Hey! Want to see a picture of an almost done sweater? This Little Oak for Charlotte has been blocked, kitchenered, and has all the ends woven in. Guess what is not quite done?
Yup. Those buttons are just placed there for show. For some reason, having good intentions about finishing a project isn’t quite enough to actually finish the project… It’s also 80+ degrees Fahrenheit here, so the chances of her wearing the sweater this week are limited. The yarn is Manos Alegria in Magenta and I used just a little more than one ball. I will weigh it at some point and make sure it’s accurate on the Ravelry page.
Y’all, I took a major nosedive into baking this past week and a half. Matt joked that I was going to turn into a bread blogger. I started out slowly with the NYT No Knead Bread Recipe. Knowing myself, I really wanted to get my hands into things, so that was just a quick foray into bread while I learned how to make my own sourdough starter and go for the full mama jama. I kept diving deeper into blogs and articles about bread and decided that conquering the Tartine Country Loaf recipe using my own starter would be the bread version of some kind of holy grail. So I made a starter using the instructions in the Tartine Bread book. Her name is Ursula.
I cheated a little bit and used some pineapple juice for a couple of days to get her going (not strictly by the book) after reading that as a repeated suggestion online. It worked. She’s vital and up and running. So far the bread count for the past two weeks is up to 13 loaves (two still proofing in the refrigerator), and 6 of those are Tartine Country Bread attempts. I’m not happy with my oven spring, so I’m still working on that. Last night I prepped four loaves, but let two finish bulk rising in the fridge and did two on the counter. We will see what happens. It’s fun to experiment and throw myself into an obsession that gives my wrists a break from knitting. My wrists are feeling a lot better now, so I’m sure once I get a loaf that satisfies me I’ll be right back to knitting. I just like to know how to do things and make them come out the way I want, you know? Here is a loaf that came out this morning, but I haven’t tasted it yet…
I promise this won’t turn into a bread blog, but I just had to share a bit.
Lovely sweater (even if the buttons are “stick on” for now . . . we all have a cardigan–or 2!–in that state); and bread blogs are great blogs! I appreciate that you named your starter 🙂 My husband was deeply into bread baking for many years and we all enjoyed the benefits!
That is SO crazy, as I have gone on exactly the same path in the past several weeks!!! I first started with the no-knead bread, only to go on to taking a bread-making class online (Artisan bread making with Peter Reinhart on Craftsy – it’s not on sourdough but it’s a brilliant introduction to all sorts techniques important for bread and he is an awesome teacher) and then buying the Tartine book and watching every single video of Chad Robertson I could find! I can only bake the Tartine bread on my days off, though, since it does chain you to the house quite a lot. I’ve done a total of 8 loaves by now, and even those which I considered quite a flop were hailed by my friends as “the best bread ever”, which is so lovely. (And yes, I have to keep giving them to friends because otherwise I would weigh a million pounds very very soon…) Have you discovered the blog ‘The Perfect Loaf’? I find it super helpful and in my process I combine the instructions from the Tartine book and that blog…
That is hilarious! I have discovered that blog and I’m definitely going to check out that craftsy class. It was definitely an undertaking to try to do things on a weeknight, but I started the levain in the morning and did the bulk rise last night. One set got to have the bulk rise in the fridge overnight and is also proofing and baskets in the fridge all day long today. That big experiment. The other ones proved in the fridge and baskets overnight and didn’t seem to get quite a big rise. I am definitely also handing out loaves of bread left and right, because yes, we can’t eat it all.
Oooh, that sounds like a schedule I’ll have to try! So far I’ve been doing the levain on Fri evening, all the folds and shaping during Sat, final rise overnight in the fridge and baking Sun morning. It’s fine, but I’d prefer to have the bread ready on Sat morning, as we eat most bread on the weekends. Yay so happy to have someone to share notes with! 🙂
I have pineapple juice in the fridge (from a can i used for lazy people teriyaki fish), and now you have me thinking that making bread is the best use for it. 😉
That is a pretty cardigan. And hot dog! Your bread is beautiful and I can smell it from here.
Beautiful sweater! I tried to make a starter last year and it didn’t take. I want to try again though and will go the route you did – using something like juice for some extra kick to get it started. Please continue to blog about your bread making efforts – I’d like to hear more!
Love those bright blue-green buttons with the magenta color of the sweater!!
I’ve dabbled in bread baking but not enough to get such beautiful results! Thanks for sharing!