October in Pensacola

It has been awhile since I've posted anything on my blog.  Let's try to catch up a bit on some of the more fun projects happening at Cajun Stitchery.I'm so used to embroidering names and monograms on the front left or right chest areas.  This nice lady came to me wanting names on the back of these shirts for her maids of honor and herself for her wedding.  She loved them; as did I.  She wanted something that each lady could use more than once but yet was special.  This did the trick.

We had a few people wanting beach towels for guests and family.  There were some really nice towels appearing at the shop this summer.  As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed monogramming. 

I believe both of these sets of towels were ordered on Amazon by my customers.  They got some good deals and the quality of the towels seemed really nice, lush, and soft.

 The towels to the left are turkish towels.  They are more of a flat weave than the usual thick, loopy nap of towels.  Nevertheless, they were really nice towels.

The towels to the right are my usual fringed tea towels that I sell at Cajun Stitchery for $5 each.

Usually, with a monogram, name, or simple embroidery, they are only $10 each.

This wonderful customer has been coming to me each year for these towels for her pastor.

 The two towels to the left were gifts from a real estate agent to her buyers.  I suggested that she might want her logo but she said, "no".  She and the buyers had become friends through the process and she wanted something more personal.  These letters are 2.5" tall only 3" above the hem of the towels.

 A friend and customer of mine asked me to give her a quote on her Mardi Gras krewe's logo.  To the right is the test stitch out of her logo -- still in the hoop.

One day a lady contacted me on my Esty store and asked if I could put a simple Christmas tree and holly on a white baby bib with red trim.  This is the outcome of that little project.  This bib is actually for sale on my Etsy store for $19.85 (free shipping).  I love making beautiful baby bibs and I've had friends tell me they won't buy them because they would be afraid to get them dirty.  I see their point.  The bibs are completely washable.  I just can't seem to stop making them.  I should make some with black cotton fabric. LOL

The simple tote bag to the right is just a reminder that our teachers spend so much of their own money for supplies for our children.  It would be a good idea to get a tote bag and fill it with school supplies for a local teacher.  If you don't know a teacher, there are places online where teachers tell you what they need for their classrooms and you can donate.

I've donated in the past to https://www.donorschoose.org and find this a good organization.  There are many ways to help our teachers.  This is only one. 

One of my customers is a 4th grade teacher and also holds down a second job just to make ends meet.  Teaching really is a work of heart.
 

Until next time, my friends,
Peggy

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 - March 13, 2016

Cajun Stitchery celebrated its 7th Anniversary this month.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around that fact, and I'm still loving every minute of it.

Here are some pictures of project that we did that first year in 2009.  I did not know much about digitizing back then.  Heck, I was still a novice at embroidery but we had a lot of designs.

Here are some of the projects we have done this year (2016).  Over the past seven years, I have learned to digitize and embroider much better.  Many new techniques have been learned, and some were simply created out of necessity.  Cajun Stitchery has well over a million designs and literally thousands of fonts, alphabets, and lettering.

Still stitching and enjoying every minute of it :)

THANK YOU so much to everyone who has helped us through these years by either patronizing Cajun Stitchery and/or being our friend.

Peggy

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 22 – October 7, 2014

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 22 – October 7, 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.

Did you miss me?  Hopefully the computer issues are now totally resolved.

It has been an entire month since the last Cajun Corner went out.  A lot of stuff has happened.  We’ve lost a few friends.  We’ve gained a few friends.  Summer has turned into Fall.  This weekend the time changes and we fall back an hour.  Don’t forget to set your clocks; although, with all of the technology, the clocks pretty much change themselves.

It is time to look forward and imagine some fabulous embroidery.

Chenille is the topic today.  Do you remember times gone by when you would drive down the road to see chenille bedspreads hanging on the side of the road for sale in little mom and pop roadside stands?  Chenille has a pretty interesting history. 

There is some controversy about the beginnings of chenille.  Some believe it began hundreds of years ago with the French knot technique of embroidery.  Chenille is French for caterpillar.  Move forward to the 1700’s.  Alexander Buchanan is credited with introducing chenille to Scotland by weaving a leno fabric (a strong, sheer, weaved fabric) and cutting that fabric into strips to create chenille yarn.  This chenille yarn was then made into soft, fuzzy shawls.

This technique was refined over the years.  In the 1890’s Catherine Evans of Dalton, Georgia revived the chenille and candlewicking embroidery technique into hand tufted bedspreads which she sold locally.  She used strips of cotton sheeting to make her tufted bedspreads.  Her little cottage industry took off.  In order to fill her orders, she hired women in her community and taught them to make the chenille bedspreads.  They would stamp designs onto the sheeting and fill with the chenille tufting.  By 1918 her business grew to such an extent that she took on a partner and sold chenille items to retail stores up and down the east coast.  Many families in this area survived the Great Depression by making and selling chenille bedspreads by setting up roadside stands and offering their bedspreads for sale.

