Would you look at that?  I'm sewing today and it made me think of this post.  That was 15 months ago and that sewing journey started six months before that day.  So yeah, I've been working on this project for 21 months.  And as of today, I've finished piecing 96 out of 96 single girl squares and pieced 24 pairs together.  By the end of the day I hope to have one of two twin quilt tops put together.  I think it's a great way to end the month of January.

Of course, February will start with more of the same which is also good.  I'm ready to put this baby to bed.

I baked this past weekend.  A lot.  The total was 2 loaves of the master recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (HBI5), 2 loaves avocado-guacamole bread from HBI5, 5 bagels and 4 soft pretzels from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (ABI5).  I also made a sandwich loaf from the master recipe in HBI5 on Friday.  Yes.  5 loaves and 9 miniatures.  A whole lot of baking.

My successes:  The bagels!  The pretzels!  I have been wanting to make bagels since I got the book over a year ago.  I was scared, though.  Boiling pot?  Sounds tricky.  Guess what?  Not tricky at all.  Actually, super easy.  Both the pretzels and bagels were well received and they both use the same dough.  The difference is what you add to the water in the pot when you boil them.  The bagels take baking soda and sugar whereas the pretzels take cream of tartar and baking soda.  The resting time is shorter than for the big loaves so they are faster to get in the oven which means they are faster to get out of the oven too.  We ate both the bagels and the pretzels warm - yum!  The only thing I really found tricky was rolling the dough in long ropes to form the pretzels.  I did it with difficulty and they turned out fine.  I made some more pretzels after school on Monday for the girls and made the pretzels into sticks instead of twisting them.  So much easier and the exact same taste.  Another word to the wise:  my edition of ABI5 had a significant error in the bagel recipe.  A quick check of the official website told me that the oven temperature should be 450 instead 400.  I also searched the site for soft pretzels and found that although the authors say the cooking time is 15 minutes, it really takes about 30 minutes.  Check the errata before you attempt any of these recipes.

Mixed results:  the avocado-guacamole bread.  If you have been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you know that I love Mexican food.  Accordingly I had high hopes for this bread.  It has whole wheat and white flours with avocado, tomato and garlic.  The taste profile is fantastic!  I baked up the two loaves and took them to a party where the bread got great reviews.  I was a little disappointed, though.  My dough seemed overly wet even though I followed the recipe to the letter.  Accordingly my loaves were a little flat.  Next time I make the dough, I will add additional flour to see if that helps.  But the taste is there so I will definitely make this bread again.

The other mixed result I had was the HBI5 master recipe.  I was really excited to make this because it is a whole grain bread.  My loaves turned out very dense and too wheat-y for my taste.  Don't get me wrong - I like wheat bread.  In fact, when I buy bread, I almost always choose the wheat.  This dough looked great, smelled wonderful and rose exactly as it should.  When I cut into it, though, the crumb was dense.  I think that I was the issue here.  I don't think my oven was up to temperature - I had forgotten that 450 on my oven really isn't 450 degrees.  I have to set it to 475 to have my oven thermometer register 450.  Duly noted.  I will try this again at the correct temperature and hope that it's more to my taste.

Failure:  The master recipe in HBI5 as a sandwich loaf.  It was tiny and I kind of guessed it would be based on the loaf pan size that the authors call for.  The taste is nutty and nice, but it's not great for sandwiches and only ok for toast.  I'll try it again, using a bigger pan and maybe it will work out.  There are a couple other loaf recipes in HBI5 that I want to try too.

All in all, I love both books.  Both ABI5 and HBI5 have made baking bread doable for me.  The fact that I have tubs of dough in my refrigerator and can bake a loaf as it is wanted is amazing.  I love that HBI5 has many more whole grain recipes and interesting ones at that (banana bread for french toast, anyone?).  It also has a whole chapter full of gluten-free recipes - that alone should be a selling point for many people.  The recipes in ABI5 were revolutionary to me and the ones in HBI5 only add fuel to my baking fire.  And, especially, I love that it is easy for me to bake bread.  Easy, people.  So easy that I made blueberry bagels without a recipe telling me exactly what to do. 

Uh huh.  That's what I am talking about.

Fatty and I gave Jane a guitar for her 10th birthday in December.  Included with the gift were lessons and the promise of a mommy-made guitar strap.  A promise because this girl is picky.  If I had gotten it wrong in any way, she wouldn't have used it.  She may not have ever played the guitar.  That's how particular she is.  On the upside, it's good she knows what she likes and she isn't afraid to tell me.  (No pink, but still girly.  Green is good and so is aqua.  Remember, no pink!)  As a result, this project was a complete collaboration.

The bummer about having a December birthday is that your mom might be a little too busy to sew your guitar strap right away.  (Ahem.  And let's not even get started about the birthday shirt.  I swear it's next on the list!  Again, I was afraid it wouldn't be right...)  Thank goodness that her lessons didn't start until January - that bought me some time.  It was a good thing, too.  There were a couple of fabrics that she liked and then abandoned.  But when I bought fat quarters of Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane, she zeroed in on one print in particular.  Ten days later, she was still sold on that print.  On Saturday, she picked the others to go with it, laid them out in the order she wanted them and I started cutting.  She went to swim practice and I got sewing while bread was baking.  It was finished when she came home.

