Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 8 – March 16, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 8 – March 16, 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.

This past week was spent in a whirlwind of rush embroidery for a client’s very special project.  There were a few late nights at the embroidery machine.  It all turned out well and as far as I know the project was completed beautifully.  I know the embroidery was beautiful.

The weather continues its rollercoaster ride from cold to warm, rain and sunshine.  However, I do believe we have now seen our last cold spell.  Spring here we come and I definitely have Spring fever.

It has been delightful watching the little plants break through the earth and begin to grow.  Our Johnny Jump Ups have jumped up, even in places where they were not planted. The colorful flowers are a welcome change to the bare limbs of winter.  We’ve been pruning out as much of the dead branches as we can.  The oak leaves have rained down.  George has raked and raked.  The camellias are blooming.  We have mostly red camellias but one very prolific pink camellia bush, too.  The birds are chirping and I do believe Spring has sprung.

After a hiatus of a week, the girls got together again this past Wednesday evening.  It is always good to spend an evening with friends.

Several items that have been just hanging around the studio were finally put on Etsy.  Some were handkerchiefs but there were ball caps and towels as well.

A friend of mine was asking for donations for prizes for her mother’s bingo group in Tennessee.  She thought some Mardi Gras items would be a refreshing change for the group.  This gave me the opportunity to cull the herd in my attic.  My friend came over and went through all of the Mardi Gras paraphernalia that has accumulated in the attic, as well as some arts and craft items.  She took a car load home.  My side of the attic is clean.  George is a very happy man.  Now I need to go through my clothes and clear out stuff so I have room to get new stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised by a phone call this week from one of my California cousins who was headed back to Louisiana after spending a few days with my aunt in Niceville.  It happened that I also read on FaceBook this week that another cousin is moving from New York City to California.  Sure hope the California cousins are all able to get together at some point.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK

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Thank you, Bob, for all of the jokes:

An elderly woman was on the deck of a cruise ship hanging on to her hat with both hands as the wind was quite strong. A Gentleman approached her and says "Excuse me but do you know that the wind is blowing your dress up in back, And your rear end is showing?" "Yes," replied the woman, "but my rear end is 85 years old and I just bought this hat yesterday!"

* * *

Moe and Sam, who were both 90 years old, loved baseball, and they had their entire life. One day, they were sitting together on a bench in their neighborhood when Moe turns to Sam and says: "Will you promise me something? Promise me that if you die first and go to heaven, you'll come back and tell if there's baseball there." Sam agreed, and made Moe promise the same. 3 months later, Sam died, and the next week Moe woke up in his sleep with someone calling his name. "Who's there?" he called out. "Moe! It's me Sam!" "Sam! It's so good to hear you! How's heaven?" Moe asked. "It's great, but I've some news, some good and some bad" Sam told him. "Well tell me the good news first" Moe replied. "Ok, the good news is that, there is baseball in heaven." "That's great." Moe exclaimed, "What's the bad news?" "Well, the bad news is that I was reading the lineup, and you're pitching on Friday."

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.

Embroidery Thugs

My cousin is visiting from California.  We were going to Louisiana to visit relatives but there's a flood in our way.  Truth is that we probably could still go and return and be safe, but you never know.  I cannot risk getting to southwest Louisiana and finding I cannot get back for a few days.  We are going to Baton Rouge on Thursday, though.  That will be a fun trip, I'm sure.

In the meantime, all of the zebra print items arrived and have been embroidered and today we personally delivered the items to our customer.  She was tickled pink.  She owns a hair salon and all of the girls at the salon were google eyed at all of the zebra print items.  I made them smile and they made me smile.  It was a delightful time.  They are getting ready to go to a hair show and just know they will be the talk of the show with the zebra print bags. 

A big thanks goes to my cousin Kim for coming up with the idea of luggage grips.  You know, those things that go around the handle of your luggage and secure with Velcro.  Some of the zebra print items could not be embroidered and some the customer didn't want embroidered; so, we made a couple of luggage grips.  They are as good as the luggage tags but much more functional.  Again, thanks to cousin Kim because embroidery, even in hot pink, really doesn't show up well on zebra, or any other kind of, print.  It's just too busy.  Kim suggested doing applique with a black or white background and the embroidery on the applique piece.  Sheer genius!  It matches and is readable.