The popularity of chenille has been revived several times since the days of Catherine Evans.  Eventually, the chenille process in Dalton, GA became carpeting.  In fact, 90 percent of worldwide wall-to-wall carpeting production is done within a 30-mile radius of Dalton.

You may be asking what this has to do with Cajun Stitchery and custom embroidery.  The answer is that Clothilde has learned how to make chenille.  The “micro” chenille created on the embroidery machine is the chenille found in varsity letters.  In fact, Clothilde can make varsity letters.  Let’s not limit Clothilde to just varsity letters, though.  Many monograms and letter styles, as well as other designs, can be digitized into chenille stitches.  The beauty is that chenille provides a texture to the monogram or design and the little yarn tufts do not pull out like they used to do on the bedspreads.

Cajun Stitchery’s Etsy store is having a big sale.  These items have been slashed up to 50% off.  Once they are gone, they are not coming back.

There are also some adorable new baby bib designs available in our Etsy store. 

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.

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. 6, No. 16 – June 14, 2014

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 16 – June 14, 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.

My wonderful embroidery tech visited last week.  Clothilde received a real good check-up.  She had me order a few parts for upgrades which have since been received and the machine has been upgraded.  Clothilde is purring like a kitten and sports a brand new laser and bobbin guard.  While here I was able to introduce her to lemoncello.  I believe she really liked it and I have promised her a bottle on her next visit.  We were also able to take her to Tippy’s Tavern for dinner one night.

Installation of the bobbin guard was a piece of cake.  The laser was a bit more challenging.  Our tech had already returned to Orlando before the new laser arrived.  She was on speaker phone as she walked me inch-by-inch through the process of installing the laser.  We got to the point of aligning the laser when I just could not get that light to shine, as it should, on the needle hole in the needle plate.  There are only 2 screws holding the laser in place and those screws needed to be a bit loose in order to align the laser.  While trying to align, one of the screws came loose and I just could not get it back in the proper hole.  George had to help.  To make a long story short, George looked at the laser and talked to the tech and realized that I could not align the laser since I had it in backwards.  He turned the laser around, screwed the 2 screws in, and after fiddling a bit with alignment, it was done.  Leave it to me to install the laser backwards.

Yesterday, once we got off the phone with our embroidery tech and the laser was installed, I hung up the phone and put it on my cell phone stand next to my computer and went back to digitizing.  After an hour or 2 I decided to take a break and grabbed my android and went outside.  The phone was dead.  I pushed the on/off button and nothing happened.  I connected it to the charger and nothing happened.  We even changed the battery.  Again, nothing happened.  Neither of us could revive it.  This morning we drove to the AT&T store and a very nice gentleman named Josh tried to revive the phone, to no avail.  It was a new phone or nothing.  I purchased (well, we got it on our plan) a Moto X.  Apparently, this is the new and improved version of my Atrix 2.  I have played and played with this phone today.  I have read instructions and at one point called Josh for a little help which he was kind enough to assist.  As the kids today say, “This phone rocks.”  I can hook it up to my computer to charge the battery; or, plug it into the wall.  It has a voice command like my old Atrix 2 had, but this one has better response and does stuff for me.  So you think that sounds crazy?  I don’t even have to touch the phone to make a call, send a text, or even do searches on the internet.  This is just day one with this phone.  Imagine what day two will bring?  Oh yeah, the advertisement for this phone says it is the only phone assembled in the USA.  Okay, it wasn’t made here, but at least the USA got a part of the action.

We have to come up with a name for my phone.  Doris, Boudreaux, and Clothilde are taken by my embroidery machines.  It must be a Cajun name.  I am thinking about Marie.  Are there any thoughts out there on Cajun names for the Moto X?

The garden is bountiful this year and we are enjoying the fruits of George’s labor. 

I do a lot of monogram digitizing.  People want their name in “this” font.  There are a lot of monogram alphabets that I have done one or two letters, no one bought them and they are just hanging out there.  I think I’m going to complete these alphabets and offer them in my Etsy store.  Yes, I know, it is another project for my long list of projects for our Etsy store.

I did get to enjoy an evening with the girls last night.  It was delightful.  The food, of course, was fabulous.  That break from reality is always appreciated.

HAVE A HAPPY FATHERS DAY

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.

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. 6, No. 9 – March 30, 2014

 

Cajun Corner – Vol. 6, No. 9 – March 30, 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.