I made two other guitar straps for friends this past fall.  With both of those and this one, I bought inexpensive nylon webbed straps and cut them apart for the hardware.  I searched the internet a few times and couldn't come up with decent leather bits at a reasonable price so re-purposing was necessary.  I made all the straps (one for an adult, two for children) adjustable so that the fit would be just right.

She likes it a whole heck of a lot.  That makes both of us smile.

You guys are awesome!  There are so many great snack ideas in the comments on the last post.  If you are looking for instant ideas, go check them out.  If not, I'll put them all together and make some sort of reference sheet for downloading.  Give me a few days or a week and I'll post it here for you all to download.

This isn't the best photo, but it gives a good indication of my weekend.  Bread.  And then more bread.  Surprisingly, I have quite a bit to say about it, but I want to try one more thing first.  Monday is going to be crazy, so hopefully I'll be back mid-week with my baking successes and failures.

And between batches of bread, I sewed something.  It's cute.  Photo shoot tomorrow and then I'll dish.  Hope your week is off to a good start.

I'm baking bread with regularity again.  I don't know why I stopped in the first place, but I did.  I just bought a copy of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (from the same authors of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day) and it's pretty much rocking my world in a good way.  The photo shows my first batch of the master recipe dough.  It has a much higher wheat to white flour ratio than any of the recipes in the first book.  I haven't eaten it yet, but the oven is heating as I type.  I'll report back once I have sampled it.  My bet is that it is going to be good.  I also have some Avocado-Guacamole bread rising.  I'm pretty psyched to try that.

Speaking of healthy, I'm at a standstill for after-school snacks.  Specifically, after-school snacks that are portable and easily eaten in the car.  There are two days a week that I pick the girls up from school and we drive straight to an activity.  I admit that we do stop at the coffee shop frequently.  I want to change that for health and pocketbook reasons.  I can dream up all kinds of food combinations that I think are fantastic, but don't enthuse my kids.  If you care to share your ideas, I might just make up a master list for downloading.  Is that incentive enough?

I know it's Tuesday, but my kids had a five day weekend.  I've been so confused as to what day it is.  Thursday felt like Saturday and yesterday felt like Sunday.  And while sleeping in for 5 days in a row was quite lovely, this morning came a little too soon.  My internal clock and calendar are all messed up.

Yesterday I spent 15 minutes quilting 3 potholders that have been sitting on my sewing table since September.  Why I didn't do this sooner, I have no idea.  It was instantly gratifying - as soon as I finished, I took them to the kitchen and used them while making dinner.  The actual dinner was horrible, but that is an entirely different story all together.

And then last night while watching TV, I finished up the second sleeve of my tea leaves sweater.  That little ball of yarn is all that remains - it was a really close call.  It fits, but I have to block it and find the right buttons before I can wear it.

What still remains unfinished is the big playroom reorganization that I started on Thursday.  It's been a slow job, but I think the end is in sight.  And after that, I am trashing out the sewing room.  I'm working up the courage to be ruthless with myself.  It's time to de-stash.  And it's going to be hard.

I don't watch the news.  Really.  I blame it on being pregnant on September 11, 2001 and not being able to face the devastation and sadness that tragedy caused.  I was about to bring my second child into a world that was falling apart at the seams.  Fast forward a little more than eight years and I am finding it very hard to watch the news about Haiti.  It breaks my heart.  So many people are dead and hurting and I feel so helpless.  The news about the children is especially hard to hear.  I can't even imagine what I would do if my own child were in that situation.

A woman that I knew in college has a child that is stuck in Haiti.  Through the wonders of facebook, I reconnected with her last year and saw photos of her with her darling son when she visited him in Haiti this summer.  She and her husband were interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN Friday.  They are actively working towards ensuring safety for Haitian orphans.  Please take a moment to watch their interview and to read their thoughts.

My friends' child is not the only one in need.  There are numbers of children in Haiti who are without family.  Many ofthem were in the process of being adopted by families abroad when theearthquake struck.  All of them are in dire need of support.  Pleasewrite your congress people asking them to grant the necessary passportsand visas to those children whose adoption is already in process.  Youcan find out who your representatives are and how to reach them here.

Melissa's family has ties in Haiti.  She shared some good, pertinent links on her site.  I'll repeat them here:

- Partners In Health Updates

- The BRESMA girls and what's happening at their orphanage

- Heartline blog

- Troy Livesay's updates

I know that this post is a little out of the ordinary for me.  Thank you for taking the time to read. 

I have donated this apron and another one to the Craft Hope for Haiti sale.  Please take a moment to look at all of the wonderful donations in the Craft Hope shop.  There are many beautiful handmade items for sale.  100% of sales will be sent to Doctors Without Borders.  If you are unable to make a purchase at this time, consider donating something handmade.  Information on that can be found on the Craft Hope site.