Bread & Knitting

I have a problem with store-bought bread. Not so much the quality, because you can get some really great breads off the shelves. It's the price that really burns me. $2.99-$3.50 or more for a lousy loaf that costs .50 or less to make. This would not be such a big deal if I bought bread once or twice a week. In my house, however, we go through 1-2 loaves every day and have for years and years.

I used to have a bread machine, which I used daily for years and years. It made pretty decent bread at a pretty decent price. When it finally died last October I found that I was delighted with the freed-up space on my counter (small kitchen, not much space to begin with), so I decided to go back to making bread by hand again. About that time there was an article in the NY Times about easy bread with really great crust, and the ancient Dutch oven that had belonged to a long-deceased aunt got a new lease on life.

Voila, yesterday's breads:

Oatmeal

French

On the knitting front, I am slowly working away on the cashmere lace scarf. This yarn is such a pleasure to handle, I am in no hurry at all to finish the project.

The pattern comes from that lucious bit of eye candy, Victorian Lace Today, with some slight modifications from me.

In the meantime, I was looking at Brooklyntweed's blog and was fascinated by the baby hats he made. So I made a couple of my own. The pattern is free on-line at Hello Yarn. Really cute and each takes less than a day to make. I used two different balls of Mexican Wave from stash.