Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 42

 

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 42 – August 18, 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.

I saw a pattern for an embroidered muff the other day.  It reminded me of my mother’s wedding to my step-father.  My sister and I had a real cute white furry hat and muff.  We more or less shared.  The day of Mama’s wedding we both wanted to wear the hat and muff and began to argue.  Mama decided that one would wear the muff and the other the hat.  There is a picture of Mama and Daddy leaving the church after their wedding.  Nancy and I were in front of them.  What the picture does not show is that we were fighting over the muff.

Every little girl would love to have a nice furry, soft muff.  Even in southwestern Louisiana, little girls love muffs in the winter.  They are so soft, so romantic, and so girly.  They are very easy to make.  I made one when I first got Doris, the first embroidery machine.  It was made from some soft faux fur and a pretty mermaid was embroidered on the front.  The lining was a satin fabric and a pocket was constructed on the inside.  A friend of mine saw it and fell in love with it.  I know this because she took it and said “Mine.”  I haven’t seen it since.  Hope she was able to use it.

Oatmeal lowers cholesterol.  According to The Mayo Clinic the top 5 foods to lower your cholesterol are: (1) oatmeal, (2) fish and omega-3 fatty acids, (3) nuts, (4) olive oil, and (5) foods with added plant sterols or stanols.  We eat the first 4 items pretty regular and now we have oatmeal at the studio in case we want something to eat during the day.  High cholesterol can cause strokes.

We went out to eat Wednesday night at The Oar House.  George bought me a mermaid tee shirt.  Reminds me of the time we took our embroidery tech out to eat at this same restaurant.  The waitress had not been by our table in awhile so we called the restaurant on my friend’s cell phone and asked the waitress to bring us water.  It was all in fun and our waitress, at least appeared to understand and laugh along with us.

A scalloped edged handkerchief was designed a few weeks ago.  Since that time it appears that all sorts of shaped edges will work for handkerchiefs.  An organza hanky was made with multiple scallops along the edges.  I don’t think we will be selling that hanky since it occurred to me that since the organza is shear, when you blow your nose, you can see it.  Ewwwww.  We’ll use the organza for other items, not handkerchiefs.

Etsy sales have picked up a bit.  We sold another “You have a booger” handkerchief.  It always makes us laugh because that handkerchief design has out-sold everything else in our Etsy store.  We sell lots of napkins, handkerchiefs, and other items, but that one hanky design always seems to sell.

Several friends are heading out to a mermaid retreat on the east coast.  They will be gone for five days.  During their retreat they will have walking mermaid tails made, a photo shoot, and there was some talk of them performing.  Oh my.  I can’t wait until they return with all of their stories.  A couple of the girls attended a Merpalooza last week in Tampa.  There should be some really good stories when these girls return.

The holidays are just ahead.  If you are looking for a special gift for the man in your life, you might consider a nice woven shirt.  Check out our online catalog at: (http://www.imprintit.biz/cgi-bin/cobrand/site.w?location=b2c/product.w&action=catalog&department=DV00008&category=PC01298&prb=&srb=&mill=&product=LSFISH&brands=no&frames=no&target=main&sponsor=000699)

Browse around.  There are ladies styles, as well.  We carry name brand shirts such as:

 

o                                                        Bill Bass

o                                                        Calvin Klein

o                                                        Cubavera

o                                                        Featherlite

o                                                        Hilton

o                                                        Inner Harbor

o                                                        Jonathan Corey

o                                                        Nyne

o                                                        Robinson Manufacturing

o                                                        Sierra Pacific

o                                                        Van Heusen

o                                                        Weatherproof

 

Now that Christmas has come to mind, I realize that Christmas items need to be made soon or we won’t be ready for the holiday rush.  With that in mind today was R&D day, research and development.  Card stock can be embroidered.  It needs to be embroidered with cross-stitch embroidery; otherwise, the needle and thread can tear the card.  Today some old cards were used for embroidery samples and it not only worked beautifully, but metallic thread worked nice, as well.  There are several other methods that need to be tried and developed but it sure seems that embroidered Christmas cards may be in our repertoire soon. 

 

Continuing with R&D day, the new organza was hooped and embroidered with metallic thread.  That worked out remarkably well.  This, too, led to additional ideas that will require R&D.

