It’s about doing the thing that is made up of lots of things.

I like projects, I especially like projects that have me learn something new. But ‘projects’ is vague and could mean climbing all the way to the top of Windley Key (I drove by it once) or finding trash bags that fit in my kitchen garbage can (I’ve tried, I can’t). I’ve had projects where I dye up wool, spin it into yarn and crochet it into sweaters. That’s a good, solid project that lasts many months. I actually have a couple more of those projects in the queue, but the flyer on my spinning wheel is shot and needs to be replaced. Also, I will do a thing where I make every single part of dinner from scratch. Like making a falafel dinner where I grind the chick peas and make the falafel, make the pitas, the yogurt, the feta, the tabbouleh, the hummus and everything else from beginning to end. But those only take up a day or two of my time. After I pull my food coma’ed ass out of bed the only project I face is cleaning the kitchen and then I’m as directionless as a high school student who thinks he understands Camus (but Sarte is smartre).

Well, my next big project is bread. I’ve never particularly cared for baking. There’s a sort of precision that makes me shy away from it. But I love bread and I do really need to have a project, so what the hell. Did a little noodling, asked my friends for advice, got a hell of a lot of advice! I also got some sourdough starter from a friend. I think that’s my favorite part, using a starter from a friend who get hers from another mutual friend.

New Mega Project

I want to learn about bread in general and sourdough specifically, so that’s what I got. I literally read The Bread Bible from cover to cover. It sounds a bit tedious but all that repetition smashed all kinds of techniques right into my brain. This is a good project because I’m thinking it will be a solid 3 years from now until croissants. That’s the goal, croissants and I want to get there the long way around. I want to understand every damned aspect of what I’m doing.

How am I doing now after about 8 weeks? I am a bread weenus.

First sourdough

First sourdough

Well, there’s my first sourdough. I was so proud. And oh holy shit did it suck. It was terrible. It had a nice crust and the inside was a bit tight but mostly okay. But it was so sour. It was inedibly sour. It was as sour as your mom when your dad tries to use fart jokes to flirt with the waitress. My guess? I think at some point between making the starter sponge and one of the rises I ended up killing the yeast and the lactobacillis took over. It wasn’t even good for croutons. It sucked and it had to be tossed.

Soft white sandwich bread

Soft white sandwich bread

That’s the soft white sandwich loaf from The Bread Bible and it was awesome. It was so damned perfect and we made sandwiches on it. It was soft without being mushy, the crust to crumb was balanced just right. I loved it, David loved it, Ted, the guy that lives in my attic and spies on us, liked it! I think even Paul and Mary would have liked it.

Sour cream and ginger scones

Tonight it was sour cream and ginger scones with mango curd (seriously, make this. I make it all the time and use the leftover egg whites to make meringues but this time I didn’t feel like futzing with meringues so I gave the egg whites to Chester and made scones instead). They’re a tad dense but not too much and I could just keep eating them. To be fair, there’s a lot of stuff I could just keep eating including off brand cheesy poofs and Necco Canada wintergreen lozenges. I’m not picky.

A friend told me that my flour budget is going to go through the roof and she was right. I need a few different flours for different things and they get used up so damned quickly. But also my butter budget is creeping up there. Our new grocery store is 47 miles round trip (it’s a short, stupid story that isn’t at all interesting) so I end up having to buy a lot at once.

Next up, sourdough cheese crackers made with discard starter, popovers, brioche and another sourdough loaf. I will make a good sourdough loaf or die trying.

It’s good, I’m there. I’m making bread.

And a shout out to David. He made a new dog bed for Chester and it also doubles as a good backdrop for my pictures. Thanks David.
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Other big projects on the horizon…..

Handshakes

As I have mentioned before, I like projects where I have a hand in as many steps as possible. This one is special.

First, my mom sent me a couple bumps of black shetland wool roving. This roving came from sheep owned by my mom’s friend. I don’t have a great picture of it but it is on the right side over there.

backlog.

I have a backlog of fiber to spin. I know!

My friend Kristen lets me use her drum carder. A drum carder is a terrifying machine with a million horrifying teeth that want to scrape the flesh from your bones. Also, you can use it to blend different fibers so that you can spin them up together. I took the wool, ran it through the carder with some very sparkly bits. Not too much, just enough to accent it.

The Mayor's Wife

There i have it, wool from my mom that she got from her friend and now I have it and it is ready to be spun.

Pre-drafted:
The Mayor's Wife

Singles:
The Mayor's Wife, singles to be plyed.

Plied:
The Mayor's Wife, plyed

Washed, thwacked and ready to go:
The Mayor's Wife

I asked my mom to help me line a purse and in exchange I gave this yarn to her. It was the best thing, sharing this gift with her. And then for Christmas I got a most excellent present from my mom.

My scarf

My scarf

She gave me the wool, I gave her the yarn, she gave me a beautiful scarf. This is one of those projects that really mean a lot to me. I get many compliments on it and I love to tell the story. There is a photo of me in the scarf but also I am covered in dirty ice and crappy grit because I fall down all the time and a picture of me coveren in crap really isn’t something you want to see.

It’s my post-apocalyptic skill set

Spinning yarn is always more fun than washing, skeining, counting, blocking the yarn. I’d managed to create quite a backlog of spun-but-not-processed yarns coming off the spinning wheel. 4 different yarns, 9 skeins, 1500 yards.

This is how it goes…

This is the wool after I dyed and washed it. It’s superwash merino wool, which means it won’t felt up on you if you absentmindedly toss your lovely handmade sweater into the wash machine. I use basic acid dyes in a pot with the wool and toss it in the oven for a couple hours on low.
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This is the wool after pre-drafting. You draft the wool, pulling the fibers out and apart a bit so it can be spun evenly and quickly. The header you see at the top of this page comes from this first picture.
Polychaete

Polychaete

Then you sit at your spinning wheel and spin it up
Polychaete

Action shot with Chester
Action shot with Chester

A comparison, wool, pre-drafted roving and singles on the bobbin
Polychaete

Spin up all your wool and then ply it together and do the boring stuff, skeining, counting washing and soaking, squeezing, snapping, and turning it into real yarn
Polychaete

Polychaete

I spun up 750 yards and I named it Polychaete.

And in a slightly different process…

I had 16 ounces of natural black shetland wool that my mom gave me as a gift (thanks mom!!). Since it was black there was no real need to dye it (though I do want to mess around with dyeing over black wool sometime). Instead I ran it through a carder which allows you to blend different fibers together. To the black wool I blended in some sparkly, multi-colored bamboo.

The batt begging to be spun
The Mayor's Wife

Pre-drafted
The Mayor's Wife

On the bobbin
The Mayor's Wife

Singles ready to be plyed
The Mayor's Wife, singles to be plyed.

Plyed
The Mayor's Wife, plyed

Washed and skeined
The Mayor's Wife

The Mayor's Wife

This yielded me 500 yards and I called it ‘The Mayor’s Wife’

Should the final revelation occur and we find ourselves wanting, you’ll be able to find me, I’ll the the chica in the swanky sweater.