Luggage grips are going to definitely become a part of our growing list of items that we sell.  In fact, the luggage grips can be done completely in-the-hoop, except for the Velcro.  Easy as pie.  Since I purchased 4 bolts of Velcro awhile back, then wondered "what in the world am I going to do with all of this?" I now have a use for the Velcro.  Woohoo!  Kim suggested that I do some with the word "MINE" on the grip.  I like it.  Yep, we can make the luggage grips for $7 each.  Email if you want to purchase one or more.

This past weekend I was working on can wraps for a postal friend.  Ooooh, there is an issue going on in Wisconsin.  Apparently the Wisconsin government has passed a law that government workers cannot have unions or something to that effect -- do not quote me on this.  Nevertheless, my friend asked me to make can wraps that say "Proud to be a Union Thug."  At first, I was a bit concerned about doing embroidery to celebrate thugness.  After I looked into it, it appears that Sarah Palin must have used the word "thug" in a speech and it caught on.  I noticed on the internet that there are places selling promotional type items with the "Proud to be a Union Thug" screen printed.  Anyway, the can wraps turned out adorable in red, white and blue.  Another design was created using one of our stock designs of a mailbox and the "Union Thug" embroidered across the pole.

C'est tout, mes amis:>)

A Change In Plans

Wow!  So much has been happening.  I was planning a trip to Louisiana with my cousin from California next week.  I've called relatives to tell them we are coming.  My cousin has made the appropriate airline reservations.  I've contacted the vet to board the dogs.  In other words, we are ready.  Then a friend emailed me from New Iberia and informed me that the Achafalaya/Mississippi River is flooding and next week is when they expect the worst of it.  I'm still waiting to hear back from my cousin who has begun her sojourn -- she was going to a conference in South Carolina and then coming to Pensacola.  And I was really looking forward to at least a day with relatives and crawfish. 

Someday I will actually learn how to use all of the controls and gadgets on my digitizing program.  But for now I am learning and chalking up hours of experience but there are times that I get frustrated.  Yesterday I had to just get up and walk away from all of it.  Today I was back at it.  The Krewe of Bad Habits logo has taken an enormous amount of time to digitize and then to make it 5 inches was almost like redoing the entire logo.  It's still not perfect but I am happy with it.

This week I found a wholesaler in Georgia with some gorgeous items.  What really attracted me was the zebra and leopard print items, and the fleur de lis items.  Around here that is the trend.  I did email pictures of a few of the items to some friends and sold some right off the bat.  I ordered a bunch of stuff from the wholesaler today.  They told me it would take 2-3 days to fill the order and then they will have FedEx deliver.  The wholesaler's area was part of the tornado devastation in Georgia.  I can't wait to see this stuff up close and touch it and see the quality.  It really looks nice on the internet.

I found the cutest online store for dog apparel.  That made me start thinking that when I take my dogs for their annual visit to the vet, I think I'm going to make them dog harnesses with Cajun Stitchery embroidered on the sides.  In fact, George and I were joking around and I told him that I was going to put pockets on either side of the harness with my business cards and flyers.  Now I'm thinking seriously about it.  How cute would that be?  I have actually begun making Evie a harness.  Maybe I'll make some and sell them on Etsy.

My thoughts and prayers tonight are with everyone along the Mississippi River, as well as those working through the tornado devastation in the southeast. 

Bon soir, mes amis.

California or Bust

In the process of perfecting the perfect patch, I decided to make some luggage tags.  Sometime ago I was making my version of a luggage tag.  I didn't like the ones that I made and threw them all away.  But now with the patch down pat, the luggage tags should be prettier.  One of my friends was very interested in the luggage tags back then but I wouldn't sell her any because I didn't like them.  Since she is about to take a month long vacation in May, I did make her a special luggage tag.  She is heading toward California, so I made the tag "California or Bust." 

I have probably a thousand or more different monogram designs that few people use or order.  Customers probably don't order them because they don't know I have them.  So, I thought that I would use some of the monogram designs for luggage tags.  They really turned out cute.  I just used the initial H since that is my initial.

I did make some mermaid luggage tags with the word Nereid embroidered on it.  That's for my krewe.  They were a bit more difficult to make but not too much.

Once I got going on the luggage tags, I began realizing that many of my friends are getting ready to go on vacation.  It seems that this year people are traveling, again.  Since my friend that visited me a few weeks ago lost her luggage on the airline, I thought that luggage tags would be appropriate.

The luggage tags would make a nice Mother's Day gift for the mom who travels.  One of the more elegant monograms would be perfect for business traveling and/or men.

We are having a sale this week:  3 of the 2"x4" rectangular luggage tags with embroidered name or monogram for $10.00.  This sale is good through Thursday, April 21, 2011.

C'est tout, mes amis