Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 22 – October 7, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 22 – October 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:

http://www.my-catalogs.com/cajunstitchery

and www.companycasuals.com/cajunstitchery.

Did you miss me?  Hopefully the computer issues are now totally resolved.

It has been an entire month since the last Cajun Corner went out.  A lot of stuff has happened.  We’ve lost a few friends.  We’ve gained a few friends.  Summer has turned into Fall.  This weekend the time changes and we fall back an hour.  Don’t forget to set your clocks; although, with all of the technology, the clocks pretty much change themselves.

It is time to look forward and imagine some fabulous embroidery.

Chenille is the topic today.  Do you remember times gone by when you would drive down the road to see chenille bedspreads hanging on the side of the road for sale in little mom and pop roadside stands?  Chenille has a pretty interesting history. 

There is some controversy about the beginnings of chenille.  Some believe it began hundreds of years ago with the French knot technique of embroidery.  Chenille is French for caterpillar.  Move forward to the 1700’s.  Alexander Buchanan is credited with introducing chenille to Scotland by weaving a leno fabric (a strong, sheer, weaved fabric) and cutting that fabric into strips to create chenille yarn.  This chenille yarn was then made into soft, fuzzy shawls.

This technique was refined over the years.  In the 1890’s Catherine Evans of Dalton, Georgia revived the chenille and candlewicking embroidery technique into hand tufted bedspreads which she sold locally.  She used strips of cotton sheeting to make her tufted bedspreads.  Her little cottage industry took off.  In order to fill her orders, she hired women in her community and taught them to make the chenille bedspreads.  They would stamp designs onto the sheeting and fill with the chenille tufting.  By 1918 her business grew to such an extent that she took on a partner and sold chenille items to retail stores up and down the east coast.  Many families in this area survived the Great Depression by making and selling chenille bedspreads by setting up roadside stands and offering their bedspreads for sale.

The popularity of chenille has been revived several times since the days of Catherine Evans.  Eventually, the chenille process in Dalton, GA became carpeting.  In fact, 90 percent of worldwide wall-to-wall carpeting production is done within a 30-mile radius of Dalton.

You may be asking what this has to do with Cajun Stitchery and custom embroidery.  The answer is that Clothilde has learned how to make chenille.  The “micro” chenille created on the embroidery machine is the chenille found in varsity letters.  In fact, Clothilde can make varsity letters.  Let’s not limit Clothilde to just varsity letters, though.  Many monograms and letter styles, as well as other designs, can be digitized into chenille stitches.  The beauty is that chenille provides a texture to the monogram or design and the little yarn tufts do not pull out like they used to do on the bedspreads.

Cajun Stitchery’s Etsy store is having a big sale.  These items have been slashed up to 50% off.  Once they are gone, they are not coming back.

There are also some adorable new baby bib designs available 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. 4, No. 27

Cajun Corner – Vol. 4, No. 27 – July 20, 2012

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

ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit our blog at www.cajunstitchery.blogspot.com, 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 sure hope everyone has had a wonderful week.  It has been beautiful here but a bit rainy, too.  At least we are not suffering from a drought.

The round monogram is ongoing.  Once the monogram was digitized, I put it into my new digitizing program to get the direction of the stitches correct.  The new program tore the design apart and caused some unsightly and noticeable overlaps.  I ended up re-digitizing the entire design in the new program and that worked very well.  I need to learn the new program anyway.  I did a stitch-out of the design and it turned out beautiful.  A picture was sent to the client who loved it.  Then I noticed that there are places where the fabric is showing through the stitches.  The thread was almost too loose, so that’s not the problem.  The problem is probably the pile of the fabric.  To resolve the issue I need to use a wash away topping.  This is upholstery fabric and I worried about water marks.  Luckily, the customer left some scrap fabric and I embroidered a design on the scrap using the wash-away and then washed the topping away.  After the swatch dried, there were no water marks.  Hooray!

As a side note to the round monogram story, the customer asked the name of the font that we used because a friend wants to match the monogram with her own monogrammed headboard.  Unfortunately, we used a bit of this font and a bit of that font and in the end the monogram was digitized to fit a circle.  The answer to her question is it is whatever she would like to name the font.  We created it and it is truly one of a kind.

