Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 14 – May 27, 2014

 

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 14 – May 27, 2014

 

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.

Oh what a week this has been.  We had a large project of monogramming 57 shams for a hotel in Louisiana.  It was a domino effect and we ended up getting the shams on Wednesday.  We worked 12-14 hours a day and finally finished them Saturday evening.  Our customer had to leave Pensacola at 5 a.m. Sunday morning to get the shams to the hotel to meet the deadline of Sunday.

While embroidering these white shams, a small glob of black grease fell onto the fabric.  I finished the embroidery and promptly put baby powder on it.  There were several little dots of black grease.  The black grease is lint that gets caught up on the needles and absorbs the oil/grease of the machine.  The baby powder did absorb some of the spots but not all.  I put some dishwashing soap directly on the grease spots and rubbed it in a bit and then hand washed the sham in cold water.  The grease came out completely. 

There was a day, many years ago, where I could work 24 or 48 hours straight.  Yes, I’ve done that.  Nowadays that just isn’t in the cards.  To celebrate the completion of this order, George made us a wonderful steak dinner Saturday night and presented me with a surprise.  He bought me a bottle of lemoncello.  Oh my goodness, that stuff tastes like lemon meringue pie in liquid form.  We thought I would fall fast asleep after dinner but that was not the case.  I guess I was wound up tight because sleep did not come easily.  Sunday we decided to truly make it a day of rest … and we did.  I fell asleep on the sofa watching movies and slept a good 3 hours. 

When I awoke, we went to the Musicians Memorial at Vinyl Music Hall, here in Pensacola.  George is involved with this group and it was good to see some old faces and new faces.  We only stayed for an hour or so but enjoyed every minute.  The music, of course, was wonderful.

I found out yesterday that we may be getting a surprise visit from my embroidery tech.  Yes, I plan on introducing her to lemoncello, too.  She hasn’t told me exactly when she plans on staying or for how long but she is always welcome and Clothilde is also looking forward to her visit.

Did I tell you about the light and fan pulls?  I saw something on Facebook one day that were two little tabs with a light bulb on one and a fan on the other.  You attach these to the fan and light cords/chains on your ceiling fans.  That is a brilliant idea.  I have been meaning to get some tassels or something to extend the length of the chains on mine.  I love ceiling fans and have 7 of them in the studio.  I just cannot reach the chains.  Even when I get the stool out to reach the chains, I usually cannot tell which is for the light and which is for the fan.  Oh yes, I made a set of embroidered pulls for each ceiling fan in the studio.  It all started with one tab a simple rectangle and the other a circle.  Then I made one the shape of a light bulb and the other remained a circle with the outline of a fan embroidered within the circle.  I love them and they are so practical.  Of course, I put them in our Etsy Store.

HAVE A GREAT 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.

 

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. 6, No. 13 – May 17, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 13 – May 17, 2014

 

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.

Spring has brought beautiful weather to our area, along with all of the plants and flowers; but this year we have encountered some surprises, too.  Early this Spring George bought a half whiskey barrel to put in the front yard.  He was going to plant a papyrus plant in the barrel, which he did.  Since he also took apart our raised garden and rebuilt it, he used some of the soil from the garden in the barrel.  The papyrus began growing happily as did several other plants that we thought were weeds.  Many of them were weeds except we recognized some Johnny Jump Ups.  So, we left those alone.  Then we recognized a tomato plant. We let that plant grow, as well.  Then a familiar looking plant began growing.  It was an eggplant plant.  I guess there were lots of seeds still in the garden soil that decided to grow.  The papyrus is very happy and getting tall.  The Johnny Jump Ups are a beautiful purple, green and gold.  The eggplant is growing but hasn’t had a flower yet.  The tomato has flowers and now is sporting some small fruit.  How about that for simply planting a papyrus in a half barrel?

Of course, the new garden has shallots, lettuce, carrots, radishes, and lots of plants.  The shallots are almost ready to harvest but the rest are still growing.   He planted pots of all kinds of peppers and more tomatoes.

The gladiolas seem to travel and we have a few gladiola patches here and there in the yard.  The gladiolas that have bloomed are a shade between red and orange, more like a deep coral.  They are beautiful. 

The roses are blooming, as are the gardenias, bottle brush and jasmine.  The yard has a wonderful fragrance.  The hydrangeas are turning a beautiful blue and the bushes are covered in these flowers.

We are enjoying sitting outside with the fragrances and colors.  It is so soothing.

It turns out that the blackberries are not blackberries at all.  They are dewberries.  They look and taste exactly like blackberries but have less seeds.  They are also bountiful this year.  The blueberries are not ripe yet but we will have a nice harvest when they do ripen.

Everyday is a joy to sit outside, especially in the mornings, with a hot cup of coffee and enjoying nature.

Sometimes I will list items on Etsy that I really never expect to sell.  Sometimes it is something funny; sometimes beautiful; and sometimes very expensive.  When it comes to really fine embroidery with lots of stitches and very time consuming, the price tends to get high.  Sometimes it is just difficult to price items.  Nevertheless, I had a beautiful white handkerchief listed.  It has a hefty lace border and is very elegant.  I listed it several months ago for $60.  I knew it would never sell but I wanted to show what we can do, as well as get people to visit the store to see what kind of hanky would cost $60.  As it turned out, a few weeks ago a gentleman made an appointment to come over and look at ladies handkerchiefs for a special occasion for his daughter.  He bought the lace handkerchief for $45.  I gave him a discount because he really liked the hanky and he was a nice guy.  Rather than take the handkerchief off of Etsy, I made another one.  It sold last week for $60.  I was pleasantly surprised, again.  Maybe there is hope for the $90 hanky that is listed on Etsy. 

