Cajun Corner - Vol. 6, No. 1

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 1 – January5, 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.

Happy 2014!  We are now on Volume 6.  That means that on March 3^rd Cajun Stitchery will have been in business for 5 years and starting on our 6^th year.  Yay!!!!! 

Insofar as Cajun Stitchery is concerned, we are now in Mardi Gras season.  We have already received our first krewe jacket to embroider.  More masks are being created.  We are looking into shinier, blingy, materials to use.  Bring it on.  We are ready.

Over New Years we looked at a whole lot of statistics on our online business.  This year we may venture into a second Etsy store for just handkerchiefs and wedding accessories.  The final decision hasn’t been made yet but it is looking more and more that way.  It will be a lot of work but should pay off in the end. 

We had an issue with our website host over the holidays and the website was down for about 15 days.  It is back up and running now.  In the future we may change hosts and if we do, we are considering having our own shop online, separate from our Etsy store(s).  All of these stores entail a lot of work and upkeep.

Another item discussed over the holidays was placing our embroidery with a company who does have a store front either on consignment or wholesaling.  All of these ideas are options and entail lots of work.  Picking one option is difficult.

Enough of that.  Let’s get onto fun stuff.  Mirrors have been on my mind lately.  In fact, I have just ordered a bunch of craft mirrors.  George mentioned to me that I might prefer having plastic mirrors.  Plastic mirrors?  I never heard of such a thing.  Only I could lack so much knowledge.  Yes, there are plastic mirrors, acrylic mirrors, and Mylar mirrors, in addition to the usual glass mirror.  eHow has some pretty simple instructions for making these mirrors and one article even talks about sewing on them.  Wow!  Project ideas began swirling in my imagination.  So far nothing has been created, only ideas.  Right now I’m too busy filling orders.

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.

Thank you Bob for the following:

Seems an elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%. The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, "Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased you can hear again." To which the gentleman said, "Oh, I haven't told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I've changed my will five times!"

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.

***FIESTA***OLE***

Fiesta Ball is a week from Wednesday.  The girls have been emailing deciding what we are going to wear.  The theme is Red, White and Krewes and we a celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Naval Aviation.  It all started when Paulette found a novelty store website.  She found an adorable red, white and blue vest.  As it turned out the thing is plastic.  We all wanted the light up white boas and the blinky plastic red, white and blue tiara.  We nixed the plastic vest.  It's a formal ball.  You can go in costume or formal attire.  So, I wanted to dress up a bit.  So, here is what I will be wearing to the ball: floor length blue skirt, white blouse, and red vest.  I will wear the white lighted boa; the red, white, blue binky plastic tiara; and a red tinsel wig. 

I chose the blue skirt, white blouse, and red vest because I have a picture of it in my mind.  George is wearing white pants, red tux shirt, blue tux vest and bow tie.  I'm getting him a hat that's plastic but looks like an old timey straw hat with a red, white and blue band around the hat.  I'm also making him a red, white and blue belt with a rhinestone flag buckle.  My attire will sort of match George.  Reminds me of the old movie Pollyanna with Haley Mills.  In fact, those costumes were from that same period that Naval Aviation began.

Now that I have this beautiful picture in my mind, I have to pull it together.  The boa, tiara, wig, and George's hat and his outfit has been ordered.  I have the white blouse.  I will make the blue skirt and red vest.

Out of all of my patterns I do not have an A-lined skirt pattern.  I have chosen a pattern for an A-line dress and I'll adjust it to become a skirt.  I have chosen a vest pattern but the pattern is a size too small for me.  So, I will adjust the pattern to fit.  Tomorrow I need to shop for fabric.  Hopefully, I'll take pictures on the creation of this outfit.  Should be interesting.

I've been making luggage grips lately.  They really are fun to make.  They are made completely in the hoop.  So far, I've made some with the word "MINE" and "CAJUN" outlined and filled with rhinestones.  I can make them with any word or name.  I've listed them in the Etsy Shop and sure hope they sell.

C'est tout, mes amis:>)

Monday is Laundry Day

Two more weeks until the Arts & Wine Festival.  I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about the Festival's logo.  At that time, I hadn't seen it.  In jest, I came up with Cajun Stitchery's version of the logo.  So, what do you think?  I like it.

The Junkanoos are back.  This order came in from one of my Junkanoo friends.  She has wanted shirts with the Junkanoo logo for awhile.  She finally brought me a shirt.  We changed thing around a bit. Took off the green and purple background, used a different font, put the krewe name at the bottom, and the member's name was placed at the top.  I like it. 

George asked me last night when was I going to embroider a pillowcase with "Hers" on it to match "His"?  I told him probably the next time I do laundry and find an unembroidered pillowcase.  Monday is laundry day.  I guess today is that day.

