Adventures With Summer Charity Sewing Project

Many years, no, I guess that's decades, ago I was into crafting and sewing.  After awhile I had made all of the clothing and house stuff that this little family could use.  After another while no one wanted any more handmade gifts.  Slowly, I put my sewing machine aside for repair purposes and didn't pick it back up for a long time.  After another while all of the scraps and material were either thrown out or given away.

Once the internet became available, I found how to repair my machine and began sewing once again.  The material and scraps began accumulating.  After several years I discovered embroidery machines and eventually opened my embroidery shop, Cajun Stitchery.

With Cajun Stitchery gaining in popularity and business doing fine, more and more scraps and fabric were accumulated.  My husband began politely commenting that perhaps I should throw some of these scraps away.




 Over the past years, I truly have been trying to cull the herd of scraps but this is very hard to do.  Yes, I'm a fabric addict.

One of my absolute favorite websites is Pinterest.  One day, several weeks ago, I ran across some sewing projects for "charity sewing."  It piqued my interest and I began looking at pictures and reading articles.  I contacted a few friends and we decided to do some charity sewing as a summer project this year, each Saturday.  I am offering up my scraps and fabric stash.  After contacting a couple of our local hospitals to make sure our items were wanted we began our project.

Our first project was to make 100 port cushions for each of the two hospitals.  The project required 2 pieces of 5" x 8" fabric and a strip of 5/8" Velcro, which I also had.  The following website is the article with the directions that we, more or less, followed:

http://www.abbieandeveline.com/2014/09/12/my-recipe-for-portacath-pillows

These adorable little pillows were easy to make and I was able to go through just about all of my scraps to make them.  The hospitals were thrilled and so were we.  Not to mention my husband is 100% behind this project.

The following weekend, which was last weekend, we began a new project:  mastectomy pillows.  For this project I read several articles and used bits and pieces from them to create our pillows; however, the following website contains the pattern we used with instructions:

https://hubpages.com/politics/projects-to-sew-for-charities

This project is going to take longer than one day.  Our goal is for each hospital to receive 50 of these pillows.  This project requires larger pieces of fabric, a 12" x 12" pattern.  We broke into the larger pieces of fabric for this project.

Things that I've learned so far in our Summer Charity Sewing Project is:

1.  If you are sewing 100, 50 or whatever number of items, make number tabs to keep track of how many you have done.  When we were working on the little port cushions, every half hour or hour someone would say, "how many do we have now?"  Invariably, the rest of us would say, "I forgot."  We would then re-count the items.   Save yourself some time and create  number tabs of some sort.

2.  There are four of us in our group.  I usually keep my sewing machine and my serger out but took out two additional machines to accommodate all 4 of us.  It was a good move because I could check and make sure all of the machines were in good working order.  However, we ended up deciding on an assembly line to make the port cushions and one of the machines was not needed at all.

Again, with the mastectomy pillow, we are using an assembly line to do the project.

3.  With the port cushion project we used woven fabric and set aside all of the knit fabric and knit scraps.  With the mastectomy pillows, we are not only using just woven fabric but also decided we only want lightweight, cotton type fabric.  I had several yards of flannel and lots of satin but we decided since these pillows are used under the arm pit and near an incision we wanted to use only fabric that we felt could breath and not harbor bacteria as much as heavier, denser fabric.

4.  The port cushion project went through a lot of my scrap fabric and I was able to toss smaller pieces of scrap without too much heartache.  However, making the mastectomy pillows and using the larger pieces of fabric created, you guessed it, more scrap fabric.   It was a real "DUH" moment for me.

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5, No. 29

 

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 29 – July 27, 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.

As my Aunt Philo says, “Getting old isn’t for sissies.”  Last weekend I joined a couple of friends and we visited another friend in the hospital.  This isn’t something that I would like to do often; although, it did turn out to be a nice afternoon.  We went out to eat lunch and chit chat, then onto the hospital where our friend was in high spirits.  I suppose as we get older, hospital visits become more frequent.  Remember the Christmas Savings Accounts.  A news savings account for hospital flowers and gifts would be appropriate now.  Thank goodness our hospitalized friend is now home.

One of our friends arranged for Molly Maids to clean our friend’s home.  We are all sharing the cost.  This is such a wonderful idea.  I used to clean the house spotless before we would go on vacation simply because I hated coming home to a messy house.  It was so depressing returning from vacation to a messy house.  I’m sure our friend appreciates this gift of cleanliness upon her return from the hospital.

