Rib and Chili competition--

This should be fun--A rib and chili competition put on by the Veterans of Foreign Wars here in Hesperia.  I have been told that their are cookers coming from several states to compete.  Altho I think I can be very competitive for both chili and ribs, I think the best part is cooking for fun.....

I had to weld some wheels onto my (home made) Rib cooker so I can load it on the trailor--everything has to be cooked on site and my rib cooker does an exellent job.  Oh, and by the way, I am rounding up some SPECIAL Mystery Meat for the chili--ha ha ha    This should be a hoot.  It is Saturday 7/30 so I have about a week to get things together.......I will do another post when it is over to let you know how my chili and ribs did.......  

Grandma's Terriffic Sewing Camp

LaWanna,  (Grandma), has been wanting for some time now to put on a sewing camp for all her grand daughters.  Her goal is to increase interest and hopefully a great love for sewing for her grandaughters as she has had all her life. You might say it is "IN THE BLOOD".  Aunt Monna loves to sew, my grandmother Great Granny was a super seamstress for years and years and my mother was a great seamstress sewing draperies as a contractor for JC Pennies, Broadway and some other department stores.  She also made all of my shirts and my sisters dresses all thru our school years.  So, all of these grand daughters have the long background of sewing in their blood.

As it turns out, we have 9 grandaughters, but only 6 are old enough to learn to sew on a sewing machine.  They are:  Bailey 12, Skylar 9, Campbell and Sydney 7, Holly 6 and the youngest is Quincy 5.  Grandma has lots of help from Mindy and Merilee, as the picture indicates.  It will be really somethiing when the other three grand daughters, Heidi 2 1/2, Greta 18 mos and Mackinly 3 mos. can join the fun with all their girl cousins at grandma's sewing camp.  Our 9 grand sons were NOT invited to the "all girl" sewing camp.

Next is DAY ONE:  

   

These are the six machines that the kids were being trained on.  To start with, Grandma went over the safety of the machines.  Then they learned how to use the machine and all the things about the machines that do different things.  Thenthey started sewing on paper, following straight lines and then curves.  Then she had a dot-to dot picture and they had to connect the dots by sewing one to another.   (Grandma has it all figured out and is SOOO organized) and the girls loved sewing.

Also on the first day, the girls made some PJ bottoms for their dolls.  They used this for training for the next days challenge, (making their own colorful shorts).

DAY TWO:

After breakfast the girls got started on making themselves some shorts.  Grandma had already got the patterns ready for them and so they started at the cutting table getting their materials organized for sewing. Grandma also had little sewing boxes made up for each girl with sizzers, thimble, needles, pins, tape measure and a needle threader in each.  WOW, these girls were set.  Now they learned to sew the cut pieces of material together, iron the flat, sew in the place where the elastic goes on top, sew up the bottom and that took the whole day--of course there were breaks and lunch in there.

DAY THREE:

Well on day three the girls were given colorful shirts that grandma had set up for each girl and they had the assignment of selecting some decorations to sew on the shirts.  With the help of the internet, they all made their selections, cut them out of material of their choice and ironed them on to the shirts and then started sewing the decorations around the edge and adding buttons and other fancy things--What great looking shirts.  There was plenty of time for all the cousins to play in between sewing.  Here they are swinging and playing with Millie and her toy.  Every one loves Millie.  Ethel (bloodhound) is just waiting for food.

  

DAY FOUR:

Well now after 3 grulling days of sewing, what could be better than having a fashion show to show off what the girls have created.  So, invitations were made up and delivered, brownies and ice cream was prepared, chairs set up and the guests arrived and enjoyed the girls struting their stuff.  From first to last: Bailey, Skylar, Campbell, Sydney, Holly and of course Quincy.  They did such a super job and everyone loved it.  You might notice also that the camp host and helpers also made shorts and decorated shirts.  Ha Ha  what a hoot.

  

    
DAY FIVE:

Day five is a day of play, rest and reflecting on the first and TOTALLY SUCCESSFUL sewing camp.  Accept, of course, for the camp cook------ME!     No rest yet, it aint over till it is over, so I prepared a BBQ of 4 large chickens, corn on the cob, my famous baked beans and macaroni  salad using my moms original special recipe.  I felt obligated to do all the cooking, cleaning and swatting flys all week--breakfast, lunch and dinner, so that grandma and helpers could focus stricly on the girls.  I still have dish pan hands.