Sauce Production

I put 28 gallon bags of tomatoes into the freezer in September. Yesterday morning, I emptied 14 of the bags into big pots on the stove and cooked tomatoes down into sauce. Charlie kept me company while I worked. The husband said the spider needed a name. I said that Charlotte was the obvious choice, but I didn’t want to call a male spider Charlotte. Charlie is gender-neutral enough that it works either way, so Charlie it is.

[I am aware that the spider doesn’t care.]

I did paperwork and tidied up while the tomatoes cooked. Just after lunch, I ran them through the food mill and began filling jars. I had enough sauce for about 17 jars, but the canner only holds 14. The rest of the sauce will get mixed in with the next batch.

It feels good to get that done, at least partly. I need to get the rest of the sauce made this week. I’m going to Ritzville, Washington this weekend to help with the Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale and I plan to stop at the processor on the way back to pick up part of the pork order. The freezer has to be empty.

I’m meeting a friend of mine in Coeur d’Alene on the way to Ritzville. We are going to check out a new fabric store there called Pink Thread. They carry apparel fabric. The big quilt store in Spokane—the Quilting Bee—has also expanded its selection of apparel fabric. I suspected this might happen after Joanns went out of business. While I miss Joanns, I also know that the quality of apparel fabric carried by independent stores is going to be much higher than what Joanns had. (Now, if they will just carry something other than muddy earth tones . . . )

I found a photo of Kaffe and me on the store’s social media page. I think Ashlee was sneaking around taking pictures during class. Kaffe and I were shopping for the fabric to use in the 5" blocks:

Kaffe and Brandon wore shirts made from their fabrics every day. I am wearing my top made from a wideback cotton sateen in the Millefiore print. I have that same print in a lovely grass green.

Snow tires are going on this morning. The tire place doesn’t do appointments, but if you call, they put you on a list and then it’s first come, first served. I don’t usually have to wait more than an hour or two. I take a book and my knitting. The people who wait until the first snow to switch over their tires are the ones who have issues, because then everyone panics.

The husband’s concrete pour went well yesterday. He says he doesn’t feel that bad and thinks I had a worse time of it. Thankfully, whatever I had didn’t last long. I felt much better even by yesterday morning.

I don’t think there is going to be much sewing this week. I do need to organize my embroidery and English paper piecing projects, though, so I have things to work on in the evening.

The mail brought two boxes of goodies yesterday. I’ll show you in tomorrow’s blog post. One box contained thread and one box contained fabric. 🧐