Thanksgiving Preparations Have Started!!

I am a big crazy holiday person!!  All of my grandkids will be coming this year, so I am getting some activities together to keep them entertained.  I have seven grandchildren, ages, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.  I think I have that right.  I will be cooking for 14 people.  I always have to get started early.  I like to have lots of fun things for the kids to do after dinner, so I have started on that today.  I checked out websites on the internet to find projects, games and color pages.  I found three cute projects and some Thanksgiving crossword puzzles.  There were some picture puzzles for the young kids and harder ones for the older kids.  I found a cute word search for the older kids also.  I will have to pick up a few things for the kids projects at the store this week and I always buy an abundance of crayola crayons when they are on sale before school starts.  Everyone gets their own box of crayons so there is no fighting!!!  I have also decided to try some  "Bingo"  this year.  I think all of the kids are old enough and even great grandma can play that also!  I will have to pick up some prizes and make sure that everyone wins!!





I am going to get my table set this weekend.  This is a big job and I like to fuss over it!  Everyone will have a place card and I just love to set a pretty table.  So if I do it this weekend, I can play with it for a while.  I bet you are all going, WHAT??  Already??  Is she crazy? Well yes, what I will do after I have it set, is throw clean sheets over the tables to keep dust off of the dishes.  I will also get my grocery shopping done.  Everything will be ready to go by Monday.  I have done a heavy cleaning this week, so I think if I just give everyone the "evil eye",  we can keep it straightened enough to just go over the tops of things on Wednesday.  I make the dinner by myself, so I have a system that works for me.  On Monday I make homemade noodles for my husband, and on Tuesday, I will start some of my food.  I can make my pie crust and my pumpkin pie filling and just refrigerate it separately until Thursday morning.  This works great!  On Tuesday I will make my cranberry salad, get my Turkey starting to defrost.   On Wednesday, I will make my broth from the giblets and start the dressing.  I will put my bread in the oven to dry out and I cut up all the celery, onion, etc. and put in the refrigerator. I even have a great recipe for mashed potatoes that I make the day before.  I didn't believe that these would be good when a friend gave me the recipe, but I knew she was a great cook.  I took her word for it, and have used the recipe ever since.  It is nice not to have to mash potatoes when you are trying to carve the turkey and make gravy.   Everything is ready to be mixed together on Thursday morning!  I can make a couple of vegetable casseroles also on Wednesday.  I have used this schedule for years.  I have a written time table of when each item needs to go into the oven or start cooking on the stove.  By 1:00pm, it will all come together and we will eat our Thanksgiving feast!! 

On Friday, I will collapse!!  Just kidding!!  If I don't have time to write another note, everyone have a Very Blessed Thanksgiving!!!!  Cindy

Industrial Strength Sewing Machine

Well I just got a new sewing machine added to my sewing room.  My husband has been asking me to recover his boat seats for about two years now.  I keep telling him, that would require a industrial sewing machine to do it right.  He must want this done very badly because last month he was on eBay looking at sewing machines.  I asked him what on earth he was doing and he said he was looking for a cheap industrial sewing machine for me!!  I thought to myself, Oh MY!!  Let me sit right down and help you look!!  Who would pass up that opportunity??  Not me!!

I really don't know anything about them but I didn't think I wanted the one with an oil pan and large motor and special table.  I just wanted something that could handle a large stitch and the heavier threads.  We saw several on eBay and after doing some research, I narrowed it down to two.  It is not an industrial machine, it has industrial strength.  What this means is that it has the power to go through all of the thicknesses and will handle the commercial heavy threads.  I bided on the first machine and was out bided.  Oh wow, how much do these machines go for!  A couple of days later, I bided on the second machine.  This is the one that I really wanted, so I upped my bid and I won it!!

The machine was delivered the other day, and I was a little surprised.  It supposedly came from a sewing dealer and it stated that it was all cleaned and oiled and ran great!  Well, his idea of cleaning and how a machine should be cleaned are two different things.  He might of oiled it, but he sure did not clean it.  I worked for a day and a half cleaning that machine.  I took off the top and used q-tips to get out the dirt and oil it,  it had so much dirt and lint in the bobbin, I could hardly get it out.  Well, it is clean now and it really does run great!  I wrote back to the person that I bought it from and said, it really wasn't as clean as described and he couldn't even remember the machine.  He said it came from an estate sale.  So they just must buy them up and sell them!  Well it now has a loving home where it will be taken care of.

My husband has already pulled out the seats from the boat!!  I tried to tell him that now is not the best time to try and start such a big project.  I mean, after all, it is Christmas time and I have a million things to do.  I promised him I would start working on it in January.

Here is a picture of my new addition.  It is a Necchi SuperNova.  Does anyone know anything about this machine?  I am anxious to try and sew with it.  I thought I might try to make a vinyl purse or something first!  I can tell my husband, I just thought I should do a little practicing first!  When I start this project, I will be posting pictures along the way, it really doesn't look to hard.  I am only going to replace the cracked areas.  I think I am going to use the back of the seats material and replace that with black.  No one will ever know it has been repaired!  I hope!!  The boat is aqua and black, so I think this should work!

I took this picture also. This is my little granddaughters sewing area. She is five and I watch her everyday along with her big sister. When I sew, she sews. I took out the needle, even though it is a toy, because she could still get her little finger hurt. She has never asked why she doesn't have a needle, and I just don't say anything. Then one day big sister came in and said, "Mamo where is the needle"!! Now all I hear is,

 "Why don't I have a needle"!