Cajun Stitchery: Christmas

It is now 2015. Where did 2014 go?

Tomorrow we are open for business and I haven't gotten everything that I needed to do done yet. I'm still working on orders and redecoratinng for Mardi Gras. Good news is that all of the Christmas decor has been taken down and put away, except for the front door. I have an idea for the front door Mardi Gras decor that I hope will be done and hung by the end of the week.

The front door wreath will be a fleur de lis. I drew half of a fleur de lis on paper then cut it out for a pattern. Then I took 2 pieces of foam board, one o top of the other for 2 layers of foam board, and pinned the 1/2 fleur de lis pattern on top. A razor was used to trace the pattern and cut through the foam board. Then the foam board was placed side by side with the straight edges matching and taped together. Voila! One complete fleur de lis identical on each side. Next came the mirror mylar. Regular white glue purchased at Dollar Tree was used on the foam board. A bead of the glue was run around the edges of the foam board and then the fleur de lis was placed, glue side down, on the mirror mylar and left to dry for awhile. Then the excess mylar was cut away with the razor leaving about 1/2 to 1 inch outside the foam board. Next came the scotch tape. The edges were taped and pulled to the back of the foam board. Yes, an entire roll of tape was used. The fleur de lis was finished. Next step is to decorate the fleur de lis.

I saw a beautiful picture of a metal sculpture of a Mardi Gras mask which I digitized into embroidery and stitched out. The design was then cut away from the excess fabric and glued to the enter of the fleur de lis. It is drying as I type this. The same white glue was used to adhere the embroidery to the mirror mylar. That may work but I won't know until it dries.

After the embroidery is attached to the fleur de lis, then I have to think of other decorations to make the door wreath outstanding. Certainly beads will be involved.

Yes, Mardi Gras season is upon us and our first public party is this coming Saturday at Paradise Bar & Grill on Pensacola Beach.

It has been a busy week between embroidery and holidays and friends popping in and out. 2015 is sure to be one fabulous year.

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 24 – December 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:

Christmas has come and gone and we are headed toward New Years.

Technically, we are closed this coming week. The problem is that instead of a week of rest and relaxation, it is now filled with all sorts of things to do. Some things are pretty mundane, like catching up on our end of the year bookkeeping, getting our annual beach pass and giving the studio a good ceiling to floor cleaning. While others are a bit more fun, like redecorating for Mardi Gras. Ah, and then there are some left over orders that didn't need to be finished for Christmas but need to be completed nevertheless. And, the Etsy Store needs a new 2015 make over taking out the old and putting in the new.

Turning to my trusted Pinterest site, I was looking for ideas on decorating for Mardi Gras. The Christmas tree is already up, so I'm thinking of replacing the Christmas ornaments with Mardi Gras ornaments. Our cute Christmas door decor needs to be replaced with something purple, green and gold. You get the picture. Ideas are flooding my brain. Not to mention that I actually do not have any Mardi Gras ornaments and before I can make some, I need to create them. Basically, it is all just a color change. Changing the red to purple. The green and gold can stay from Christmas. Nativity and Santa/elf designs change to fleur de lis and jester designs. Throw in some shiny Mardi Gras beads and we should be done. Easier said that done.

A few months back I took a real good look at our Etsy store and realized there are items in there that have never sold and have sat on the shelves for several years. Most of the stuff is, well, adorable. I guess the person who really wants these items never got a chance to see them. The items in question have been in a "sale" category on Etsy for about a month. Whatever has not been purchased in the Sale category by January 1, 2015, comes off of Etsy permanently.

This brings me to the realization that I need more merchandise in the Etsy store to replace the removed items. You know how they say, "you've come a long way, baby"? Looking at those earlier items, yes, we have come a long way. There were some good ideas and some bad. Some items just look cheap and others look nice. The handkerchiefs stay but the older hankies are going. Bridal hankies will stay but most non-bridal will go. Of course, the "You have a booger" handkerchief will stay because we continue to get orders for it. The "Mom" handkerchiefs now in the shop will go but I think we will replace them with nicer "Mom" handkerchiefs.

Scarves are staying. I have a dilemma about the scarves. Some sold but not many. I'm not sure if it was the price or style. The scarves in the "Sale" category are going away. The scarves in the "Accessories" category are going to stay and more may be added. It seems people are more interested in monograms than other designs. So, we will keep the pretty chiffon scarves for the monograms. The lap scarves will stay, only because I do occasionally get inquiries about them.

