Only 2 more days left of the blog hop. Boo. Hoo. But, that also means only a couple more days until the winners of the Blog Hop Grand Prizes are announced. WooHoo! Today Jamie over at Scrap Bags is our featured designer and she is sharing a fascinating demo on fabric dying. You can read all about it here. It looks like something you can really get creative and have some fun with.
I also wanted to just answer a couple questions from the posts from the last few days. Many of you have been asking about who does the machine quilting you have been seeing. I like to do every step of the quilting process, from the piecing, to the quilting, to the binding; so everything you see on this site has been quilted by me. I have been machine quilting on a Gammill for the last 13 years, but just made the switch to an APQS a few months ago. I used to do my machine quilting on a regular home machine, but after a year or so of that, I got a longarm and went into business machine quilting for others. I have since quit that part of my business, but continue to keep my machine and quilt my own samples. That way, if I have to finish a quilt by a deadline, I can!
The other question that came up yesterday, is where is the bread recipe? Joel hinted about it to his Mom and she offered it up!
Here is her version, with as I mentioned yesterday, everything done by hand. (I’ll follow up with my version, adapted for the bread machine)
1 Quart Boiling water. Add to boiling water:
4 tsp salt
2 cups quick oatmeal
Stir and add:
5/8 cup dark molasses (she uses black strap molasses from our local health foods store – this is key! It won’t be as good if you just use regular molasses)
1 stick butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
Cool this mixture to 110 degrees
When cool, mix in 4 cups flour and
4 T. yeast, dissolved in 1 cup warm water and a little sugar (1 tsp)
Continue to add flour to make a fairly stiff dough – about 4-5 cups.
Knead on floured countertop until smooth. Let rise until double in size.
Make into six loaves on a cookie sheet (you could also make 4 loaves in standard size bread pan) and let rise until doubled in size and looks airy on top.
Bake at 350degrees for 30 minutes.
Now, here’s my version, for the bread machine:
2 1/4 cups boiling water. Add to boiling water:
1 cup quick oatmeal
2 tsp salt
1/2 stick butter
1/3 cup dark (black strap) molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
Stir and allow mixture to cool to 110 degrees.
In bread maker,
Add 5 cups flour
and 1 1/2 Tbs yeast, dissolved in 1/3 c warm water with a little sugar.
Add oatmeal mixture and run dough cycle. If looks too sticky after the dough cycle, knead in a bit more flour
Shape into two loaves and allow to rise until double in size.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes
I don’t think the bread turns out quite as good in the bread machine, but I’m just don’t have that hand kneading technique down yet. Maybe after a few more years of practice . . . .
I hope you all enjoy this recipe – Let me know how it turns out!