Thread constantly breaking or having tension issues?

Having trouble locating the problem? You say you have tightened the tension.... loosened the tension..... re threaded more times that you can count..... tightened the top on the rollers..... loosened the top rollers.... cleaned and oiled the machine.... re timed the machine until you are cross eyed.... changed threads..... asked your internet friends for suggestions.... called the repairman in desperation..... and still having problems of breaking thread? AAAARRRRR!!!!

I can't tell you about other machines but I can tell you that the Gammill machines are extremely sensitive to the very tinyest little things. It can take hours to track down the source of a problem because it might be so small you need a magnifying glass to spot it. Before you decide to take a hatchet to the machine so you can toss it out the window.... here's one more thing to try when you are having lots of breaking thread or intermittent tension issues.

Take apart your tension assembly and check the felt disk. Is it dirty? This dirt puts drag on the tension disks which causes tension problems. Check the disk for lint and dirt inside the center hole. See how dirty mine was? Also, inside the center hole of the disk is a tiny, tiny little groove. It's where the two sides of the disk come together. Sometimes there is lint inside this that you can only get out by using the pointy end of a needle.

Maybe your machine doesn't look like the Gammill? Well basically all machines can be affected by lint in the tension assembly. Next time you can't figure out what's causing the problem; check this before getting angry at your machine. Oh, and if you are like me and realize that was the last one of your dozen felt disks..... it can be turned to the other side long enough for more to arrive in the mail.

(This is one of three posts I've been working on at the same time. All with different topics. The others may appear on the blog out of order because that's the way blogger works. Check below this one for the others as I get them finished.)

Once a month cooking


I first started cooking this way back when my kids were small and I had a garden. I didn't call it by that name back then. I just thought it was the most economical way to store the foods I had grown in the garden. Not only did I have a garden back then but I made most meal items from scratch and still do. Already cooked or prepared and frozen stuff from the grocery is like paying for your own personal chef. If you can afford a personal chef, why not just hire one and give somebody a job?

A year or so ago I saw there was a cookbook with that title and the name just stuck with me. I saw the book at the library and took it home to read. It was after reading the book that I realized what my style of cooking was called. The book has some very interesting recipes so it might be worth reading if you are so inclined.


I'll give you the theory behind the once a month cooking and let you judge for yourself. The theory is that every meal has certain steps from start to finish. You gather the items. You measure or chop ingredients in preparation for cooking. You cook a little. You add something. You cook some more. You add more..... and so forth. Preparing a meal can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour from start to table ready. Even longer if you simmer something for a long time.

So in theory you spend an average of one hour each day cooking the evening meals. That's 7 hours a week. If you can cut the cooking time down to 15 minutes; you will have saved yourself 5 hours and 15 minutes during the week. Multiply that by 3 meals a day.... that's 15 hours and 45 minutes saved per week.

In order to cut down the preparation time.... do as much of the preparation work ahead as you can. Have it in the freezer ready to measure for your meal. This method also cuts down on waste.

For example these onions. As you can see one onion has started to sprout. Some people will buy a bag of onions and keep them on the counter ready to dice and use in a meal. Over a short storage time the onions will start to sprout so they get thrown away and more bought. Other people will buy the already chopped and frozen onions.... paying for that personal chef I told you about.







Here you can see I've peeled the onions and I'm preparing to dice them. Did you know that by leaving the roots on the onions while you peel and dice them.... you won't get teary eyes? It's true! Try it and you will see. It also helps if you stand without your nose over the cutting, push everything away from you a bit. I have two bags of onions in this bowl... yellow and white.





By dicing these onions and putting them in the freezer..... it doesn't need to be done right before I start cooking. This saves time. Freezing them before they all sprout saves money.

I also find it hard to cook for one. I'm more used to cooking large meals for a whole gaggle of kids. Its much easier for me to cook for 30 than it is for me to cook only for myself. I mean really, a whole cake for one person? Thawing a whole pound of bacon just to fry one or two slices for just me? Thawing a whole pack of hot dogs when I only eat one? I have a choice.... eat repeated meals for several days using these items OR repackage it into the right size amounts before I put it into the freezer.

For example, hot dogs. I will eat one for lunch every now and then. The key here is ONE. But if I must thaw out a whole package just to eat the one..... I will loose money. Why? Because I can't see myself eating a hot dog for lunch 10 days in a row. Boring! Instead, I will open a package of hot dogs when I bring it home from shopping. I will wrap each hot dog individually then put into a freezer bag and freeze them. When I want a hot dog for lunch.... I take out one but the rest remain frozen for another time.

But I'm getting away from the once a month cooking. In the book the idea is that you take one day (or a weekend) to get a whole month's worth of meals precooked and put into the freezer. This type cooking assumes you have a menu for the month. The book also gives you meal ideas and gives you a menu to start with.

I don't go as far as the book with my once a month cooking. I don't cook a whole months worth of full meals all at once. What I do is get ingredients ready to use.... such as diced onions and green peppers. I will add to the once a month things as I cook other meals. For example when I cook rice. I will cook much more than I will eat at one meal. I will freeze the excess in individual sized packages to take out the next time I need rice for a meal. This eventually saves me money because I'm cooking the rice only once for several meals. Get the idea yet?

Now about precooked bacon. I cook my bacon myself. Yes, a whole package at one time. It goes into the freezer ready to take out one or two pieces as needed. Again, it saves me both time and money by cooking the whole package at once. I might use the bacon as a topping on a salad or as an ingredient when making myself some breakfast hot pockets.