 

The little North Pole sign or even the Christmas lights wreath with the monogram in the center would be perfect for napkins.  A friend of our’s loves his Christmas dishes.  So much that he would love to use them all year.  Do you have Christmas dishes?  A set of fanciful holiday embroidered napkins with your monogram would certainly enhance your table setting.

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. 

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Thank you Jeanne Tawney for the following:


The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment:  Get their
parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.  The next
day, the kids came back and, one by one, began to tell their stories.

There were all the regular types of stuff:  Spilled milk and pennies
saved.  But then the teacher realized, much to her dismay, that only
Janie was left.

"Janie, do you have a story to share?"

'Yes  ma'am.  My daddy told me a story about my Mommy. She was a
Marine  pilot in Desert Storm, and her plane got hit.  She had to bail
out over enemy territory, and all she had was a flask of whiskey, a
pistol, and a survival knife.

She drank the whiskey on the way down so the bottle wouldn't break,
and then her parachute landed her right in the middle of 20 Iraqi
troops.  She shot 15 of them with the pistol, until she ran out of
bullets,  killed four more with the knife, till the blade broke, and
then she  killed the last Iraqi with her bare hands."
''Good Heavens,' said the horrified teacher.  What did your Daddy tell
you was the moral to this horrible story?"  "Don't f**k with Mommy
when she's been drinking."

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. 46

Cajun Corner – Vol. 3, No. 46 – November 18, 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.

This week has been spent with a new internet Wi-Fi system and new smart phones.  All of which I’ve been tempted to throw out the window at least a couple of times this week.  It all began when my friend showed me The Square.  The Square is a little one inch square, plug-in mechanism to enable me to accept credit card payments.  It plugs into the top of a smart phone.  The phone has The Square App (program) and voila, I can accept credit cards.  But you do have to have a smart phone.  I can accept credit cards via PayPal but not all of my business is over the internet.  Customers come to my house, or I go to them, occasionally.  There is always the issue of craft fairs and the like.  I rarely carry cash on me and expect others are the same.  With The Square I just need to have a Wi-Fi connection and I can sell my wares on the go.  I’ve never had the credit card machine because there is a monthly fee, a fee for the machine, and a fee per transaction.  It is expensive.  I’ve noticed in the past year or two more and more businesses, especially the government, accepts credit cards or debit cards but they charge you a fee to use credit.  That is because of the fees charged to them.  The Square is absolutely free and there is no monthly fee, only a small per transaction fee, similar to PayPal.  I expect people will start seeing The Square often because it is just such a good deal all the way around.

The first thing was to get the smart phone.  George and I still had the little Razor cell phones and our old Cingular phone plan which was grandfathered into our AT&T bill when AT&T consumed Cingular.  Other than our cell phones, we still had our land line and our DSL for our computers.  I held off getting rid of the land line for a long time.  After Ivan hit in 2004, our cell phones didn’t work because all of the air waves were over loaded with all of the calls, but our trusty land line worked like a charm and I was able to call FEMA and our insurance company as the hurricane was passing by.  It was time now to get rid of the land line.  It has been seven years since Ivan and I’m sure the over loaded air wave issues have been remedied with all of the new technology.  So, we called AT&T and got rid of everything we had and put in a new U-verse internet system and smart phones. 

As the days went by waiting for the new hardware, we worried about what problems we would have setting everything up ourselves.  We read the AT&T tutorials.  When we first had the DSL installed, I ended up in tears talking with the AT&T tech that was helping us.  It was pure exhaustion.  This time I went ahead and called the AT&T tech before we even got the equipment trying to troubleshoot the “what ifs”.  Finally, the U-verse arrived.  We couldn’t install until Monday when a real, live person came to the house to do something with our wiring.  As he left, he told us that we were ready to install the U-verse and to go ahead.  He left.  We installed.  It worked.  Unbelievable!  We received the smart phones the same day and the box had a message to fully charge the battery before turning on the phone.  We plugged them in.  Then we needed to transfer our phone numbers from our old SIM card to the new one.  Well, how do you do that?  One way was to get online and read the tutorial.  At that time, we did not have internet yet.  The other way showed us a step-by-step set of instructions.  We followed each step.  We got to a point where it asked if we wanted to “override”.  We didn’t know if we did or not but it looked like a good thing to do, so we did.  Oops.  We wiped out our numbers.  So, if I had your number, I don’t anymore.  Please call and give me your number – or email me.