Last year a gentleman approached me and asked if we would do tee shirts, hats, etc., for a television program that he produced called Senior Extremers.  We agreed and filled the order.  This year we were asked by this same gentleman to fill an order for Florida’s Surfing History, Part I.  We have filled most of the order.  I did not see the film when it debuted in downtown Pensacola and was surprised when I received a free copy of the DVD.  George and I watched and found it to be a very well done documentary and we learned a lot about how surfing came to Pensacola Beach and how it has progressed.  Many of the old timers were interviewed and others mentioned.  The documentary is filled with fascinating stories of surfing at Pensacola Beach.  If you get a chance to see this documentary, you really should, especially if you have been in Pensacola long enough to get a flavor of our beach and beach people.

The baby blanket was finished and the blanket, bibs and other items were mailed to my granddaughter in Wimauma.  Makayla’s due date is August 2^nd, which just happens to be Keenia’s birthday, as well.  Poor baby, Keenia says she is very tired and ready for this pregnancy to be over.

I thought neutering your dog made him calm down.  Not so in our Sam’s case.  He has been running like all get out every day since his surgery.  He has also been popping his lips and making funny sounds.  I think he is doing that because we hush him up when he barks too much.  Instead of barking, he pops his lips.  He is one funny dog.

Have a wonderful 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. 

Thanks to Paulette Provost for the following:

A DREAMER AND HIS DREAM

Let me tell you, Jesse hated this job. And you would too,
I imagine, if you had to do it.
Jesse was a chicken plucker. That's right.

He stood on a line in a chicken factory and spent his days
pulling the feathers off dead chickens so the rest of us
wouldn't have to.

It wasn't much of a job. But at the time,
Jesse didn't think he was much of a person.
His father was a brute of a man.
His dad was actually thought to be mentally ill
And treated Jesse rough all of his life.

Jesse's older brother wasn't much better.
He was always picking on Jesse and beating him up.
Yes, Jesse grew up in a very rough home in
West Virginia. Life was anything but easy.
And he thought life didn't hold much hope for him.
That's why he was standing in this chicken line,
doing a job that darn few people wanted.

In addition to all the rough treatment at home, it seems
that Jesse was always sick. Sometimes it was real
Physical illness, but way too often it was all in his head.
He was a small child, skinny and meek.
That sure didn't help the situation any.

When he started to school, he was the object of every
Bully on the playground.

He was a hypochondriac of the first order.
For Jesse, tomorrow was not always something to be
looked forward to.

But, he had dreams. He wanted to be a ventriloquist.
He found books on ventriloquism. He practiced with
Sock puppets and saved his hard earned dollars until
He could get a real ventriloquist dummy.

When he got old enough, he joined the military.
And even though many of his hypochondriac symptoms
persisted, the military did recognize his talents and
Put him in the entertainment corps.
That was when his world changed.
He gained confidence.

He found that he had a talent for making people laugh,
and laugh so hard they often had tears in their eyes.
Yes, little Jesse had found himself.

You know, folks, the history books are full of people
who overcame a handicap to go on and make a success
of themselves, but Jesse is one of the few I know of
who didn't overcome it.

Instead he used his paranoia to make a million dollars,
and become one of the best-loved characters of all time in doing it!

Yes, that little paranoid hypochondriac, who transferred his nervousness
into a successful career, still holds the record for the most Emmy's given in a single category.

The wonderful, gifted, talented, and nervous comedian who brought us

Barney Fife
Was
Jesse Don Knotts.

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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.

Cajun Corner - Vol. 3, No. 40

Cajun Corner – Vol. 3, No. 40 – October 7, 2011

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

ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit our blog at www.cajunstitchery.blogspot.com, 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.

