Cajun Corner – Vol.
4, No. 24 – June 24, 2012
Bon
Jour! Welcome to Cajun
Stitchery’s weekly email and welcome to our family.
ΘΘΘΘΘ
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our on-line catalogs at:
My poor cat, Tigger, went to meet his maker this
past Monday. This one really hit me hard
and I cried all day. He had the loudest
purr of any cat that I’ve ever heard. He
was very cuddly and would curl up on the sofa with me while I watched TV or in
bed at night. I do miss my Tigger.
Hurricane season is June through November. Tropical Storm Debbie is passing by Pensacola as I type. We don’t have rain yet but it looks like any
minute I’ll be able to use the phrase -- Merde! Il Pleut. George is outside doing some rush lawn work
right now. My friends and family in and
about Tampa
have informed me that they have had about 20 hours of rain. My son says they really need the rain, so it
is not necessarily a bad thing.
Yesterday, I hosted a delightful lunch for two of
my friends. I cleaned house all morning
and I’m feeling really good right now because I don’t have that on my punch
list today.
During our luncheon, the girls asked me to take
them on a tour of our gardens. Oh, how I
love our gardens. George and I are in
the garden doing something everyday and we notice things like “shouldn’t this
plant have fruited by now” or “we need to fertilize”, etc. My friends made me step back and say,
“Wow! This is really cool.”
Everyone should have a garden. It takes nothing but effort because it sure
doesn’t have to cost anything. Seeds are
easy to find. Lots of our seeds come
from the grocery store. A bag of dried
beans are simply bean seeds. Yes, you
can plant them. Beans are wonderful to
grow because they add nitrogen to the soil and nitrogen is very important. I like to plant beans in all of my beds. Pepper seeds are easy to find. If you buy a bell pepper, for instance, or
any fresh pepper for that matter, just scrape out the seeds when you open the
pepper and plant those seeds. You would
scrape out the seeds anyway. Plant the
root end of onions. You cut them off
anyway. Just plant them rather than
throwing them away. The same is true for
the root of celery and tops of carrots.
Sometimes the seeds take and sometimes they do not, but what the heck,
it is free. It is usually something that
you would simply throw away. Squash,
cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, any fruit or vegetable that has seeds or
roots can be used. Sweet potatoes and
white potatoes will grow from the eyes on the potato. We used to use toothpicks to suspend the
sweet potato in a jar of water and let the roots grow. The sweet potato vine is beautiful and very
big. Just remember that some things turn
into trees and some into smaller plants.
Plant accordingly.
Insofar as containers are concerned, the sky is
the limit. Open a can of food and poke a
few holes in the bottom of the can. Fill
the can with dirt and plant a seed. It
isn’t even necessary to clean the can because whatever remains in the can will
be used as fertilizer for the plant. One
of my gardening periodicals is selling burlap bags as containers for
gardening. Yes, you can use fabric or
even plastic bags as containers. I’ve
seen people use old shoes, pots, pails, PVC pipe, anything with a depression
where you can fill with soil. Recently,
I saw a photo on Pinterest where the trunk of a VW was used as a planter. As with the seeds, know how big your plant is
going to be and plant in a container large enough to contain the fully grown
plant comfortably.
Soil for the plants is everywhere. I love planting in sand because it is so easy
to till. Of course, you have to realize
that sand has absolutely no nutrients and you must fertilize frequently. I remember an experiment from when I was a
little girl learning about plants. Take
a piece of paper towel. Wet it. Put a seed on it. Fold the wet paper towel
over and put it in a jar, plate, whatever.
Just make sure the paper towel remains moist. The seed will germinate in a few days. Beans are the most fun for this experiment
because they are large enough to see what is happening. Wet the paper towel and put it in a glass jar
with the seed against the glass on one side and the wet paper towel on the
other. You will be able to watch that
seed germinate because the seed actually carries the nutrients required to
germinate. Of course, once it does
germinate, you need to carefully plant it in a growing medium. It won’t last long on just a wet paper towel
because there are no nutrients. You can
plant the paper towel with the germinated seed.
The paper towel will decompose.
Since plants grow in any organic material, your soil can be sand, water,
dirt, clippings, newspaper, coffee grounds, etc. Some of the best tomatoes that we have ever
grown came from the sewage treatment plant in Orlando.
Humans cannot digest tomato seed and the sewage treatment plants grow
tomatoes all the time. I have often
wondered why the government doesn’t use the tomato plants for the hungry or
even to make some cash to defray expenses.
Fertilizer is easily accessible. From humans to plants, we all need to be fed
to maintain life. Eat unhealthy and you
are unhealthy. Eat healthy and you are
healthy. As I said before, planting beans adds nitrogen
to your soil. If you compost, which is
really easy, (your yard clippings, your garden debris, and your kitchen scraps)
you will have a very nice compost pile full of all of the nutrients and
minerals required by your plants. Use
your compost as your planting soil and your plants have a head start in
life. Even ashes from your chiminea or
grill would be good additions to the compost.
Please don’t forget your coffee grounds because plants love coffee
grounds.
Space should not be too much of an issue. Perhaps your space availability does not
allow for a large garden, but as long as you have a window with sun, you can
grow plants. Most plants like ample
sunshine but there are some plants that thrive in the shade. Even if you do not have sun, there are grow
lights used for growing plants indoors.