I'm not sure why the ball caps weren't big sellers. They are all adorable and reasonably priced. Nevertheless, they are going away. Perhaps in the future the ball caps may re-appear for weddings with "Mr." and "Mrs." on them but right now I'm over the ball caps. There just doesn't seem to be any interest.

Enough about Etsy. I've had a set of fonts for quite some time but never stitched them out. I guess the reason is because I put them together for a sampler and the stitch count was so high, I just never had the time or inclination to stitch them out until this past week. The details in these letters are exquisite. Each letter is about two inches tall and perfect for hand towels and that sort of thing.

Every once in awhile we get a customer who wants a custom patch. Such is the case with this patch, "Man shall not live by bread alone". It turns out that our customer is a chef turned minister. I think he has a cooking ministry. He is performing a wedding today and wanted to wear his chef attire but the clothing had the logo from his past employer and he wanted patches to cover up the logo.

It is the week between Christmas and New Years and look at our garden. We have swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, green onions, and carrots.

Then we have our special gardening projects. George planted the root end of a bunch of celery we purchased and by golly it is growing.

Here's a picture of the cilantro.

And broccoli.

In the same vein as the celery, George planted the root end of some romaine lettuce. Yep, it is growing.

Have a Happy New Year :)

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 21 – September 7, 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:

This has been a very rough week. Most of the Labor Day weekend was spent working on a rush order for a left chest logo that was needed on Monday. Tuesday was going to be our Labor Day holiday. When Tuesday arrived I received a disturbing call from one of my Nereid sisters telling me that one of our youngest members was in the hospital. She suffered from a cardiac arrest Monday morning and had been in an induced coma ever since because of the time she went without oxygen to her brain caused swelling in her brain. I sat at the hospital on Tuesday with the family and one of my fine finned sisters. Although she was still in a coma, the medical staff was bringing her out of the coma. I was able to visit with her, although she was still comatose. The medical staff brought her out of the coma on Wednesday morning and the neurologist was able to perform an EEG which revealed a complete lack of brain activity. Since one of her brothers suffered from kidney failure and was on dialysis, the family decided that her kidneys should be donated to him. The protocol for that procedure took a day or two and turned out that they were not a match. The family then decided that her kidneys, and other salvageable organs would be donated and she would be able to help at least 3 additional people. She was taken off of life support this past Friday at noon.

Needless to say work was not a top priority this week.

A few orders did come in from our Etsy store which, of course, were filled and shipped.

This weekend I have gone through all of the items in our Etsy store and placed 94 items in a Sale category. A lot of the sale items are marked down at least 50%. If you are looking for Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers, please browse around the store.

This year we have had a few issues with the post office not delivering our items. The only way I know to track through the mail is via priority mail. The policies in our Etsy store have changed. The default is 3 day priority mail, and first class mail upon request. Shipping to Canada remains the same, first class mail, because priority mail is outrageously expensive to Canada.

Another addition to our Etsy store are a few fall and Halloween items. Only a couple of Christmas items have been listed at this time but I do plan to list more.

All in all, I just want to get rid of the old stuff in order to make room for newly created new stuff. As always, I am open to ideas and critiques. So, bring it on. What do you like about the shop and your shopping experience? What don’t you like? Got any ideas on improvements?

George found two old dining chairs that were left over from the previous homeowner or somehow got in our garage. He took the seats off and painted the chairs white, at my request. I plan to recover the seats with, of course, embroidery. I just have to decide on the design. You can never have too much seating.

Last year I was looking for large bolts of fabric to make curtains for the studio. I found an online site out of New York that seemed to have what I needed. All I wanted was plain, white muslin. I purchased 100 yards of plain, white muslin and received a fabric that did not appear to be muslin. It turned out that it was 100% polyester muslin. That was pretty difficult for me to understand. In my mind, muslin is a 100% cotton fabric. I went back to the site and found they offer 100% cotton muslin and 100% polyester muslin. After a little research I found that you can purchase about any kind of fabric you want in polyester or a poly-blend. The polyester fabric is, of course, cheap. The truth is that I’ve just about used up my 100 yards of white polyester muslin on a myriad of items. It is strong but doesn’t have the nice cotton feel to it. However, it goes against my “all natural” side. I later purchased 75 yards of 100% cotton, red muslin from the same company and I am satisfied with that purchase. I really like the company because although they are the middle man, they state that they purchase only from mills in the USA. Their fabric is all made here.