Spring is in the air.  George and I have a bad case of spring fever.  George is busy taking apart our old garden raised bed and making new ones.  I’m busy potting anything that I think might grow.  We are totally in love with our columbine flowers and want the yard full of them.  They are absolutely beautiful.  Now is the time to be amazed at the plants that lived through winter and looked like they were dead as a door nail.  All of a sudden they are alive, again.  However, our giant lemon tree isn’t showing any signs of life.  I guess we’ll give it a few more weeks to see if it starts to come back.  Luckily, I saved the seeds from the last lemon.  Maybe they will grow.  The beautiful blackberry flowers are everywhere.  Looks like we might have some blackberry cobbler in a few weeks.  Yum!

On the sewing/embroidery side, I have been teaching myself to make baby booties.  To be so small, they are a little bit of a challenge.  I’ve made enough of them now where I have the method down.  My problem is making the toe/front of the little booties curve properly. 

The whole bootie adventure began with me wanting to use up some scrap fabric.  I have bags and bags of scrap fabric that I simply cannot seem to be able to toss.  So, I started looking for projects to use up the scrap.  When I hit onto baby booties, I got stuck.  There is reasoning behind my obsessive/compulsive bootie behavior.  Way back when I began Cajun Stitchery, I touted that customers could come to me for gifts for any occasion.  A lady contacted me about a baby shower. At the time I had nothing for her.  I was embarrassed and determined that will never happen again.  It won’t.  I have lots of baby tee shirts and bibs.  I want to add baby booties to these accessories.  So far the booties take about 3 or 4 hours to make.  To be able to price the booties would make them more expensive than anyone that I know would be willing to pay.  I’m still working on that.

At that point in the bootie escapade, I needed to create a way to cut down on time.  Cutting out patterns is not one of my favorite things to do in the sewing process.  On top of that, the booties are so tiny and I, of course, want to embroider on them.  It would be much easier to embroider on the booties before cutting them out so I can hoop a larger piece of fabric.  It dawned on me that I could combine the cutting and the embroidery into one step.  I scanned in the bootie pattern pieces and digitized them to fit into one hooping.  There was a lot of trial and error.  Now that it is all digitized, I can include the embroidery design in the same hooping.  When cutting the fabric it helps to have the cutting outline directly on the fabric.  The tissue paper pattern always seems to move around on me.  There’s more.  Since I have the boring needle on Clothilde, the machine outlines the pattern, then embroiders the design, and yes, then cuts it out.  Woot!  Woot!  There was one more thing that I decided could be combined with this step.  Two pattern pieces required an inner fabric to be placed between the bootie fabric and lining and is simply stitched onto the back of these 2 bootie pieces.  I included that step, as well.  After the embroidery machine, the only thing to do is tear off the stabilizer and sew the pieces together.  A bonus to this method is that the fabric pieces are cut out with precision, including the little right/left, front/back notches.  On the other hand, it is easier to do this with larger pieces of fabric, rather than scrap. 

We can now embroider on all pieces of the bootie, including the sole.  Think about it.  The child’s monogram could be embroidered onto the front/toe of the bootie, and the date of birth on the sole of the bootie.  Voila!  A keepsake.  Wouldn’t that make a terrific gift?

Still the booties take awhile to make and are very expensive.  My thought process was to perhaps add baby accessories that are not so time consuming so the price of the 2 or 3 items together would make a nice gift and not be too expensive since it is more than one item.  A matching baby bib would be nice; especially, one our new heirloom-like, scallop edged bibs with the baby’s monogram in the middle. 

Then I thought of a bonnet.  I do have a bonnet pattern and they are pretty easy to make.  I took out the pattern pieces and they are just too big to fit in a hoop, or even to scan.  So, I began doing some research on the internet.  I do think we will be able to accomplish the bonnet in the hoop.  I just need to give it more thought.

We’ve come a long way with the baby accessories, but wait!  I still have bags and bags of scrap.  Oh well, that’s for another day.

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 all of the jokes:

A cop pulled me over the other day for speeding. After giving me the ticket, he teases me a bit about my out of state plate and the fact that I'm driving a car that's in my Dad's name. He points to my dash and asks, "Is that a radar detector I see?" I said "I don't know it's my Dad's car. It's just always been there, but it does let me know every time I pass a Krispy Kreme." He smirked and said, "Good one. Now slow down."

She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all. One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room. She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, the young minister noticed a cute glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated, of all things, a condom! When she returned with tea and scones, They began to chat.. The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist. 'Miss Beatrice', he said, 'I wonder if you would tell me about this?' Pointing to the bowl. 'Oh, yes,' she replied, 'Isn't it wonderful? I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent t he spread of disease. Do you know, I haven't had the flu all winter?'

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.