Another friend who has battled cancer has now been told that she is in partial remission.   There is no total remission for her type of cancer.  This is wonderful news to all who have walked down this road with her.  She has the best attitude of anyone I have ever known.  Even when the days were about as bad as they could get, it seemed as though something worse came along.  Through it all her attitude remained on a high note.  Watching my friend go through this terrible time in her life has assured me that a good attitude has healing properties beyond that of medical science.

The gnome mystery continues.  Now one of my friends shared that you can purchase gnome statues dressed in Saints attire.  Sure enough if you search for “Saints Gnome” you will find them for sale.  However, our gnominator remains a mystery.

Our Wednesday night girls night out has been cancelled the past few Wednesdays because our host was in the hospital.  This past Wednesday I offered to host our evening at the house next door, our new Cajun Stitchery studio.  There were about 11 or 12 of us and we had a fabulous time.  I provided the ham and the girls each brought an appetizer, dessert, or side dish.  The new stove was used for the first time and the new refrigerator that had been pretty much empty, now sports lots of leftovers.  Everyone got a tour and loved the house.  The “before” pictures were shown on my computer for comparison purposes.  Everyone agreed that George did a wonderful job remodeling that house.   Mama’s dishes and utensils were used.  I know that made her happy.  The evening was a total success.  Everyone enjoyed themselves.  The last car load left around midnight.

One of my friends who joined us Wednesday night told me that she was so proud that Kate and William named the new Royal baby after our own King George.  I like that.  When George was King of the Nereids, we would call him King George the dragon slayer.

I ordered a bolt of white organza fabric and it arrived this week.  It isn’t opened yet but I’m envisioning some really pretty items with it.

There is still a good deal of sewing and embroidery to do for our studio.  Curtains, shower curtains, table cloths, chair covers and rugs need to be made.  Towels need to be embroidered.  Mama’s double bed does not have a headboard.  George is going to make the headboard.  Since I’ve been digitizing and embroidering headboards lately, I thought that I should design an embroidered headboard for the double bed.  I digitized a 14” mermaid and stitched it out on one of the curtains.  It looks pretty good but still requires some tweaks.  We also need to get another mattress to raise bed higher off floor.

A friend ordered a photograph of three horses digitized and embroidered.  He calls them the Three Musketeers.  The horses belong to one of his friends.  This design was too difficult for me to digitize, so we sent it onto our digitizer.  The result is beautiful.  To achieve the shading, the design has several layers of varying colors.  The photograph was a bit dark and we simply used lighter colored thread to achieve the lighter coloring of the palominos.  It is funny that last week we embroidered a design for a young lady riding a horse in a barrel race and this week we are embroidering more horses.  The end result of embroidering the 5” wide design on a brief case.  It really turned out nice.  Since one of the stitch outs was on a bar rag which also turned out very nice, that was included in the order.  I enlarged the design to 10”, put an oval appliqué around it and stitched it onto a towel.  The towel may hang in one of our bathrooms at the studio. 

Looking at our Etsy store, we seem to sell handkerchiefs pretty regularly.  I wanted to embroider a handkerchief with a monogram within a frame.  The frame that was chosen is one of our heirloom designs and I used the letter P as the monogram.  Of course, any letter would go inside the frame.  As I stitched out this new handkerchief, I pondered a scalloped edge.  The scalloped edge handkerchief was digitized and stitched and works out rather nicely. 

The huge embroidery design is still coming along.  All of the pieces involved take a lot of time.  In the end it will be a work of art.

Almost any design can be embroidered on a beach towel, bath towel, hand towel, or any kind of towel.  They make wonderful gifts and are great for wherever towels are needed.  Imagine your monogram on a set of towels in your bathroom; all matching each other and embroidered using the color of the room. 

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. 

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 Helen Szymanski for the following:

An elderly couple had just learned how to send text messages on their cell phones.

The wife was a romantic type and the husband was more of a no-nonsense guy.

One afternoon the wife went out to meet a friend for coffee.

She decided to send her husband a romantic text message and she wrote:

"If you are sleeping, send me your dreams.
If you are laughing, send me your smile.
If you are eating, send me a bite.
If you are drinking, send me a sip.
If you are crying, send me your tears.
I love you."
The husband texted back to her: "I'm on the toilet.
Please advise."

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. 5, No. 17

 

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 17 – May 5, 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.

