Barm Again

It was time to feed the barm this morning. Mike and I were out last night, and so we stopped off at the grocery store to pick up some dried cranberries.

They were out of the usual Oceanspray small bags, and so we ended up buying the "economy size" 32 oz. bag. I love dried cranberries. What I don't use in baking, I'll eat straight from the bag. Yum. That was the only thing I needed to move on to the Christmas celebration loaf of Christopsomos. If I'm doing that, then it's time to get the barm ready for baking tomorrow.

It was time to feed it regardless of my plans, and so I read up yet again on how this is accomplished. It's best done by doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling what one already has to work with. My barm weighed close to two pounds. Since I'm only using one cup in the bread, I decided to reduce what I had to one pound. The remainder was placed in a separate container and frozen for future baking. I knew the container weighed 1.7 oz., and so I added that to the weight of the barm to come up with the final amount.

Close enough. Then, I was to add an equal amount of flour and water (8 oz. flour plus 8 oz. water) to the one pound of barm, mix it up, and then wait.

After about 6 hours, it should start bubbling. Then, I'll refrigerate it until tomorrow. Isn't this fun?

It occurs to me that some of the folks who bake bread daily must be constantly worrying over their barms and other forms of starters. They have to be fed, mixed, timed...it's like having a child around. I'm not sure I'll ever be that hard core, but for now, I'm having fun. And I'm pretty excited to make the Christopsomos since I've avoided all other Christmas baking. No divinity for me this year. (Sad face.) And no fudge either. (Sadder face.) And definitely no peppermint bark. (Saddest of all faces.) I might make some gingerbread biscotti, but I haven't thought about it until just now.

Instead, I'm quilting Christmas candy. Yesterday I finished quilting the third of nine blocks with its adjacent sashings.

The metallic thread has been performing well, except when I move out into the sashing. The many seams become quite thick where the nine-patch corners meet with the edge of the block. Sometimes the needle bogs down there and, in the process, becomes bent or dull. When that happens, it starts shredding the thread. I've probably gone through five needles just on these three blocks. Fortunately, I have plenty, but I hate using them such a short time before discarding them.

Now the middle row of blocks is finished, and so I took the whole quilt downstairs to lay in front of the living room windows where it gives me good contrast for taking pictures. I wanted to see how the back was looking, but it was probably too late in the day. I could barely see it with my eyes, let alone take a picture of it. Still, it did give nice contrast for the quilt top.

Below is the middle row of blocks and sashing...all quilted now. I'm very happy with how this is going.

Today I'll continue on, starting with the middle block of the bottom row. It's probably time to think about doing a little housework too...I can think about it without actually doing it, you know. It is Sunday, after all.

The temperatures have warmed up and we've had some rain, but there's still plenty of slushy snow lingering on the ground. We're expecting more next week, and so it'll be back soon enough.