The same issue appeared recently when I purchased chiffon scarves from a different wholesaler. The caption stated that they were 100% chiffon. When they arrived, I found them to have the same feel as chiffon. The tag says “100% poly – Made in China.” I suppose they are 100% poly-chiffon.

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.

Natural Nail Polish Remover:

Pour equal parts vinegar and lemon juice into a small bowl and soak a few cotton balls in mixture. Meanwhile, soak your hands in a basin of warm water for 10 minutes to loosen the polish a bit. Apply the cotton balls on the nail and leave on for 20-30 seconds. Wipe off the polish gently. Repeat if needed.

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

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

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 18 – July 13, 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:

First of all, we have a new catalog website: http://www.my-catalogs.com/cajunstitchery/

This website takes the place of the older “imprints” website. Hope this one works better. Now if I can just figure out how to link it to the blog and Cajun Stitchery website that would be great. Browse around and look at some of the great items Cajun Stitchery sells. Bulk orders do get discounts. I’m not sure if the catalog allows for that but if not, contact me for the discount.

What is all of this hoopla about the movie Frozen? Cajun Stitchery now has the Frozen embroidery designs. However, to pitch the designs properly, we needed to see the movie. George got the movie Friday and we’ve now watched it three times. Love it. Of course, we have always loved cartoons. The music, the art, everything about this movie is, well, pretty terrific. If you have children, grandchildren, younger nieces, or other children in your lives, especially girls, make sure you get them Frozen everything. Go to our catalog and pick out something and we can do the embroidery. My favorite character is Olaf. Don’t forget that we can always include the child’s name or monogram in the design.

With Frozen in mind, it is not too early to start Christmas shopping. In fact, a lady contacted me wanting one of our large laundry bags in our Etsy store. Instead of white, she wanted red fabric. Instead of being so large, 24” x 38”, she wanted 24” x 24”. Instead of a plain sack she wanted “Santa’s Toy Bag” embroidered on it. We put the design together with Santa, sleigh, and 8 tiny reindeer flying through the sky to a Christmas tree with the wording “Santa’s Toy Bag” embroidered on it.

I suggested to the lady that we include the child’s name. However, she informed me that the child, who turns 8 years old today, believes that he really is Santa. She just wanted him to have a sack to carry his stuff over his shoulder. Well, it takes all kinds. As Elsa says in Frozen, “Let it go.”

The past two weeks have been consumed with a continuous embroidery design project. The project was 315” of continuous embroidery. I think it turned out beautiful. There sure is a lot of measuring and math involved. As a child, I remember thinking I’d never use this stuff in real life. Not a day goes by where I’m not using the math, algebra, and trigonometry. Sewing is all about mathematics.

I am working on some more continuous embroidery at this time, trying to prefect various types.

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.

Thanks Sandy for the following and yes, I can relate:

SET A NEW PASSWORD � CAN YOU RELATE?

COMPUTER   SCREEN:   Please enter your new password.

USER:   cabbage

COMPUTER   SCREEN:   Sorry, the password must be more than 8 characters.

USER:  boiledcabbage

COMPUTER SCREEN:   Sorry, the password must contain 1 numerical

character.

USER:   1 boiledcabbage

COMPUTER SCREEN:   Sorry, the password cannot have blank spaces.

USER:   50bloodyboiledcabbages

COMPUTER SCREEN:  Sorry, the password must contain at least one upper case

character.

USER: 50BLOODYboiledcabbages

COMPUTER SCREEN:   Sorry, the password cannot use more than one upper case

character consecutively.

USER:   50BloodyBoiledCabbagesShovedUpYourAssIfYouDon'tGiveMeAccessNow!

COMPUTER SCREEN:  Sorry, the password cannot contain punctuation.

USER:

ReallyPissedOff50BloodyBoiledCabbagesShovedUpYourAssIfYouDontGiveMeAccessNow

COMPUTER SCREEN:  Sorry, that password is already in use

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462

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

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

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 58

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 58 – December 28, 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:

This week’s Cajun Corner should be filled more with pictures than words. It should, but you know that isn’t going to happen.

