Cajun Corner – Vol.
6, No. 20 – August 24, 2014
Bon
Jour! Welcome to Cajun
Stitchery’s weekly email and welcome to our family.
ΘΘΘΘΘ
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Let’s just get this anniversary story going. What I decided to do for George was hire a
chef to come to the studio and cook us a very nice anniversary meal. I got in touch with a friend who is a chef
and she agreed. I was so excited about
this. I even kept the secret from
George, which is not an easy thing for me to do. Our anniversary was on a Thursday. That Wednesday morning I turned on FaceBook,
as usual, and there was an X-ray of my chef’s hip and leg. She was in an accident the day before. I contacted her to find out her status and
she said she would be slow because she was on crutches but she fully intended
to cook that meal for us. I had my doubts
but was so excited about my grocery surprise.
Thursday she contacted me. She
was in a lot of pain and would have to cancel.
Well, bummer. Now what? At least I was able to tell George the
wonderful plan I had. We had Chinese
take out for dinner and watched a movie.
Please don’t feel sad for us because the next night, Friday night, we
went to Paradise for dinner. I had posted on FaceBook for friends to join
us for our little celebration. When we arrived
one of my sweet Nereid sisters, Chrissy and her husband, Mike, were waiting for
us. We had a delightful dinner
together. Chrissy and Mike then left and
I was surprised that one of our very best friends in the world showed up with
her mother and great niece. Suzie is
more family than friend. She has been
with us through every major (and minor) event since we moved to Pensacola . We visited and had a wonderful time. Then my friend, Angela, and her husband Keith
arrived. Angela, like Suzie, is more
family than friend. In fact, Keith likes
to say that Angela wouldn’t have married him if it wasn’t that Suzie and I
insisted. Not only insisted but I
performed the wedding ceremony. After
awhile I looked up and another friend, Lisa, appeared. I hadn’t seen Lisa is many years and we had a
lot of catching up to do. We had so much
fun that George said we need to do this every week. Things always work out for the best and even
though I still think the chef idea was a fabulous idea, we had a simply
splendid anniversary.
This summer has been very busy at Cajun
Stitchery. Aside from in-town orders,
the Etsy handkerchiefs are having a bumper year, especially the lace
handkerchiefs. As you know, I get so
tickled at all of the writing these young ladies want on these
handkerchiefs. One lady wanted a lace
handkerchief for the groom’s mom and for her mother. The lace handkerchief has less space for
writing than most because the lace takes up the space. This lady had long sentiments, for a
handkerchief, and no matter how I played with the embroidery digitizing, the
wording simply was not going to fit in the ¼ hanky area customary for monograms
and wording. I suggest she try another
style but she had so much wording that it wouldn’t fit in that ¼ area on any of
the handkerchiefs. Not to mention that
she had her heart set on a certain font that just would not stitch out as small
as it would need to be. The end result
was letting the wording flow into the rest of the handkerchief and not stay in
the ¼ area. They turned out beautiful
and she was very pleased.
I received a call one day from a panicked
bride-to-be in Milton . She needed 2 handkerchiefs: one for mother of
the groom and one for mother of the bride.
Problem: she called on a Wednesday and the wedding was the following
Saturday. And, I had other orders ahead
of her. I wasn’t sure I would have time
to get this done for her but she was desperate.
Rather than driving to my house, I told her to get on Etsy and go to my
shop; then message me that she is the girl I talked to; and she could pick the
handkerchief she desired from the Etsy store.
It worked perfectly. The order
was placed, paid, and I made the handkerchiefs.
The only trip required was her fiancé picking up the handkerchiefs. They were already paid on-line so he didn’t
have to bother with anything but the pick up.
We mailed another handkerchief this morning to a
lady in California
who is getting married next week.
Another goes out Monday to Michigan .
One of the beauties of the wedding handkerchiefs is
the stories that go with the orders.
They have either waited too long and are in a hurry to get the hankies,
or they want everything just perfect and want to go through every detail. I think it is so sweet. I spend much more time on these handkerchiefs
than I get paid, but it is kind of nice to think that someone is carrying or
gifting something that I made on one of the most special days of their life. Every bride deserves to have something very
beautiful and special.
Since the handkerchiefs are such a hit and
because I am a bonafide fabric-holic, I purchased 3 bolts of satin: white,
ivory, and black. The handkerchief
section needs to have new and special items.
I’m going to design some satin handkerchiefs and see if the brides like
that.
For a week in early August we had onesie
week. It seemed like all orders were for
onesies. In addition to the orders, I
had some baby birthdays and showers to tend to myself. The shower was for a baby boy who is to be
named Cruz. For some reason I got the
name Chaz stuck in my head. I did some
really cute monogramming for Chaz. When
I was ready to wrap the gift, thank goodness, I looked at the invitation and
saw Cruz. Well, there is no taking out
these stitches. I ended up monogramming a
baby bib and baby cap. Of course, they
never knew what happened. So, if anyone
knows a newborn named Chaz, I have a couple of really cute onesies that I’ll
sell cheap.
Then my computer crashed and died. Thank you Shelley for telling me about Joe
Stukey, who now has my computer. Things
I’ve learned from past experiences with computers may have saved the
business.
#1. The
only things that I keep on the C drive are my programs; never my files and
documents. Files and documents are kept
on an external hard drive, flash drives, and Dropbox.
#2.
Always, always, always make recovery disks and keep them where you can
find them.
#3. Back
up everything and do it often.
Our newer computers have Windows 8, the older
ones have Windows 7. I had made recovery
disks for Windows 7 but didn’t know how to do it for Windows 8. The computer guy said that Windows 8 is the
first one that will allow you to copy the recovery disks onto a flash
drive. He made a recovery flash drive
for George’s computer and I’m still trying to figure it out for mine, but we
will get it done.
The other thing that saved the business is that
we each have 2 laptops. Now that my
Windows 7 laptop is in the shop, I’m using my Windows 8 laptop.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK
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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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