This week we were emptying Mama’s boxes of other than kitchen stuff.  We found that apparently we had a small hole in the roof of the garage and several of the boxes were ruined.  George fixed the roof but the roaches were so bad in some of the boxes that we just opened them up in the yard.  There was not much to salvage from those boxes and they were mostly clothes.  The ruined clothes were tossed.  Those Mayflower people really did box “everything.”  We found a horrid looking brown substance wrapped up and it turned out to be chocolate kisses.  That went in the garbage.  The cookie jar still had cookie remnants in it.  The medicine cabinet stuff was covered in bugs.  That was tossed.

We found Mama’s sewing machine and a lot of her sewing notions.  It broke my heart but I did get rid of most of her scrap fabric.  George reasoned that I already have a house full of scrap fabric, would I really use this?  Darn logic.

Mama’s towels and linens are being washed as I write this.

The house started to become very dark with all of the boxes in there.  Our plan is to have that house very bright and cheery.    It will look better when I have the curtains finished and everything is put away.  We finally decided that once we get all of Mama’s stuff in the house and put away, then we can decide how to decorate.

I did make a sham for one of the pillows.  It turned out beautiful.  Then I discovered that Mama loved shams, too.  She has lots of shams.  I’ll just have to start embroidering on them.

Several weeks ago we purchased some water bottle koozies that were on sale at one of my favorite online stores.  Two of the koozies have pink feathers at the bottom.  This week we sold those 2 koozies.  The initials were embroidered on the koozies and they are adorable.  We still have a bunch of the same color water bottle koozies and 2 beer bottle koozies in the same color, but no feathers.

After embroidering the koozies, I decided to put a monogram in the same font on my shirt cuffs.  Did that.  Then I decided to monogram my tennis shoes.  Oh, yes I did.  Each shoe now sports a pink P.  As long as I can get it in the machine, I can pretty much embroider on it.

Yesterday George and I went to the Pensacola Crawfish Festival.  We had a wonderful time.  The line for crawfish was very long but moved at a pretty good pace.  By the time we were at the front of the line, we looked back and the line was almost outside the festival entrance.  Oh, that crawfish was good, sha.  We each got a 3lb container of crawfish and ate every one of them while listening to band from St. Charles.  Yes, it was messy but well worth it. 

Since we ate the crawfish we weren’t hungry for dinner.  Later in the evening I made some beignets for us to snack.  This morning I awoke with a bit of a queasy stomach.  I guess it was overindulgence of spices and/or rich food.  Again, it was well worth it.

This morning was a baby shower for a friend.  Because I wasn’t feeling very well, I cancelled.  Now I’m sitting at the table looking at these cute little infant socks and wanting to embroidery the baby’s initial on the cuff.  I don’t know the baby’s name.  Perhaps the embroidery should be the first initial of the last name.  The initial would have to be about a half inch tall but we definitely can do this.

We have an order for a queen’s cape.  Well, actually she is a little princess.  The fabric is pink velveteen.  I contacted my trusty tech on the hazards of embroidery on velvet and I think we are going to be able to do a very nice design.  Thanks go out not only to my wonderful friend and embroidery tech, but also to all of my wonderful beach friends who are always directing potential customers to me.  This customer was referred to me by two of my beach friends.

Speaking of my embroidery tech, she surprised me this week by telling me that she will be here on the 19^th of May.  Whoo hoo!  We always have such a good time and talk about gardens, embroidery, and conservation while imbibing our favorite wine.  She is only staying one night but we will have a grand time.

Poor Evie has been looking like a miniature, shedding, bison lately.  She is 13 this year and the weather has been too cool to bath her outside.  I have been brushing wads of fur off of her.  Today she got a bath in a nice, indoor, warm tub.  Even after her bath the fur was still flying but at least she is clean and silky soft.

Two beautiful handkerchiefs were made this week.  Pictures were taken.  They were ready to be uploaded on Etsy when the computer gave me a message that they were not jpg files.  Yes, they are jpg files.  The “help” section gave the parameters in pixels.  The photos were pulled into Paint and the parameters were adjusted.  Etsy still won’t accept the photos.  Facebook and Flickr accepted the photos but not Etsy.  I just cannot seem to get these hankies uploaded on Etsy.  They are beautiful and they are for sale.  $10 each. 

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. 

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.

Found the following at:  http://lorajeansmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-make-doily.html

How to make a doily

(Go to website to see photos)

The images are pretty self explanatory but here are the steps.

1. Trace a circle using a cup.
2. Use large scalloped scissors to cut around the circle.
3. Use a hole punch to punch a hole in each scallop.
4. Punch another row above and in between the other holes.
5. Erase circle or flip it over.

And done! 

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.