Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 19 – August 2, 2014

 

 

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 19 – August 2, 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.my-catalogs.com/cajunstitchery

and www.companycasuals.com/cajunstitchery.

Does size really matter?  Sometimes in embroidery it does matter.  With that said, I want to inform you it is my understanding Cajun Stitchery now owns the biggest hoop in the embroidery industry.  It is not so much the size of the outside of the hoop as it is the footprint of the hoop and machine.  Any machine has its limits.  On embroidery machines you can go just so far side-to-side and up and down.  That is known as the X and Y axis.  Flashback to algebra, huh?  Our new hoop has a stitching footprint of 16” wide and 14.75” tall.  That is very big.  Of course, if you turn the design sideways it can be 14.75 x 16.  Just to test the new hoop, I enlarged a fleur de lis to these dimension and stitched it out.  Of course, I don’t have any designs that large now but we can now make them that large.  You aren’t going to buy designs that size, either, unless they are custom designed.  That’s not to say that other machines and other hoops cannot complete a design that size.  They can but not in one hooping.

It is now August.  George and I will be celebrating our 44^th wedding anniversary on August 14^th.  George did a little research and found that the traditional wedding gift for a 44^th anniversary is groceries.  Yep, you read that right.  George said he’s going grocery shopping for our anniversary.  I’m still thinking about what to give him.  He’s not a big fan of sweets.  Maybe I’ll just take him out to dinner but that is just so blasé.  Any ideas?

We have added a new category to our Etsy store for Wedding Miscellaneous.  There are little and big corset bags, Just Married luggage tags, Mr. and Mrs. Luggage tags, and a few other items.  Hopefully, more items will be included as time goes by. 

The new category is because so many people want to purchase unique gifts for wedding and baby showers, as well as birthdays but unique items are either too expensive or not special enough.  I’m going to try to do some items to help out.  I know there are years when it is one wedding after another; then there are years with a multitude of baby showers (usually the year after the weddings).  The pocketbook tends to start shrinking after a few of these showers.  Practically speaking, I would think you can never go wrong with diapers for baby showers, but so many of the young people these days are going with the holistic and environmental thing and you don’t know what kind of diapers to get.  Monograms are always in vogue and appreciated.  They aren’t very expensive, either.  If I can hoop it; I can monogram it.  Yes, even diapers.  And, I have monogrammed disposable diapers.

A friend of mine suggested that I include the following, from a conversation we were having, in this week’s Cajun Corner:

Texture question:  Yes, different textures are digitized differently, not to mention there are different techniques in embroidering different textures.  For example:  if we are embroidering on light linen or cotton, like a sheet, heavy embroidery would be too much and look funky.  You want something light on a light fabric.  Heavy embroidery could tear a light fabric.  However, if you are working on a heavier fabric like the primitive linen, you would want a heavier design so that the embroidery would not look washed away.  Heavier fabric requires an underlay most of the time. 

 

Remember the pillowcases that I made?  Remember the embroidery on the edge compared to the embroidery as you had me change it.  It was the same design but adding the underlay made the embroidery stands out, have texture, and look more elegant.

 

If you are using toweling, velvet, corduroy, anything with a pile, you need to digitize to help the design stand above the pile and/or keep the pile down.  A lot of that is also in the embroidery technique used.

 

Leather, plastics, netting and card stock need the embroidery with longer spaces between the stitches so the fabric is not ripped.

 

So, in a lot of respects the fabric determines how a design is digitized.

 

Price-wise, more stitches = more cost.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK

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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.

Lap Handkerchiefs and Lap Scarves

I'm usually the last person on the planet to find out new things.  At least, I feel that way.  It is not surprising that I just discovered lap handkerchiefs also known as lap scarves.  I received a convo from our Etsy Store from a lady who inquired about lap handkerchiefs.  I had never heard of such a thing.  She was concerned about her size because she felt she was a large woman.  She wanted a lap handkerchief that would cover her entire lap while she was at church.  We started off during the Mardi Gras season and I explained to her that I would be glad to do this but I wouldn't be able to begin this project until Feb. 25th.  She agreed.  In the meantime, we discussed fabric, size, and design.

She wanted something very elegant and lady-like but her main concern was that the handkerchief completely cover her lap and drape down the sides.  After perusing the internet for lap handkerchiefs, we found the normal size is about 22 inches square.  This customer wanted 30 inches square, plus 2 inch wide lace surrounding the 30 inch square fabric for a total of 34 inches square.  Yep, that is just 2 inches shy of a yard square.

I purchased some very nice handkerchief fabric.  It is not 100% cotton, but rather a cotton blend for the permanent press capabilities.  Then I searched for 2 inch wide flat lace.  She did not want the lace gathered.  Oddly enough, I could not find 2 inch wide lace anywhere.  What I did find was 4 inch wide lace, which I purchased. 

Once at home, I washed and dried the fabric to pre-shrink.  Then I took the lace to my serger.  The serger is such a remarkable mahine.  I serged right down the middle of the lace, creating two pieces of lace each 2 inches wide.

The next step was to cut out a 30 inch square of the fabric and serge all four sides.  

Then I serged the lace onto the fabric.  I did not just take the lace and serger around the fabric.  Instead, each side of the fabric had a separate piece of lace with tails dangling at either end.  The reason for this was to make the mitered corners with the lace.  Had I serged the lace around the fabric, the corners would not lay flat.

Moving to my sewing machine, I top stitched around the edge of the fabric and lace causing the little hem to lay flat and give a neat appearance.


Next each corner of lace was mitered.  It was simple enough.  I just laid the fabric flat on a table and folded the ends of the lace into a mitered edge, pinned, sewed and trimmed. 

Voila!  One lap handkerchief was made.

Next came the design to be embroidered.  The fabric is so delicate that any heavy embroidery pulled the fabric threads apart.  I lightened the density of the small design as much as I could without compromising the looks of the design.  The pretty gold cross and the word "Faith" were then embroidered hooping some water soluable stabilizer underneath the fabric.  Once that was done, the lap scarve was soaked in warm water to remove the stabilizer, dried and ironed.

It turned out beautiful.  We never did find a lap handkerchief online that was 34 inches square.

C'est tout, mes amis.