Then, he turns to her and says, "I’m afraid that no matter what I do, I'm not going to be able to show you how to assemble these to look like the picture of the tiger on the box." "Why not?" asks the disappointed blonde." Because, you didn't buy a jigsaw puzzle... what you have here is a box of Frosted Flakes."

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

cajunstitchery@yahoo.com

P.S.  You are always welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me, cher.

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 52

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 52 – November 3, 2013

 

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

 

ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit us at www.cajunstitchery.com, www.flickr.com/photos/cajunstitchery, and, www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com often.   We are also on Twitter and Facebook. 

Visit our on-line catalogs at:

http://www.imprintit.biz/cgi-bin/cobrand/site.w?location=olc/catalog-home.w&top=catalog&frasmes=no&target=main&sponsor=000699

and www.companycasuals.com/cajunstitchery.

What is a birthday?  A birthday is simply a celebration of your birth.  Just by living and enjoying the gift of life aren’t we celebrating our birthday everyday?  I wonder how this evolved into a birthday gift giving and celebration day.  Oh, I’m not complaining about it.  I’m just wondering.  This birthday has been the best ever. 

Friday night some friends invited us to their home for dinner.  A couple of mutual friends from Mobile were spending the weekend with them.  The evening was just splendid and relaxing.  The food was fabulous.  There were lots of happy birthday wishes but for a social person, like me, the friends and socializing is always the best present.

The party last night was fabulous, too.  We went to a local bar about three blocks from our home that we used to think was nothing more than a dive.  The outside appearance is certainly deceiving.  When we walked in we saw a darkened room with several little wooden tables and chairs.  There was a large fireplace off to the side and a long wooden bar at the front.  The musician’s stage had a wooden fence around it with a chair for the musician.  It was very nice.  The room was an L shape and towards the back was an “Exit” sign above a door.  Once we went through the door and down a short hallway it opened into a nice sized, well lit, dining area with a large fireplace and numerous tables and chairs.  At the far end of the room are double doors that open to a nice wooden deck with more tables and chair.  At the far end of the deck were stairs descending into a sandy area resembling a beach.   It just seemed to go on forever.

We stayed in the front and took over most of the little tables and chairs.  I was thrilled and surprised that so many of my friends traveled all the way over to this end of town to celebrate my birthday.  The musician of the evening happened to be one of my Facebook friends and had been forewarned of the party.  He played Happy Birthday for me as everyone sang along.   Some of our wonderful neighbors joined in the festivities.  We ate dinner, talked, sang, danced, drank, and had a wonderful time.  Thank you to everyone for joining us.  I had begged everyone not to bring presents because I did not want to deal with tissue paper in a bar.  Only one present arrived.  I was grateful that everyone understood that the party was really my present.  As the evening progressed, George went home to feed the dogs. 

After most everyone left, a couple of my girlfriends drove me home for our slumber party at our Cajun Stitchery studio.  Two of the girls were spending the night and the three of us changed into our pajamas.  Another two girlfriends came over in their pajamas.  And another girlfriend followed us from the bar.  The six of us talked and talked and talked and laughed and laughed and laughed.  Thank goodness for my wonderful neighbors who said we didn’t disturb them in the wee hours of the morning.  Of course, the time changed last night so we were able to spend that extra hour enjoying ourselves even more.   After the other three girls left and only the spend-the-nighters remained, we talked and laughed more.  I don’t know what time we ended up going to bed but it had to be after 2 a.m.  They slept in the bed and I slept on the sofa.

This morning I awoke and made coffee, of course.  The girls were sleeping like babies.  So, I went next door to have my morning coffee with George.   Around 9 or 10 the girls woke up.  One of my girlfriends made us breakfast and, after eating, we all sat outside enjoying our coffee.   George eventually came over and we all talked and laughed some more.  The girls went home around 2 p.m.  I sat in the studio smiling and taking in all of the joy experienced at this wonderful celebration.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank those of you who sent beautiful birthday cards not only through the mail but also via the internet.

As a present to myself, I ordered some “ladies” shirts from one of our wholesalers.  I love wearing tee shirts.  I love the feel of jersey.  I do not like crew necks.  Most of the girl friends that I know do not like crew neck shirts, either.  There is a line of Bella+Canvas shirts made especially for ladies.  I ordered one of every long sleeve, non-crew neck, shirt that they offer.  I want to be able to give first hand information on how that style fits, feels, shrink or not, etc.  So far I’ve been very pleased with the shirts.  They do all seem to be softer than normal tee shirts.  The necklines are wonderful.  They are all running around $15 except for the sweatshirt that is about $25-$30.  In bulk, of course, there is a break in pricing. 

Speaking of tee shirts, one of my spend-the-nighters fell in love with the tee shirt that we embroidered the zebra with the stripes falling off of it and the wording:  “I think it’s the stress…”  It is a crew neck tee shirt that was much too large for her but she is going to use it as a nightgown and cut the crew neck out of it. 

The regular, short sleeve, crew neck tee shirts are still available for less than $10 each.  Make it an even $10 and we will embroider a name on the left chest in either block or script.  This offer is good as long as we have the size and shirt color in stock.

Another “find” from my wholesaler is a faux lamb’s wool throw.  They come in black, brown, and camel.  I ordered one of these throws in camel.  Last night the girls were all touching it and feeling how soft and warm it is.  This throw is about $40.00 but so worth it.  One side is faux suede and the other the lamb’s wool.  The size is 50” x 60”.  It can be monogrammed.

Our recent wholesale order also included some new styled red aprons, some non-woven laundry bags, and a whole bunch of baby and toddler tee shirts. 

Christmas is around the corner and all of these items make great presents.  Let me know if you need anything.

By the way, the plumbing is fixed and working.

HAVE A NICE WEEK

If you are not a subscriber and would like to receive Cajun Corner weekly, please email cajunstitchery@yahoo.com and let me know to put you on our email list. 

No time to read Cajun Corner?  Visit our blog at www.cajunstitchery.blogspot.com and click the Odiogo button to hear the computer read the blog.

Thank you Kathie for the following:

Halloween is coming!

A man is walking home alone late one foggy night...

when behind him he hears:

Bump...

BUMP...

BUMP...

Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP...

Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him

FASTER...

FASTER...

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP...

He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him.

However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping

clappity-BUMP...

clappity-BUMP...

clappity-BUMP...

on his heels, the terrified man runs.

Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in.  His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.

With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door. 

Bumping and clapping toward him.

The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup!

Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...

and,

(hopefully you're ready for this!!!)

 The coffin stops 

 

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

cajunstitchery@yahoo.com

P.S.  You are always welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me, cher.