I sure hope every one of you and your families had a wonderful Christmas. The week before Christmas, my son, Hank, called daily to see if his package arrived yet. When it finally arrived we put the box under the tree. Hank called, “You have to open the box. I have to explain something.” So, we opened the box expecting wrapped presents. Oh no, there were two beautiful housecoats in the box. What did he have to explain? He just wanted us to know that the black one is for dad and the white one for mom. That little dickens just couldn’t wait. But that’s not all. He received our package and delivered presents to everyone on the spot – without waiting for Christmas.

I must admit that Hank takes after his mother. For a long time I’ve said we need pre-Christmas presents. Further, I think that is probably why advent calendars were started with gifts for the 12 days before Christmas.

Although this season, thank God, has been very busy with work, we did enjoy a pleasant dinner with friends early in the season, after the Christmas parade. She had a bit of an accident early in November on her bicycle and we all teased that she should have training wheels. Guess what we gave her for Christmas? Yes, training wheels.

Early in the season was the SOB (Sisters of the Beach) brunch which, as usual, was a hoot. The Wednesday night Mental Health Night a/k/a MHN girls had a wonderful Christmas party. The Nereids also had a fabulous Christmas slumber party.

Since the girls were all too busy to meet on the Wednesdays after the MHN Christmas party, George and I took one Wednesday night and went to Tippy’s Tavern for their prime rib dinner. OMG! It was fabulous.

Cajun Stitchery’s studio was decked out for Christmas. Hopefully, it will be more decked out in years to come but I was very pleased this year. Since the front door opens into the “living room,” we turned the living room into a show place for our wares, complete with Christmas tree. Each day the Christmas lights were turned on for customers to enjoy. As you walk through the front “show” room, through the kitchen and into our work room, we looked like Santa’s workshop. Every stage of orders were hanging and stacked everywhere. It was great! Thanks to our local radio station, Christmas music played constantly throughout the season. I made a red Santa Sack with zebra print fur at the top. That Santa Sack carried beads through the Christmas parade. It carried presents and a change of clothes to the Nereid slumber party. It was displayed in our workshop and finally was filled with George’s Christmas presents and placed under our tree for the big day.

During the season we had several repeat customers as well as new customers. All are my friends now. There were a lot of names embroidered on stockings; monograms on shirts; logos on jackets, and all sorts of wonderful gifts and embroidery.

On top of that, Etsy was booming. I got so tickled because I have an Etsy widget loaded on my android and every time we had a sale, I could hear “cha-ching” from my phone. At first it kind of startled me. Later I learned to love the cha-ching sound. We sold Christmas items, mermaid stocking, laundry bags, placemats, and all sorts of thing. The best seller, by far, were the handkerchiefs. Some were for wedding showers and some for mothers and mother-in-laws. Several of the handkerchiefs were monogrammed and several were not. Oddly, none of the booger hankies were sold. I guess that fad is over. However, lace is certainly in. This was by far the best Christmas season our little Etsy store has ever had.

We normally take down the Christmas decorations on George’s birthday, January 2^nd. This year the decorations were put away the day after Christmas. Insofar as Cajun Stitchery is concerned, we need to move onto the next season … MARDI GRAS. I have begun decorating but more needs to be done. I’m taking this week between Christmas and New Years to build up our Etsy stock and fill more orders that are still coming in. Yes, we already have krewe jackets to embroider.

In building up the Etsy stock, the first line of business is mermaids. There are some beautiful new mermaid items available already.

I have created a new baby bib design made on the embroidery machine. This design has scalloped edges and is much more girly and heirloom looking than the other rectangular design. The new bibs have not been listed yet. In fact, I haven’t even taken pictures of them. That will come in a later issue. But remember the problem I had figuring out what to suggest for baby showers. We have that under control now.

This is the week for making resolutions and I’m working hard on that, too.

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:

Mr. Johnson was overweight, so his doctor put him on a diet. He said; "I want you to eat regularly for two days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for two weeks. The next time I see you, you should have lost at least five pounds." When Mr. Johnson returned, he shocked the doctor by having dropped almost twenty pounds. "Why, that's amazing!" the doctor told him. "You did this just by following my instructions?" The slimmed down Mr. Johnson nodded. "I'll tell you, though, I thought I was going to drop dead that third day." "From hunger, you mean?" "No," replied Mr. Johnson, "from skipping."

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462