CORSET BAG DRIPPING IN GOLD

A few weeks ago, a young lady came to my embroidery shop to pick up some items for her boss.  Once she entered the front show room, she was amazed at all of the items available for sale.  As she surveyed the room, her attention was drawn to a grouping of corset bags.  

She immediately fell in love with these bags and asked if they were for sale.  Of course, they were.  Everything in that room is for sale.  She inquired about the price and looked at the various colors, fabrics, and sizes (10" tall and 6" tall).  Once she saw the little bag with a monogram, she once again swooned.  

I explained that it was also possible to have her signature embroidered onto the purse and she was shown some handkerchiefs embroidered with handwriting.  

Her mind changed from purchasing the already made corset bag, to creating one to her specifications.  Her question was, "Can you make it in gold?"  Yes, of course.  I carry satin fabric in several colors, including gold.  

By the time she left, she had ordered 2 gold satin, over the shoulder corset bags, one 10" and one 6", using gold metallic thread, with her signature embroidered for the monogram.

Anyone who follows me knows how much I enjoy and am passionate about embroidery and this embroidery machine.  So, I was anxious to get started.

I had her signature and the first step was to digitize.  

She later send a picture of her signature, not so rushed. Both were digitized.  The first, rushed, signature actually fit better on the small corset bag.  The not so rushed signature worked well on the larger bag.

Before creating the bag, there were a few things I needed to know.  What type of over-the-shoulder strap did she want?  

I gave her some choices and she chose the beautiful, ornate, gold, sequined trim for the larger bag; and, small, gold cord for the smaller bag.

Since the larger bag required a button for closure, I went through my stash of buttons and found a lovely plain gold button for the gold elastic closure.

The designs were then created in the digitizing program and send to the customer for approval.

Once approved the designs were placed into separate files and the materials and thread gathered.  The embroidery machine was set up appropriately.  The first bag was the 10" bag.  Then the 6" bag.  The cording, trim, and elastic closure were all sewn with the embroidery machine.  Once out of the embroidery machine, the stabilizer and excess fabric were removed.  Voila'!  The only thing remaining to do was to sew the button onto the larger bag.  I sewed it by hand.

The bags turned out beautifully and seriously dripping in gold.

The customer absolutely loved them both.

Cajun Corner - March 16, 2016

One of the most difficult techniques for me to learn in machine embroidery was to embroider with metallic thread.  There have been some very frustrating moments where I had to just walk away from it.  Over the years, thank goodness, I have learned.  The trick is to loosen your upper tension, slow the machine down, and put your thread on a stand or in a cup on the other side of the room.  Yes, you will still get some thread breaks but much less.

All of that said, I have fallen in love with gold work,silver work, and the look of a shimmering metallic design.  In fact, yesterday I made two black shams with gold metallic dragons.  Here are some pictures:

Remember when making shams, make them one or two inches smaller than the pillow insert in order for the insert to fill the sham to capacity for a better look and fit.

Have a great day.

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 43

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 43 – August 25, 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:

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.

Still working hard on this beautiful, large embroidery design.  Wouldn’t you know that right in the middle of working on this fabulous design Clothilde decides to start making this loud noise?  It certainly did not sound healthy.  Pleas went out to our beloved tech who returned the call from Trinidad.  She is so good at what she does that she was able to direct me on taking off the body of the machine and oiling some obscure part in the internal mechanism.  She said she would call the following day to see if it worked.  If it did not work, I was to run the machine and when I heard the noise, I should apply some pressure on a wire that weaves itself throughout the machine. 