We finally got the smart phones working.  Not sure they are as smart as they claim to be though.  The first thing we decided is that we needed to know how to place a call and receive a call.  Amazingly, that was a monumental task.  Once we figured out how to place a call to the other one, then we couldn’t figure out how to answer the call before it went to voice mail.  And God only know how to locate voice mail.  Luckily, that evening we were meeting with neighbors and everyone had to see the phone.  I received so much instruction on that phone and it was all going in one ear and out the other.  The more we played with the phones, the more we began learning.  We still have a long way to go but we can place a call, answer a call, find voice mail, and insert contacts from numbers that call us.  We can even get online via the smart phone.  Hooray!

Then on Tuesday our computers showed a page that said our Wi-Fi was not working and that we need to put a filter on whatever is on our phone line such as a fax machine or security system.  Hmmmm.  The only thing on our phone line now is the Wi-Fi that is not working.  The page on the computer suggested going to other websites.  Hellooo, the computer is not working.  We cannot get online to go to any websites.  We called AT&T.  These calls to AT&T are a minimum of an hour and sometimes 3 hours.  We had to take George’s laptop upstairs and physically connect it to the U-verse box and type in a bunch of numbers and, I guess, reset the whole thing.  “Mr. and Mrs. Henshall,” said the tech, “you should be good to go now.”  Indeed, we were back online.  Until Thursday, when we got the same page on both computers and we were, once again, down.  Try as we may, we couldn’t get back online.  So, we called AT&T, again.  They got us back online.  “Mr. and Mrs. Henshall,” said the tech, “you should be good to go now.  Do you have any other questions?”  At this point, I said, “I just need to know if we are going to have to call AT&T once every day or two in order to get back online.  If that is the case, I need to include you on my calendar of things to do.”  By this time, George began overriding me and telling the gentleman, “Thank you for all of your help.”

Yes, we have lightning speed Wi-Fi internet now – that comes and goes – and smart phones that are so smart we cannot always figure them out.  For instance, when I open up the phone, there are several icons to press for whatever I want to do, such as, contact, phone, email, apps, browser, market, and other things.  A friend of mine put a “gallery” on that page so I could see my photos.  Did I mention the phone takes pictures?  Well, now in addition to the “gallery” there is a “mini diary”.  Where did that come from and why?  I think the phone wants me to keep a diary.  I’m thinking that phone is so smart that it just wants to know all of my personal stuff and laugh at me.  No way am I keeping a diary on that phone.  It’s probably the AT&T tech that I wised off to that wants me to keep a diary.  Uh-uh, buddy.  You are not going to see my personal stuff.

Alas, I did order The Square.  The only reason we put up with AT&T this week was to get The Square.  I now have an app on the smart phone that is awaiting The Square.  I guess it will be arriving in the next week or two and I will finally be able to accept credit cards.

My embroidery tech friend who lives in Orlando called me the other day.  She found the boring needles and is sending me two of them.  Each of these needles costs $25.  That’s right folks, $25 per needle, and that is discounted because she bought a bulk package of 10 needles.  These needles bore holes in fabric for cutwork or eyelets.  This should not only automatically cut the eyelets out of my can wraps, but make the eyelets much neater and prettier.  When I get the needles, I need to learn how to use them.  Boudreaux does have a boring needle setting.  I just need to learn how to use it.  I’m very excited about this.  In fact, I don’t think a lot of embroiderers use boring needles.

All of the AT&T interaction backed me up in my work significantly.  I had planned, and paid for, a spot at Gallery Night.  I needed to make Christmas stockings to sell and have been working on them all week.  I was only able to make 5 or 6 stockings between everything else this week.  Also, I created a new can wrap.  This one has a pocket.  Then came the can wraps with initials.  In the meantime, I was filling various orders.  Since I didn’t make Gallery Night, all of this is for sale.  The stockings are $15.00 each, fully lined in red with “Merry Christmas” embroidered on the cuff.  You are not going to find Christmas stockings like this anywhere else.  The can wraps, of course, are $7.00 each.  So, pretend that we are at Gallery Night and let’s start shopping:>)

I’m lined up to have a booth Perdido Bay Golf Club on November 26^th.  Don’t forget to buy from local small businesses on November 26^th.  It would be nice if there were areas set up all over town to spotlight our local small businesses.

Yes, we are still celebrating my birthday this week.

