Tackling Tomatoes Today

Good morning, my friends. It's the day I celebrate and dread all at the same time. Yesterday I picked up 40 lbs. of tomatoes from our CSA farmers. Wanna see what 40 lbs. of tomatoes looks like?

Beautiful, aren't they? We're down to our last jar of pasta sauce, and the last jar of salsa is open in the refrigerator. And not to brag, but I think homemade pasta sauce and homemade salsa taste better than anything available in the grocery store. And so...it's a big job. So far, I'm willing and able to do it. 

I didn't do any canning last year. We haven't had a garden for the past two summers, and I still had enough of everything to get us through the year. So that means I've had a two-year break from canning. Still...what a lot of work. I'm dragging my feet this morning at the thought getting started. Thankfully, our farmers left me a gift watermelon at the pick-up site. That was a nice surprise!

Before heading out yesterday morning, I spent some time on my Sashiko piece. The hand-stitching is very close to being finished now. When I left home, Sadie was snuggled up in her quilt. It's been a while since it's been cool enough for this.

When I got home, I sorted and washed jars and lids. Everything is ready to go for today and tomorrow. There was still time left in the day for a little sewing. My goal was to sew The Sewing Room blocks into a little banner for my sewing room. I first sashed them together in a column.

Then I added a stop border all around.

Then I added side borders, and checked to see if it would fit in its future home. It does. Barely.

And then I added top and bottom borders. I decided to make them a little wider to show off that fabric some more. I might decide to trim a little from each one. I'll give my eyes some time to get used to looking at it before I do any cutting.

It ends up at 12 x 47 inches. I used that same solid lavender to cut binding strips.

I'd selected a couple of different fabrics as potential backs. There was just a little left of the floral...not enough to do much else...and so I decided to use that for the back. Now, I have just a few scraps left.

Now I've listed it under the "Small Quilts for Quilting" heading. It won't have to wait long for its turn. There is one other small quilt ahead of it. I'll use this length of purple ribbon to make a banner-style hanger for it.

So my day will be pretty well filled by tomato tonnage. If there's time for sewing, I'll return to my list of WIPs. 

Next up will be to make the ninth of nine blocks for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. Here's what I have so far:

This is the block I'll be making.

Before I do anything else today, I'll spend a little time on my slow-stitching. And then...tomatoes. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. The next two days will be taken up by tomatoes. Wish me luck, my friends. I'm going in.