Baking, Sewing, Laundry, and Everything

Yesterday was another cold and windy day, finished off with a fabulous sunset. This time, I looked in the right direction.

It took only a few minutes for that distinct ridge of clouds to dissipate, and then it took on a more uniform red and blue glow.

The day started with bread dough. This is an interesting dough, made from all-purpose, whole wheat, and rye flours, along with salt, yeast, and a surprise addition of sparkling cider (like Martinelli's). I neglected to take pictures of the first few steps. When I wrote yesterday, it was still coming to room temperature. After it warmed up enough, I flattened it out and added bits of apple, folding the dough and adding more apple, a little bit at a time until it was all incorporated (one Granny Smith apple was enough). After that, I shaped it into a ball and put it in a bowl coated with walnut oil and let it rise for about 2-1/2 hours.

The next step was to deflate it and shape it into a ball, then let it rise in a banneton. When I left it to rise, it looked like this.

About 1-1/2 hours later, it had risen significantly and was ready for baking.

It went into the oven and onto a preheated baking stone sprinkled with cornmeal.

After about 40 minutes...oooh...aaaaah. One loaf of Country Bread with Apples.

After it cooled, I cut into it. It looks like this inside.

We had it with some soup for dinner last night, and then again this morning, toasted, and spread with some apple pie jam I made last summer. Mmm, mmm, mmm. So, I've given you the link to the recipe back there, but I've become aware that some recipes in the NYTimes require a paid subscription. If you want the recipe and can't open the link, then email me, and I'll send it to you.

So while all that was going on, I was doing laundry and sewing. I made the 10th Tiny Tuesday block. This one is a "multiplying four-patch." Pretty cute. It's a four-patch in a four-patch in a four-patch. You can find the instructions for that right here.

It's set in a diagonal setting this week.

Then, I got to work finishing the top for the Project Quilting challenge, Abecedasius. Interestingly, that was the word of the day from Merriam-Webster that came across my email this morning.

So here's my quilt top. It was hard finding a border fabric, and I wanted the quilt a little larger. With Mike's input, I decided to use the same fabric from the background with a little stop border of that stripey stuff. I'll use the same stripe for the binding when it's finished.

This is the fabric I'm using for the back. It's been in my stash absolutely forEVER!

It took a lot longer to get to this point than expected, and so I won't finish it off before this afternoon. Do you ever have a day where you can't seem to do anything right? And you forget how to do simple math? That sort of thing. So anyway, when I started quilting, I stitched in the ditch around the letters and heart, deviating to stitch diagonally where I could. Deviating: related to "deviance." Just sayin' in case you're keeping track.

Here's how that's looking from the back.

Then I started filling in the background with this meandering heart fill. I was about 1/3 of the way when I needed to stop for the day.

I'm filling in all the areas inside the stop border this way, and then I'll have to decide whether to do the same thing in the outer border or do something else. I'll decide when I get that far. I'm really hoping to get this finished off today because the flamingos are squawking..."Quilt us now!" Birds. Ya gotta love 'em.

Today I'm heading out for the haircut I rescheduled from last week because of snow. As I look out the window now, there is snow falling. Yikes. Hopefully, it won't get in my way, but I really don't like driving in snow. It's supposed to warm up in a few hours, so maybe it won't stick around. Aside from that, I'll just push on with my quilting through the afternoon.