All cell phone holders in our Etsy store are half price ($5.00), so stop by www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com and get some cute cell phone holders as gifts for Christmas.  Now I’m going to have to design a smart phone holder.

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. 

===============================================================

Thank you Marshall Larrivere for the following:

A Parish priest is driving down to New Orleans

from Alexandria and gets stopped for speeding . The state trooper

smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine

bottle on the floor of the car.

He says, “Sir, have you been drinking?”

“Just water,” says the priest.

The trooper says, “Then why do I smell wine?”

The priest looks at the bottle and says, “Good Lord!

He's done it again!”

=================================================================

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.

Why Is It So Hard To Find a Gift for Men?

We had a big storm here today complete with tornado sirens blaring and all.  So, that makes me think that I don't want to go outside.  I'll just sit here and write on my blog.  Goodness knows, I have lots to write about.

Mardi Gras is over.  This was a long, wonderful Mardi Gras season.  I think everyone is tired, or should I say, exhausted.  Trying to keep up with my krewe and run Cajun Stitchery and my family is a lot to do.

Even before Mardi Gras, itself, arrived we had a special occasion that wasn't even celebrated.  Cajun Stitchery celebrated its 2nd anniversary.  I am certainly open to suggestion on how to celebrate this occasion.

One thing that I do want to talk about are baby bibs.  I don't usually make baby items.  My children and my grandchildren are all way past baby age.  A customer did contact me for an emergency baby shower gift the other day.  My only suggestion was to run to the store and get a receiving blanket and I could embroider on it.  She wanted something real unique and that wasn't it.  It did make me think that I need to have some baby items around here for occasions such as that.  I am about ready to finish my third baby bib.  The first two are in the Etsy store.  They are very easy to make.  The closure is Velcro.  I have many baby and children stock embroidery designs and this also gives me a chance to use some of those designs.  They are all adorable and I enjoy stitching them out.  So, if you are in a pinch for a quick, handmade baby shower gift, I can offer baby bibs.  Maybe I'll make more baby items as time goes by.

As any reader of my blog knows, I love cloth handkerchiefs.  Sometime ago I read an article that said women's handkerchiefs are harder to find than men's these days because women no longer use cloth hankies and men have always used them, and never quit using them.  Good for men.  A customer approached me during the Christmas holidays to do some embroidery on a man's handkerchief and asked if I had any.  Well, no, I didn't carry men's handkerchiefs and frankly, had never made a hanky for a man.  She and I both searched high and low for men's hankies without any luck.  Finally, George did find a pack of men's plain, white handkerchiefs are Wal-Mart.  I have that pack in my supplies for the next request. 

The next request was last week.  A Facebook friend wanted silk-type men's hankies embroidered.  The hankies that I have are cotton.  She supplied the 2 hankies and I did the embroidery.  Before I embroidered I did a bit of research and the difference in men and women handkerchiefs are the size, mostly.  A woman's hanky is about 10 inches square or even smaller.  A man's handkerchief is about 15 inches square or more.  In further research it appeared that for a woman's handkerchief the embroidery faces the edge of the hanky because women will hold or drape the hanky with the edges out.  For men the embroidery faces the middle of the handkerchief because if a man puts the hanky in his suit breast pocket, the hanky is folded so the edges are sticking out of the pocket and the motif needs to show right side up.  Of course, that is if the man chooses to fold the handkerchief in that manner.  There seem to be as many different ways to fold a man's handkerchief as there are to fold napkins.  Every woman that I have approached about folding a man's handkerchief has the corner edges sticking out the top of the pocket -- no exceptions.

I was contacted by a lady via my Etsy store for a man's handkerchief yesterday.  She wanted one like I had made but for a man.  She wanted the embroidery flipped so the edges would stick out of the pocket and she wanted it man sized.  She picked the pinstriped fabric with the red lips.  I made the handkerchief for her and she is pleased.  It is going to her brother.  She told me there was no special occasion.  Her brother wears suits all of the time and she felt he would enjoy something a big off the wall, such as the embroidered red lips.

I made one for her brother and another that is on sale at the Etsy Store.  As George and I were discussing this turn of events, we decided that, along with the baby items, this is something else that we need to keep on hand because, frankly, I can never come up with something really cool to give a man as a gift.  I always send George out to pick something.  Finally, a gift that is kind of kitschy but acceptable for a man.  I'll have to research men embroidery motifs now.