The oiling went well and Clothilde began purring like a kitten, again.  Then the noise began.  At first it was low then louder until it reached a crescendo.  Slight pressure was placed on the wire to no avail.  Then more pressure was placed on the wire and the noise went away.  So, there I was embroidering and handling that with one hand while the other hand was holding the wire.  The embroidery was completed and we simply turned the machine off until our tech called the following day.  Visions of large, expensive, mechanical parts danced through my brain all day.  Finally, she called.  “Get a 7mm open end wrench and a pair of pliers,” she said.  George was summoned since I have no idea what an open end wrench is.  I did know what a pair of pliers looked like.  Out of his magic room of tools George appeared with the tool.  Hold the end of the wire with the pliers and give a few turns of the wrench to the nut and that’s it.  That’s it?  She told me that I could purchase a gauge to tighten the wire to specs.  Yes, I definitely want that.  How much is that fancy gauge going to set me back?  $20 plus shipping.  Holy cow!  That’s it?  I ordered my gauge immediately.  Our Clothilde is back in business and George and I are proud as peacocks that we now know how to handle the noise issue. The waiting time was put to good use because we cleaned both houses while waiting. 

Handkerchiefs seem to be big business these days.  I’ve written about the booger hanky several times.  Wedding handkerchiefs are the main handkerchief sales for most embroiderers.  I must say that we’ve sold many men’s hankies and women’s non-wedding handkerchiefs, as well.  Most of our customers say they like that our hankies are unusual.  They certainly aren’t your run of the mill handkerchiefs.  I started out hand sewing the rolled hems around the hankies and then applying the embroidery.  Then I realized that many handkerchiefs these days have serged edges.  I have a serger and it is easy to use, so, why not?  I serged the edges of hankies for awhile and then would apply the embroidery.  When Clothilde came to live with us and we got the big embroidery hoops, I digitized the entire hanky in-the-hoop with a pretty little satin stitch edge.  Tear away stabilizer was used with cloth pinned to the top.  The outline of the hanky would stitch as an appliqué.  The excess fabric would be cut from around the outline.  Then the rest of the hanky would stitch.  In the end the stabilizer was simply ripped off and voila, we had a beautiful hanky.  Hanky in-the-hoop is pretty unique but not as unique as I wanted.  In the meantime, I was all over Pinterest, Etsy, and the internet looking at gorgeous heirloom and antique handkerchiefs.  It still baffles me how these women of old would hand stitch and embroider these elegant handkerchiefs.  Several times I’ve attempted to embroider and/or attach lace to the handkerchiefs.  The problem is that if the lace is embroidered onto the hanky, there is no way that the stabilizer can be removed prior to sale.  It is just too hard and time consuming to remove those little bits of stabilizer.  I did a few hankies where I did the lace separately on netting, cut out the lace and hand stitched the lace corner onto the handkerchief.  The handkerchiefs sold but it wasn’t what I wanted to achieve. 

Recently I digitized a scalloped edged, in-the-hoop handkerchief.  Love, love, love it!  Then I was playing around with different shaped handkerchiefs.  Thing were working out pretty darn good.  I decided that since Christmas is approaching, I should create a Christmas hanky, which I did.  The beautiful, metallic, Christmas design has a very light density.  When I went to rip off the stabilizer I couldn’t get all the little pieces out.  Just like the lace handkerchief.  I had some white organza that I hooped and used like the stabilizer with the cloth pinned to the top for the appliqué.  This worked out well except the end result was that the handkerchief is now lined with organza.  Since I used the organza as the stabilizer, the handkerchief had to be cut from the handkerchief.  And, since organza is shear, little pieces are not seen.  I thought about cutting the organza away from the inside of the handkerchief, but then I had to deal with the embroidered motif.  The motif didn’t have a distinct outline.  I just had to deal with a lined handkerchief.  The two red, Christmas handkerchiefs were taken to a friend’s home where I showed the girls the difference and asked their opinions.  Hands down, they loved the lined hanky and did not mind the fact that it was lined at all.

Never satisfied, the idea of the lace hanging off the handkerchief’s edge continued to entice me.  Finally, I decided to use the organza as the stabilizer; use the scalloped hanky as the appliqué pattern; and, insert an outlined lace design to the edge, partly on the hanky fabric and partly only on the organza.  It worked!  I was able to trim the organza off from the outside of the handkerchief, and trim the organza from the inside up to the outline of the lace design.  Unless I can figure something else out, the light density designs without outlines will still require the hanky to be lined with organza.

