Cajun Corner - Vol. 4, No. 42

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 4, No. 42 – November 4, 2012

 

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

 

ΘΘΘΘΘ

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Usually George dresses in costume to hand out candy to trick or treater’s.  This year he really didn’t feel like doing that until a neighbor asked if he was going to use the same costume as last year.  He got out his old black poncho and hat from last year and found a really scary foam mask at Wal-Mart.  He even scared me.  Then he sat outside by the bushes with his cauldron of candy. 

It was still light outside and there were a couple of women strolling a baby around the park.  I had my witch’s hat on and was setting George up.  Apparently the ladies didn’t see George moving around and thought that he was something that I constructed and put in the yard.  About their third time around, the ladies and baby strolled over to tell me that they had been watching me set up for Halloween.  They thought the monster/creature was really cool and we all laughed – until George moved and scared the bejeebers out of the ladies and child.  We had fun that night.  There were more than the usual number of children but not a lot.  Our neighbors were handing out candy and it was nice mingling with them.  All in all, we were inside by 8 p.m.

Our usual tradition is afterwards we stoke up a fire in the chiminea and enjoy a glass of wine.  This year was no different.

The following day, of course, was my birthday.  By the end of the day, I had over 400 birthday wishes on Facebook.  I love my Facebook friends.  One friend later told me that she was late getting on FB to send me a Happy Birthday wish.  When she did, she got a message that my Facebook page was full and she couldn’t place the message.  I didn’t know they did that.

The day was pretty quiet and peaceful.  I had some embroidery work to do.  George gave me a great present.  I walked into my studio to find a new, adjustable, swivel, and rolling chair, with a back on it, placed at my embroidery machine.  Very nice. 

I told George that I would like a steak dinner.  He cooked a wonderful meal and afterwards we relaxed, with wine, in front of the chiminea.  Obviously, the chiminea is one of my favorite places.

This may not seem like a very exciting birthday, but George understands that I don’t celebrate a birthDAY.  Oh no, my celebration entails a birthMONTH.  We have to pace ourselves.

Saturday we attended the memorial services for our friend who passed away recently.  It really was a lovely service.  Tears were flowing.  A good friend will be missed.  The memorial was at the Elks Lodge on the beach.  After the service everyone went to the food and bar.  We visited with many friends.  Many thanks go out to our wonderful SOB ladies who planned, prepared, hosted, and cleaned for this memorial to a wonderful man.

Hurricane Sandy killed 11 people in Cuba and proceeded along its path north until it collided into 2 additional storms and hit New York and the surrounding areas.  It was only a category one hurricane, but the combination with the other storms and hitting in the location that it did, was devastating.  Our thoughts and prayers have been with all of those people.  Sandy closed down New York City.  We watched the news and all of the photos on the internet.   Memories of Hurricane Ivan kept flooding our thoughts. 

A friend of mine posted a question on Facebook today:  “How long would you survive where you live if utilities and transportation STOPPED? No water, sewer, electricity or food coming to the stores?”  Interesting questions.  I don’t think we would have too hard a time.  In Florida you can always dig for water.  It is there.  The garden and knowing what plants are edible would suffice for food, not to mention fishing and seafood.  We even have the bamboo that we could use for fishing poles.  If there is nothing to buy at the store, there is little need for transportation other than walking or bicycling.  I even have my grandmother’s treadle sewing machine.  Aside from fire, there is solar cooking and heating.  Our big problem would be cooling and finding coffee.  The biggest problem, I think, would be crime.    People who do not know how to survive tend to loot.

This week I have spent hours surfing the web and scouring Pinterest for handmade Christmas gift ideas.  Good gosh, the internet has tutorials on everything.  If you don’t like to read a tutorial, there are plenty of tutorial videos available.  There is no need to ever throw away fabric or paper.  The internet is littered with uses for these.  Aluminum cans have a million recycled purposes, as well.   There are all kinds of craft projects using plastic of every kind.  If that’s not good enough, there are crafts projects for organizing all of these craft supplies.  It is just so amazing what the internet has done for everyone.

With that said, it is time to be thinking of Christmas presents.  What to make?  What to purchase?

·         Cookies, cakes, fudge, bread, etc., are always wonderful gifts.  Print out the recipe on pretty cardstock and tie with a nice bow.

·         Do a theme present such as kitchenware.  Buy or make a potholder mitt and fill it with wooden spoons, whisk, spatula, etc.  Tie a pretty bow around the middle.

·         A set of napkins with pretty napkin rings.  These are easily made and there are many tutorials online with a wealth of design ideas.

·         I recently saw a cute idea.  Place settings for the table included a burlap pocket with a flower on top.  The silverware was inserted into the burlap pocket and all was placed on top of the napkin.

·         Burlap, muslin and linen with their earth tones are very popular right now.

·         Cool looking spice dispensers.

·         Garden apron with packets of seeds in the pockets.