A request came in from a friend recently.  She is interested in neck wallets.  Neck wallets?  I had never heard of such a thing.  I haven't taken the picture yet but I have made one.  First, I had to do a bit of research on the internet to find out what they were.  Basically, they are simply a pouch that hangs around your neck like a name tag on a lanyard.  My friend works on the beach cleaning up any oil and observing the wildlife.  She works at night and would rather have her cell phone around her neck.  You can have just about anything you want in a neck wallet.  You can carry your phone, notepad, pencil, money, ID, credit cards, or whatever.  My friend just wants it to hang around her neck, but some people use them to put under their shirts for safety reasons.  Kind of like the old money pouch in the bra thing.  Pouches of any kind are pretty simple to make.  The one I made last night has a 4"x5" pouch, then a 4"x3" pouch/pocket in front of that, then a 4" by 2" plastic sewn in for ID or whatever.  The flap is 4"x4" and folds over, only revealing the plastic pocket at the bottom.  The strap/lanyard is 32" long and rather than coming to a point and hooking on a single D ring, this strap is sewn into each side of the pouch, like a purse strap.  It is actually very cute.  The one I made is plaid (red, blue, black and white).

Now let me tell you a bit about the plastic.  On my neverending quest to reuse, recycle, and reduce, I realized that there is plastic in various colors, like Wal-Mart bags and then there is clear plastic, like dry cleaner bags.  I used a piece of dry cleaner bag -- clear plastic -- for the ID holder.  I'm not totally pleased with the look of the plastic but it has given rise to some ideas that I will hopefully be able to work on at a later date.  The plastic on the neck wallet opens at the top, 4" wide.  Over time, that may sag.  I'm thinking of framing it and then attaching the frame.  Wonder how that would work? 

I have this very delicate white veil kind of fabric.  I love it and it's so soft.  I took a couple of yards of this fabric and did a mountain of embroidery in black on it.  Ooooh la la!  It turned out to be a beautiful scarf.  I was practicing aligning repetitive designs in a straight line.  Both ends have the floral design with the lovebirds and the word "Amour" above.  The opposing sides have a floral design - my practice project - repeated over and over again.  The middle kind of looked empty to me, so I added butterflies.  The repetitive embroidery along the sides caused puckers which look like gathers.  I like of like it.  The puckers gives it texture and dimension.  Anyway, I ended up listing the scarf on Etsy last night.  We'll see if others like it, too.

I'm letting George sleep in this morning.  In the middle of the night, my dog, Evie, decided to start barking.  We were up.  She never barks at night and we were alarmed.  The best we can figure is that she was irritated with one of the cats.  I went directly back to sleep but George was up.

We Need Common Sense Alternatives To Plastic

The handkerchiefs arrived last night.  Finally.  They were supposed to be here Monday but UPS said they couldn't find our house.  All's well that ends well and they arrived.  They are so pretty.

Of course, while waiting on the handkerchiefs, I made a bunch of them by hand.  I kind of like the little handmade ones.  I added lace to the last one I made and I really like it.  I guess I ought to start making some out of some other fabric than the polka dot fabric.  Can you tell that I really like that polka dot fabric?

I was browsing around on Etsy and other websites and noticed that this type of ladies handkerchiefs are given on special occasions with writing.  For instance, a white hanky with a light gray church bell design and a wedding date.  Also, a great idea is for Mother's Day, which is right around the corner. 

Don't limit yourself to ladies hankies, there are also men's handkerchiefs.  Those men's handkerchiefs with their initials embroidered in tiny letters in a corner are very high class.  Then there are the handkerchiefs that men wear in their coat pockets. 

If we could change from using paper tissue to cloth handkerchiefs; paper napkins to cloth napkins; paper towels to cloth hand towels, I wonder what kind of impact that would have on our eco-system?  All I know is that it would be better for the environment.  What other throw away paper products do we use?  Real plates could always be substituted for paper plates.  Of course, paper will disintegrate.  The purpose for cutting down on the paper products is to save the rain forests.  When my boys were young we did an experiment with dryer lint.  You can take the dryer lint, we it and mash it into a sheet.  Put the wet sheet inside a telephone book or something heavy and flat to let it dry.  When it's dry, you have a sheet of paper.  The term "rag content" when used to describe paper comes from the fact that a long time ago after your clothes were worn out, you used your clothes for rags.  When the rags were worn out, you put your rags outside your door for the rag collector.  The rag collector would take the worn rags and make paper from the fibers.  Not unlike our experiment with the dryer lint.  The rags were usually made from linen and made a good quality paper.  So, today, the higher the rag content in your paper, the higher the quality of your paper.  Makes me wonder why we have to cut down trees to make paper at all.

The main problem is plastic.  We need to get away from using so much plastic.  What alternatives can you think of for plastic?  We could make cloth baggies, but that's not as sanitary as plastic and really doesn't achieve the same outcome.  Hmmm.  I'd love to hear ideas for common sense type alternatives for your day-to-day plastic.  One thing that comes to mind is plastic placemats and tablecloths.  For goodness sake don't use plastic for placemats and tablecloths since you can get such lovely cloth placemats and tablecloths.

We took some time to put the Cajun Stitchery logo on some of my shirts yesterday.  Playing with colors is a favorite pasttime over here.  Have I told you that we love to embroider at Cajun Stitchery?  Yes, we do.