One last point on the making of handkerchiefs with an embroidery machine is the use of netting or toile as the stabilizer.  I have used netting as a stabilizer and it does work.  Hoop the netting as the stabilizer and continue as I did with the organza.  Even the off the edge lace will work.  The issue with the netting is if the stitches are smaller than the netting squares, they will just hang there because there is nothing to attach.  The netting itself looks like a part of the lace, which is a bonus.  The netting is pretty easy to trim.  I have not used toile but I think the little squares would be too dense to look like lace and not shear enough to conceal when trimming.  But you never know until you try.

We had a wonderful visit from George’s sister, Kathie, yesterday.  We enjoyed the afternoon at Paradise Bar & Grill and then back home.  It started out a rainy day but cleared up for an enjoyable afternoon.  She only lives an hour away in Fairhope, AL but we rarely see each other.  Since my Mama has passed on and George’s mother has passed away, we are all thinking that we should make a point of getting together more frequently before we can’t anymore. 

A friend of mine called me the other day and said the Gulf Breeze News posted on Facebook asking for someone who does monogramming.  By the time I got to the post several people had posted to use different embroiderers.  In fact, there were wonderful people who even said to call Cajun Stitchery.  I posted simply that I do monograms and how they could get in touch with me.  It became a voting contest with all of the people saying to use me or others.  It was funny, actually.  Not long afterwards I noticed that I missed a call.  I returned the call and it was the Gulf Breeze News.  The lady told me that I probably have the job because I was the only embroiderer to call her back.  Lesson learned.  I’ve given them a quote with references and we are just waiting right now.

In fact, we gave several quotes this week to Facebook friends.

Enough for now.  Let’s see what next week will bring.

Have a wonderful week

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Thank you Amy DePew for the following:

Two young boys walked into a pharmacy one day, picked out a box of tampons and proceeded to the checkout counter.
The man at the counter asked the older boy, 'Son, how old are you?' Eight,' the boy replied.
The man continued, 'Do you know what these are used for?'
The boy replied, 'Not exactly, but they aren't for me.  They're for him. He's my brother. He’s four. We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now, he can't do either one.

Thank you to my friend Patrice for the following:

A retired gentleman went to the social security office to apply for Social Security.

The woman behind the counter asked him for his driver's license to verify his age. He looked in his pockets and realized he had left his wallet at home. He told the woman that he was very sorry but he seemed to have left his wallet at home. "I will have to go home and come back later." The woman says, "Unbutton your shirt." So he opens his shirt revealing curly silver hair. She says, "That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me" and she processed his Social Security application.

When he gets home, the man excitedly tells his wife about his experience at the social security office. She says, "You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability too."

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. 34

Cajun Corner – Vol. 4, No. 34 – September 7, 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.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day weekend.

Yippee!!!  George got Boudreaux to embroider on a structured hat.  It really turned out beautiful.

This week I’ve been working on a 33” wide by 27” tall embroidery design for a headboard.  This is a huge design that requires several hoopings, puff embroidery and metallic thread.  The digitizing was all done by me.  The design was taken from several designs on an antique bed cover.  Yes, it is gorgeous.  It sure is taking a long time to finalize.  The digitizing seemed to take forever.  Then I did several stitch outs.  The design involved lots of editing.  I am finally in the process of stitching out the large design to test for any kinks and fix them before I begin embroidering the final.  So far I have stitched out 4 hoopings, stopping to edit as I go along.  This has taken 2 days.  There are 11 hoopings.  Hopefully, this stitch out will be finished soon and I can get to the final.  You know I have a low patience threshold and I want this project finished but I do want to do it right.

Puff embroidery is embroidery using craft foam and embroidering over the foam to create height and texture in the embroidery.  With this project I learned that puff embroidery is not a new thing.  Puff embroidery has been around for centuries.  Of course, the antique puff embroidery did not use craft foam, but rather a build up of thread.  And I thought it was a new idea.  Ha!