·         A basket for the garden with a handle, insert seeds or plants, gloves, potting soil, fertilizer, seedling pots, small hoes or rakes and garden utensils.  Even an outdoor thermometer or rain gauge.

·         Soaps, bath salts, scrub cloth, towel, lotions, etc.

Yesterday a lady contacted me for heirloom looking handkerchiefs for her Nana’s birthday.  Of course, they were made and initialed in the corner using a small diamond shaped monogram.  They looked very nice and the customer was please with the results and that we could get this done so fast.

Have a wonderful week.

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Taken from Pinterest:  Homemade toothpaste! Here's a cheap and much better alternative to commercial toothpaste. Supplies: -5 Tbs baking soda -4 Tbs coconut oil -About 10 drops of essential oil. (I used peppermint) -Container (Make sure it has a lid. Baking soda will absorb smells if left to open air.) -*You can also add a bit of stevia or other natural sweetener if you're used to a sweeter toothpaste.

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C’est tout, mes amis

Peggy Henshall

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.

Christmas Stocking Tutorial

Since I wrote on Friday about creating the in-the-hoop design for the Christmas Elf Stocking I have been embellishing and making more.  This post is about these stockings. 

I started out digitizing a basic stocking shape with the curly toe.  The top was left open.  I used a single stitch outline.  My plan was to hoop some tear away stabilizer in one of my largest hoops.  Then I would lay the fabric on top of the stabilizer, unhooped with the fold of the fabric across the top of the stocking, and let the first round of stitches outline the stocking.  The next thing that stitched would be whatever design that was going to be on the front of the stocking.  I chose a single color ornament design.  Then I would lay the next layer of fabric over the first layer, fold of the fabric across the top of the stocking, and let the outline stitch again.  Everything worked as planned.  I was able to pull the fabric away from the tear away stabilizer, trim the fabric around the stocking stitching and turn the stocking right side out.  It looked nice but was a bit small, and I noticed that I had not attached a loop for hanging the stocking.

Back to the drawing board.  I have a regular, red and white, fuzzy stocking that I bought as a standard for comparison purposes.  Through the next few tweaks with the digitizing program, I was able to enlarge the stocking to fit the hoop.  The hoop that I'm using is actual 16 1/2" x 11", but I cannot use all of that space because the corners are rounded.  The stocking ends up about 8" wide and 12" or 13" long because it's being made inside out.  Measuring the elf stocking against the standard stocking shows that the final is only slightly smaller than the standard.   The design was finalized and there were 3 stockings constructed during the tweaking phase. 

Since I had more of the golden colored fabric, I made two more stockings in the final design, one with candles and a poinsettia and one with candy canes.  They turned out very nice.  That is pretty much where I was when I last wrote.  I realized that I would need to figure out how to make a cuff and embellishments.

That is what I've been working on this weekend.  I had used all of the golden fabric but I did have scrap pieces remaining.  I thought if I could make a row of small, one inch, designs, on the folded golden fabric pieces, fold at the bottom, I could attach the row of designs to the top of the stocking.  It worked perfectly.  By placing the right side of the cuff to the wrong side of the stocking, I sewed around the top edge.  Then I placed the loop at the seam, loop side inside the stocking, and stitched loop and cuff straight up to finish off the cuff.  The cuff was then folded outside the stocking and it was done.  It looked very nice.  I have since thought that if I need to make the stocking longer, I could simply make the cuff longer and fold the cuff outside at a higher place.  I haven't tried that yet.





Once all of the cuffs were done, the stockings looked real cute but still needed something.  So, I got out my rhinestones and began applying them on the stockings.  They turned out adorable.  The only one that I didn't put rhinestones on was the candy cane stocking.  I would be concerned if a child swallowed a loose rhinestone.  I'm still thinking that there should be something on the toe of the stocking.  Maybe a little jingle bell, but I'm not sure at this point.









Today, I was looking around in my studio and found a piece of black satin fabric.  Since so many people around here love fleur de lis, I thought I would make a stocking in black satin with a gold fleur de lis.  I only had enough black satin for the outside of the stocking.  Instead of having a double layer of fabric with the fold at the top, I used a double layer of gold jersey with the fold at the top and then laid the black satin on top of the gold jersey and folding the top down a few inchs.  The outline and design were stitched and then a second layer of the black satin, folded at the top a few inches, with a double layer of gold jersey on top of that.  Then the design finished.  This worked out beautifully.  In fact, at this time I realized that using the double layer of jersey gave the stocking a bit of thickness that was lacking in the other stockings.  I used some of the scrap black satin fabric to make the cuff.  This cuff was made with a 2 inch fleur de lis design making the cuff larger.  Once all of the sewing was done, I filled in the fleur de lis outline with gold rhinestones.  The lining of gold jersey adds an pleasing touch. 



Tomorrow I have orders to fill.  This weekend was my time to play with the stocking design.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make more stockings before the Arts & Wine Festival in October.  Now that all of the designing and digitizing is done, these stockings are a lot of fun to make.



C'est tout, mes amis.