Lately I’ve been working on my continuous embroidery skills.  Continuous embroidery is where you hoop a design and stitch it.  The design is too large for the hoop, so, after the first hooping, you re-hoop to stitch the continuation of the design.  I’m working on some beautiful edges.

It started when I purchased the European pillows from my friend, Pandora de Balthazar.  They needed pillowcases and I didn’t have any that fit.  So, I made a set.  Pillowcases are easy to make.  The edges of the pillowcases needed to be finished and such special pillows deserved some special pillowcases.  I used some heirloom designs and a bit of creativity and voila we had pillowcases.  They were so beautiful that I took photos and posted them on FaceBook.  Almost immediately we got an order.

Another project with the continuous embroidery is a scarf that I finished this past week.  It is just a poly blend kind of fabric but the embroidered edges and ends are gorgeous.  Again, it is done in white on white.  I figured out the cost and listed it in our Etsy Store today for $150.00.

Lots of embroidery has been created lately.  Beautiful baby bibs, pillows, and patches, but I’ll save that for another issue.  In the meantime  . . .

HAVE A GREAT MEMORIAL DAY

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.

 

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. 6, No. 12 – May 4, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 12 – May 4, 2014

 

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.

I guess I’m supposed to write about what happened this week at Cajun Stitchery and the antics of our family.  To sum it all up, it rained.

This rain storm should have a name, like when they name a hurricane.  This was definitely a rain-a-cane.  It was like a hurricane that did not come in from the Gulf.  Winds were 60-70 mph.  We could call it rain storm Lena.  Like my mother, it looked docile on the surface, but once enraged, all hell broke lose.  The rain came and with it came an unbelievable thunder and lightning demonstration that lasted most, if not all, of the night.  We slept downstairs Tuesday night.  The reports that we heard said in one hour we received more rainfall than Hurricane Ivan delivered.  We ended up with almost 27” of rain and 75,000 lightning strikes.

Once or twice during the night our lights flickered on and off but we never lost electricity.  Many homes did lose electricity and had to endure the storm in the dark.

Wednesday morning our yard looked like a lake but the water subsided by the end of the day.  No water got into either house.  We were very blessed.  Sadly, that was not the case for others.  All around us homes were flooded and roads torn up.  A multitude of vehicles were abandoned in streets.  Many vehicles were seen in the giant holes in the road where the water washed away the ground under the pavement and the pavement then collapsed.  Downtown Pensacola was flooded.  The photographs and videos on Facebook and the local news are incredible.

Then came the damage assessment.  The government is still doing their damage assessment, which means that FEMA is not here yet.  Many people have lost their homes or have to move out of their homes while the damage is repaired.  Just like when Ivan hit, all of this causes a home and apartment shortage.  All of these displaced people are looking for a place to live.  Many small businesses were damaged, even at the end of our street.  It is a mess.

A friend of mine on the beach said that it was just so weird to have this kind of storm and Pensacola is the first to have damage, rather than Pensacola Beach.  In fact, George and I went to a wedding on the beach yesterday and saw no damage on Pensacola Beach.  Maybe it just says something for the tenacity of Pensacolians, but in order to get to the wedding on the beach, we had to detour to another road because the Crawfish Festival was blocking Main Street downtown. 

Our precious Manna Food Bank suffered 100% damage.  We are just waiting to find out what we can do to help them.

My friend, Pandora de Balthazar’s store, Pandora de Balthazar European Luxury Bedding, made it through the storm okay but her 7 warehouses were not so lucky.  She has been pulling out antiques, family pictures, and collectibles that she has collected over her lifetime, all damaged.  She has been having a fabulous “damage sale” though.

In an effort to help support small damaged businesses, I went shopping at Pandora’s sale.  I walked away with a beautiful Euro King pillow.  This isn’t your normal Wal-Mart pillow.  First of all, the pillow is about as big as I am.  It is a Hungarian Down pillow and softer than anything you can imagine.  She even took a photo of me hugging one of the pillows at her store.  I’m going to use that pillow at the studio for display purposes.  Once I got home, we were so in love with the pillow that I contacted the store and bought two Euro Standard pillows for our bed.  These pillows are also huge and soft. 

The pillows are so special to me that I’ve decided to make special pillow cases for them.  To be honest, I’m making pillow cases for them partly because I don’t own pillow cases that big.  I’m making the pillow cases from 100% cotton fabric.  You know they are going to have embroidery on them.  The pillow case fabric was cut today and the embroidery has been designed.  I’ve begun the embroidery process.  Fingers are crossed that it turns out as special as I want them to be.

All joking and embroidery aside, being a small business owner myself, I think it is imperative that those of us who were blessed by having little or no damage should help those small businesses in need.  For a retail business the best help is to buy.  I encourage everyone to follow suit, even if all you can afford is a small trinket.  Forego Wal-Mart this one time.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the jail.  We have the great flood and the following day the jail explodes from faulty gas lines.  I don’t know if this was neglect or the flood.  Gas lines did burst in a few areas other than the jail.  However, the jail explosion ended in the death of 2 inmates.  I’d say, “when it rains it pours” but I guess I shouldn’t.

HAVE A GREAT 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.

 

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.