The next thing I do regularly is take advantage of my inability to cook for one. I let my natural instincts cook far more than I will eat in one meal. I package the excess as individual portions to put into the freezer. When I decide to bake a cake or biscuits I will cook more than I need then freeze in portions just right for one. When I cook soup or stew I end up with enough for at least 4 meals. In a little over a month I can go from an empty freezer to a well stocked one with plenty of things to pull out and prepare a very quick meal simply by cooking more than enough for one meal.

Cooking this way is not new. It was very popular back in the 50s.... hmm....60s hmm.... 70s? The time back when people were buying freezers as the newest and greatest kitchen helpers. The time when frozen tv dinners first came out. The women who didn't want to go so far as to feed their family something on a tray but liked the convenience of taking stuff out of the freezer for dinner. These ladies were the ones to start preparing ingredients ahead of time or making their own tv dinners.

There are many things you can pre cook and put into the freezer you might not have thought about. Spaghetti (or any type of pasta) is one that comes to mind. Not a full meal.... just the spaghetti. When you are ready to make spaghetti again just take this out of the freezer and run hot water over it for a minute and its ready. You could make extra of a full spaghetti meal and freeze it too if you prefer.

Sausage for pizza is another thing that can be precooked. Cook the whole thing, freeze in portions ready to take out what you need for each pizza and half the work is done. Cook and freeze ground beef to be used in all types of recipes like sloppy joes or chili mac. Cakes, cookies, homemade bread, hmm..... look at it this way.... if you see it in the grocery store's freezer you can prepare it or cook and freeze it yourself.

It's helpful if you get yourself a book on freezing foods. My book is old. It was published by Rodale Press in 1986. It's called Stocking Up III. It's actually a canning, freezing, drying foods guide that I bought for the canning time tables. You can probably do an online search for a freezing guide too. I haven't searched yet because I use my book.

I think I covered most of the idea of once a month cooking. If you have any questions please use the comment on the post, I will get it in email. If you don't have your "no comment reply" turned on I can answer back through email.

Repurpose.... again

Long time followers of my blog know how much I enjoy repurposing items. Here are the latest two. This first one I really like.




Ok, it's empty. I repackaged the pretzels into small individual serving size bags.

This is the real reason I bought the pretzels...... for the container. At only 99 cents it was the perfect size for what I wanted. Marked down because it was the only one left. The contents were just a bonus. I wanted a special container because the commodity milk comes in plastic bags. It's difficult for me to pour just the right amount when making two quart jars of milk. With this container I can keep the measuring cup and a funnel in there too.

The second thing is this.

Sure, I eat Ramen noodles sometimes.... but it was the box that I really wanted.

It is the perfect size for becoming part of a piece of furniture I want to create..... eventually. Getting this box, already made, will save a step in making the furniture piece because I won't have to create the box.

It was time

It was time.... don't ya think?

Over the weekend, I did spend some time away from my quilting work to clean the domestic machine. There was a lot of lint in there. It really was time that it got a good cleaning. I figured out that the best time to look for hidden lint is when I have the best natural lighting. When the sun coming through the skylight shines directly over the machine. It's much better than a flashlight.



Yesterday I did some once a month cooking. I call it once a month cooking although I cook (or prepare) and freeze something almost every weekend. What I'm doing is trying to have at least a month's worth of meals (or at the very least the ingredients for meals) in the freezer. What's the difference between cooking and preparing? Well one is an already cooked dish that only needs heating. Preparing is getting the ingredients ready for cooking a meal. Such as chopping onions or boiling rice. Cooking a lot on one single day is much quicker (and easier) than cooking a little on several different days.

The reason I've gone back to monthly cooking on the weekends is because my freezer was empty. You may remember I lost everything again not to long ago. A wind storm, an ice storm, and plain forgetfullness has emptied the freezer one time too often for my budget! I won't go into all the details about my cooking in this blog because I want to save it as a post on the frugal hints blog.

Over the past year or two or three, my weekends have typically been spent staying at the quilting machine trying my best to stay on schedule. In keeping with my goal to "say yes to less" I've been doing other things on the weekends instead. My goal is to have a more normal.... 40 hour week... instead of a 16 hours, 7 days a week, kind of job. The more organized I can make myself.... the easier it will be to relax and have fun now and then.

Speaking of working.... I best get into the studio to start my day.

The perfect excuse for a fabric stash

Ok, I have the perfect excuse for hoarding fabrics and crafting supplies. The more you have the better. There is a wall behind these shelves. So let me explain how this provides us with the perfect excuse. I may have type-talked about this before but it won't hurt to repeat it.




Ok, how to explain it.... hmm.....

Have you ever heard of filling a freezer with jugs of water to take up space so your freezer doesn't have to work so hard to keep things frozen? Or have you heard of filling a jug of water and putting it into the toilet tank so you use less water with each flush? Ok, good.

Imagine you have a very empty room. The furnace kicks in to warm the room or the air conditioner starts to cool it. The smaller the room the easier it is to heat or cool it and thus cheaper. For easy math imagine the room is 100 cubic feet of empty space. You would be heating or cooling 100 cubic feet of space... right?

Ok, so you put a shelf unit and 10 cubic feet of fabric in the room. This means you are now only heating and cooling 90 cubic feet. Put 50 cubic feet of stuff in there and your furnace or air conditioner is only heating or cooling the remaining 50 cubic feet.

You understand what I'm getting at? The more stuff you put into the room the less space your furnace or air conditioner has to work at heating or cooling. See..... I have the perfect excuse if someone were to comment about all that stuff I'm hoarding. I can honestly say.... it's not just stuff.... I'm filling the space to save money on the utility bills. (sly grin)

P. S. to Mark L. You have your no comment reply turned on but I do want to say thank you for taking the time to visit my blog. I hope you visit again sometime.