Tomatoes, yarn, doll clothes

It was really really thick and sticky yesterday, so the tomatoes didn't dry down as much as I hoped they would. I could have put them in the oven for awhile to finish the process, but I didn't want to heat up the house, and I was afraid to leave them out in the humid air any longer because they might get moldy.

So I bagged them in pizza-topping portions for the freezer. And oh my, the flavor... like concentrated tomato essense. I have another big bowl full of ripe tomatoes that I'll slice up today, and start the process again.

I finished spinning the yellow-green yarn (108 yds, 2.1 ozs). It's hanging next to the blue-green that was in the same fiber bundle. Both came from Color by Nature's Studio, and are naturally dyed.

Next on the wheel was this fiber, from my friend Dana. It's all wool, with little nubs and bits and threads and bits of sparkle, and streaks of dyed wool here and there.

The darker half (another bag with two shades in one bundle) spun up to 128 yards and 3.8 ozs

with lots of pretty little splashes of color. I'm done spinning the lighter portion and just have to ply it tonight.

Frog Girl has been visiting, and yesterday she worked on her fat quarter Cut, Color 'n Sew outfit for her 18" doll (my design from Spoonflower).

I love what she's doing with the fabric. It's going to make a great doll outfit.

By way of experimentation

It's early in the season, but we're already getting more tomatoes from our 6 plants than we can eat fresh. I enjoy canning, but I don't really want to steam up an already steamy house every couple of days for 3 pints of tomatoes, so The Hub (he of the Solar Pool Heater Invention) built me this:

A dehydrator. It's made from window screens (2 layers, so that the bugs can't land on the screen where the fruit goes), 2" x 2"s, legs made of screws (for good ventilation), and a plexiglass top. The Hub didn't build the dog- he came courtesy of The Son, who is gone for the weekend, so we inherited the pooch.

We quartered and scooped the insides from today's ripe harvest, and arranged them on the screen,

and saved the insides for supper. Yummm.... And then we put the dehydrator in the sun on the front porch and waited.

This what the tomatoes looked like after 5 hours.

This was after 8 hours. They're not totally *done* yet. We brought the frame in at sundown last night, and will set it out after lunch today (no point in rehydrating them in the wet morning air), and I suspect they'll be dry by supper tonight. I see many sun-dried tomato pizzas in our future. Also sun-dried jalapenos, bell peppers, and basil leaves. And anything else I can think of that needs dehydrating.

And how hot did it get inside the dehydrator, you ask?