This all worked out well because I was going through some of our stock designs and ran across a couple of designs that I never noticed before.  They both immediately made me laugh.  One was a motif of a nose with running legs coming out of the nostrils -- the nose was running. lol  The other one that got my attention was a character picking his nose. Both designs made me thing back to the "You Have a Booger" handkerchiefs and I knew I had to make a few more handkerchiefs with these designs.  I think I'll make them men's hankies.

A new krewe, Mystic Krewe of Fruitcakes, has contacted me for an estimate on their logo.  I'll be working on that the rest of the week.  It's not that I foresee it taking me that long but we have out of state friends in town this week and one of my cousins is coming in later this week.  We are busy with company but it's so enjoyable.

C'est tout, mes amis.

Pick a Pocket

We've been reflecting and projecting this week.  2011 should bring some pretty snazy embroidered items.  Out with the old and in with the new.

I'm really stuck on little ways to help out our environment.  I was thinking about clothing and all the clothes that are just tossed out.  Fabric can always be used, even if it's old.  If you sew, a good way of using old clothes is to make a bag or applique, or a bag with applique.  During all of this thinking, it dawned on me to make pockets.  That's a great way to #1 use scraps of fabric and #2 to change the appearance of outdated or older clothing.  Just add a pocket or several pockets.

Mama loved pockets, as I do.  It really irritates me when I want to put something in a pocket and nothing that I am wearing has a pocket.  I like to wear jackets, just so that I have a pocket. 

In the plethora of embroidery designs that we have, there are several designs for beautiful, embroidered pockets.  The pocket embroidery can be sewn directly on clothing for a faux pocket or stand alone, kind of like a patch.  Well, that's all fine and good if you can sew.  Chances are if you can sew you can make your own pockets.  What about those who cannot sew?  I started making pockets today.  The two plaid pockets are glued to the shirt.  I just used Tacky Glue and put a bead of glue on the edge satin stitches and then I put the pockets where I wanted them on the shirt.  If you are going to do this, make sure you put some paper or something on the inside of the shirt so that you don't glue the shirt together.  We've tugged a bit at the pockets today and they seem to be holding fast.  Next I'll wash them and see how that works.  In fact, you could probably use that reuseable glue and put pockets where you want them for the day and take them off and use on another piece of clothing.  Since we can embroider most anything on them, you could have a set with your initials on them, say something funny, even a logo could be embroidered on a pocket large enough.  It could even take the place of patches.  For example, you could put the same thing on a pocket that is embroidered on a patch.  The difference is that the pocket has another function from a patch.  A pocket can hold things.  You could even put pockets on your purse or tote bag.  You could put them on your slacks or jeans to fancy them up.  Glue one in a notebook for paperclips and smaller items.  Put a pocket on your upper left chest area and put a fancy little cloth hanky in the pocket.  Glue a pocket to your koozie.

The pocket fabric can be any color or print.  The same is true for the thread which can be any color.  Make the pocket the same color as the garment and it will just about vanish.  Make the pocket in a contrasting color and it will pop.  Add a pocket with a Christmas motif to a white t-shirt and you have a festive shirt.  Add a pocket to a sleeve or inside a jacket.  Pockets come in all shapes and sizes with your choice of custom embroidery.

At Mardi Gras it always seems to be an issue about carrying a purse.  You just don't want to be encumbered with a purse, but you need your stuff.  I always envied men who had pockets inside their jackets, outside their jackets and on their pants.  Now they can carry stuff.  Put an embroidered pocket inside your jacket and on your pants or shirt.  Heck, use 3 pockets: purple, green and gold.

Of course, read the directions for whatever glue you use.  If you want to remove the patch, some glues just won't come out of the fabric.  So, be careful with the glue you choose.  I like Tacky Glue, but that's just me.  The type of glue doesn't matter, as long as you get a glue that does what you want -- permanent or not.  Of course, you can always just sew the pocket on.

I'm very excited about pockets, as you can tell.  I may be putting some in our Etsy store to see how they sell.  The price is determined, as usual, by the stitch count, and not necessarily by how large the pocket is.

The booger handkerchiefs are still selling and tickle me every time I sell one.  They are so fun.

Christmas is over and it's time to turn our attention to Mardi Gras.  Long live the purple, green and gold!

C'est tout, mes amis.