Patio and balcony gardens add beautiful ambiance. Even roof top gardening works well.
If all of that isn’t enough, plants expel oxygen
(which we need) and take in carbon dioxide (which is poison to us).
That is more than enough about gardens and
plants.
The shabby
chic, ruffled purse with flowers and rhinestones has been listed in our Etsy
Store for $10. Geez, a lot of work went
into that purse.
This week food tents have been on my mind. We are having company for the 4th
of July and plan to entertain under our Live Oak tree. Years ago I purchased a food tent from Dollar
Tree. It opens like an umbrella but
doesn’t have the rod down the middle.
The purpose is to keep insects off of food outdoors. Since I plan on entertaining, and Dollar Tree
no longer has food tents, I began an online search of food tents and
patterns. There were a few patterns. Pinterest has a wealth of photographs of all
kinds of food tents. Now the decision is
how to design the food tent(s). We have
our Cajun Stitchery canopy tent and the tables.
Do I want to design a large food tent for each table? Or, do I want smaller food tents for each
dish? It would be nice for our guests to
see the food in each tent. Therefore,
the tent needs to be transparent enough to see the food. If clear plastic is used, the dish could be
seen but moisture may accumulate.
Depending on the dish, that could be good or bad. However, plastic may off gas. Plastic is not an option. Netting and/or tulle would work but could be
too light and flimsy. Fiberglass screen
appears to be our best bet. It should
hold up fine outdoors and it is see through.
One pattern had a 6 inch bias tape edging the sides which looks really
nice. The tent and table clothes are
royal blue, so a bright red edging would be nice. The problem with the red edge is that I could
not locate solid, bright red cotton fabric at Wal-Mart. They had a red fabric that I almost bought
but when I saw it in the light, it had more of pink look than bright red. Now I’m considering blue jean fabric. My scraps contain bunches of old blue jeans
and denim is very sturdy. I’m seriously
thinking about the blue denim for the edge.
I am still pondering on the design.
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.
You
know you are from Louisiana
when you see something cute and say, “Aw sha.
===========================================================
The Atakapa were the Native Americans living in what is
now Southwest Louisiana:
Atakapa oral history says that they
originated from the sea. An ancestral prophet laid out the rules of conduct.[11]
The first European contact with the
Atakapa may have been in 1528 by survivors of the Spanish Pánfilo de Narváez expedition. Two barges were
blown ashore. One met the Karankawa, while the other probably landed on Galveston
Island. The latter recorded meeting a group who called themselves the Han,
who may have been the Akokisa.[1]
The Choctaw told the French settlers
about the "People of the West," who represented numerous subdivisions
or tribes. The French referred to them as le sauvage. The name Atakapa
is a Choctaw name meaning "people eater" (hattak 'person', apa
'to eat'),[11]
a reference to the practice of ritual cannibalism.
The Gulf coast peoples practiced this on their enemies.
A French explorer, Francois Simars de Bellisle, lived
among the Atakapa from 1719 to 1721.[1]
He described Atakapa cannibalistic feasts which he observed firsthand.[14]
The practice of cannibalism likely had a religious, ritualistic basis.
Found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atakapa_people
==========================================
C’est tout, mes amis
Peggy Henshall
Cajun Stitchery
(850) 261-2462
P.S. You are always
welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me,
cher.
I was contacted by a friend who volunteers at a local cat rescue and asked if I would make a blanket they could raffle off to make money for the rescue. Of course, I said yes.
The original design had the kitten looking and pawing at a butterfly. I wanted a lot of butterflies. Back to looking at pictures. This time it was butterflies, and a Monarch was chosen. I digitized the butterfly and stitched it in several different colors and many angles.
At this point, the whole design seemed to be missing something which turned out to be flowers. After searching through many of my store bought designs, I found the perfect flower design. To be specific, sun flowers. Now our kitty is sitting in a field of bright yellow sun flowers, playing with multi-colored butterflies. Life is good.
I liked the design, but felt I could, and should, do better. After all the rescue organization needs something eye catching and special to get those big bucks flowing in. The 3D butterflies had been on my mind for awhile but I hadn't been able to find the perfect project for them. Ah, this is the project. Several butterflies were made in different colors and fabrics. I made them like you would make a patch but before I tore them off of the stabilizer, I embroidered the body between the wings and then pulled off the stabilizer -- carefully. To adhere them to the blanket, I measured the body of the butterfly and created a straight stitch a little shorter than the body. Then I turned the straight stitch into a small zig-zag. I would go to the placement site on the blanket, stitch the straight stitch, place the butterfly on top of the straight stitch and stitch the zig-zag.
Looking good.
Still something missing. I can do better than this.
Rhinestones!
The rhinestones seemed to do the trick
I had changed the bobbin thread to various colors when doing the flowers and butterflies. When you look at the back of the blanket, albeit no kitty, the design is still pretty.
As my little Cajun mama used to say: "Fini." This blanket was given to the cat rescue organization. I'm not sure if they've raffled it off yet or, if they have, how much they made. I certainly hope this unique, OOAK, blanket brings them some well deserved funding.