The Pensacola Beach 4^th Annual Arts & Wine Festival is now history.  Not a bad event at all.  It was very windy.  We ended the weekend with a profit.  It wasn’t as much as anticipated but a profit is a profit.  Yay!!!!  This was the first festival that we have been allowed to leave our tent/canopy/booth overnight.  When we arrived on Saturday the wind was so strong that about all George and I could do was hold onto the tent.  Our sweet helper picked up some concrete blocks and rope on her way to the festival.  That saved the day for us.  I really liked the improvements that we made to our booth this year.  At the end of the day, we loaded up everything except the booth and the attached signs.  The following morning when we arrived, the wind had destroyed the tent next to us and they had to use a spare tent that they had.  Other tents were blown all over the parking lot.  But the Cajun Stitchery tent stood tall and proud.   George and I have already begun discussions about some additions and changes for next year, but we were mighty pleased with the look this year.

Monday was spent resting up from the weekend, organizing and putting away everything from the festival.  Tuesday I was finally able to begin embroidering.  Wednesday a friend arrived from Orlando and will stay with us until Sunday.  Thursday I began embroidery on screen.  It has been a busy but pleasurable week.

Oh, you picked up on my embroidery on screen, didn’t you?  Wondering what kind of screen could be embroidered?  This is another embroidery technique that has been around for awhile but I finally got to try it out.  The screen is regular, fiberglass, window screens.  Since embroidery doesn’t fade, then it stands to reason that if screen is embroidered, it shouldn’t fade, even out in the weather.  Now I didn’t say it wouldn’t get dirty.  I would imagine that you should be able to hose it down, like you would any dirty screen.  There are so many possibilities for screen embroidery, such as, windows, screen doors, fireplace screens, etc.  For my initial screen embroidery, I have chosen a screen the size of one of my window screens.  Since my windows have 6 panels, I am embroidering Christmas motifs to show through each of the 6 panels.  George is going to frame the screen after the embroidery is done and we should be able to put it in the window during the Christmas season.

Since this is two sided embroidery, the bobbin color is changed as the top thread color changes so that you can see the design from either side of the screen.  So far I have only completed one design and I hope to get the others finished in the next few days.  I am sure I will be showing pictures once completed.

Every time my friend from Orlando visits, we try out new embroidery techniques.  She is an embroidery machine technician.  We have the same passion for our embroidery and just have a ball together.  I even sang my little rap song for her.  Let’s just say that she was amazed.

Most of this week has been spent organizing all of our items and organizing our Etsy store.  I am and will be running sales on Etsy from now through Christmas.  Half price on cell phone pouches.  Once I get around to it, I plan to list more “You Have a Booger” hankies.  They apparently make great Christmas presents.  Of course, this year we also have men’s handkerchiefs.

The garden.  We picked our first eggplant of the season yesterday.  The cayenne peppers are definitely the winner crop this year.  Those plants just keep on producing peppers.  We are almost ready to begin harvesting cucumbers.  The surprise of the season is watermelon.  Earlier this summer George bought a watermelon for us at a roadside stand.  We saved the seeds, which is our custom and planted a few seeds in pots on the deck.  The seeds germinated but summer turned into fall and we thought we would just have the plant with no fruit.  One day I noticed a watermelon on one plant that was maybe an inch in diameter.  We certainly were excited.  Now we have 2 more growing.  Who knows, maybe we will have watermelon for Halloween instead of pumpkin.   We are still harvesting all kinds of peppers, tomatoes and green beans.  The okra is still alive and producing. 

Three years ago we planted snapdragon seeds in a pot on our deck.  The snapdragons were beautiful.  Here’s the thing, snapdragons are annuals.  They only live one year and die.  To get more, you have to plant more seeds the next year.  Well, our snapdragons are still alive after 3 years.  I thought this past summer that they were gone for sure.  Guess what?  They are back.  I certainly don’t mind.  Snapdragons are beautiful plants and beautiful flowers.  We planted snapdragons in several locations this past spring and they are all growing and producing flowers.

CHRISTMAS is around the corner.  Get that Christmas shopping done now and enjoy the holidays.

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. 

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Thank you Marshall Larrivere for the following:

Boudreau was driving down Canal Street in a sweat

because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place.

Looking up to heaven he said, “Lord take pity on me. If you find me a

parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of ma life

and give up ma White Lightnin'!”

Miraculously, a parking place appeared.

Boudreau looked up again and said, “Never mind, I

found one.”

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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.