I called Social Security this week for an appointment and was told that I completed the online form very well and that I don’t need to come into their office.  The check should arrive in December.  Woohoo!  Just in time for Christmas!!!!  I guess working all those years will finally pay off.  Plus, they told me that recipients are no longer limited to earning $800 per month before the earnings start to have an effect on the check.  Now recipients can earn $1,200 per month before the earnings begin to impinge on the check.  Good news to know. 

Our dishwasher died this week.  That dishwasher was almost 20 years old.  George tried to fix it, but it was fatal.  That dishwasher is not coming back.  So, George called the garbage collector and arranged to have the old dishwasher picked up the following morning.  He put the dishwasher on the side of the street, in front of the house.  When we awoke in the morning the dishwasher was gone.  It is what we call the midnight blue light special.  That is the height of recycling.  George called the garbage collector to tell them not to come but the girl apparently didn’t get in touch with the truck driver soon enough and there he was looking for the dishwasher.

George ordered a new dishwasher that was going to arrive the following day.  It turned out that we won’t get the new dishwasher until the 18^th or 19^th.  We are back to old fashioned washing dishes by hand.  Yep, there’s a sink full as I type.  I miss my dishwasher.  I think we may be dining out often until the delivery arrives.

This Sunday is the Splash Party.  The tee shirts have been received and embroidered.  All but 6 have been delivered.  The rest of the girls will get their shirts Sunday morning.  This party is going to be a real splash.  It begins at 1:00 p.m. at Paradise Bar and Grill on Pensacola Beach.  Boogie, Inc. will be our DJ.  We will have a dunking booth and lots and lots of raffles, including several big water guns.  Additional water guns will be on sale for those who forget to bring them, but the guns are limited so try to remember to bring your own.  Plus, we are going to have a 50/50 drawing.  At 3:00 p.m. there will be a live band, Victor Wainright.  Everyone is welcome, so please join us this Sunday.  Be prepared to get soaked.

I’ve already embellished my shirt.  George went water gun shopping and returned with two guns.  One shoots water 27 feet and the other shoots water 40 feet.  Yes, George has been outside trying the guns out.  No one in this neighborhood is safe from George and his water guns.  And that means those neighbors who are reading this and walk in front of the house frequently.  Beware of the man with the water gun.

The girls love to tease me about Facebook.  Well, this week is a banner week.  I now have 4,000 friends on Facebook.

Have a wonderful week.

S P L A S H!

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. 

The Code of Hammurabi is the earliest known example of a ruler publicly proclaiming to his people an entire set of laws, in an orderly arrangement, so that all of men might read and known what was required of them. Hammurabi was a ruler of ancient Babylon, probably from around 1795 B.C. to about 1750 B.C. His code was carved on a black stone monument, in 3,600 lines of cuneiform, standing eight feet high, and obviously intended for public view. This monument was discovered in 1901, not in Babylon, but in the Persian mountains, where it had probably been carried by some triumphant conqueror. It begins and ends with addresses to the gods and curses for anyone who neglects or destroys the law. It then goes on to list an organized code of laws and regulations for society. For example, a judge who makes a mistake in a case of law is to be expelled from his judgeship forever and issued a heavy fine. Any witness who gives false testimony is to be executed. All of the more serious crimes, in fact, are punishable by death -- even unintentional crimes. For instance, if a man builds a house badly, and it collapses and kills its owner, the builder is to be executed. If the owner's son was killed, then the builder's son is to be killed. Many believe the Code of Hammurabi or some similar code of laws to be the source of the Hebrew's edict of "an eye for an eye". The only escape for an accused person was to throw himself into "the river," the Euphrates. If the current carried him to shore alive, he was declared innocent. If he drowned, he was guilty. Although there were definitely earlier codes of law (their existence is even implied in Hammurabi's code), they have all disappeared -- leaving the Code of Hammurabi as the earliest surviving system of laws.

Found this at:  http://www.usefultrivia.com/history_trivia/history_trivia_001a.html

 

 

 

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.