Sandwich Bread + Cross stitch

First of all, let me just say, that these projects were from a couple of weeks ago. I wish I could say I've been creative this week, but there hasn't been much time. Let's be real about this, I haven't had much energy for it, either. Putting on a wedding takes a lot out of you. So, instead of creative pursuits, this week has been dedicated to taking care of business (changing health insurance, registering for classes) and cleaning up the aftermath of the wedding. There's been a lot of laundry and dishes, making of thank you cards and envelopes, and general tidying up. Hopefully by the end of the week our house will be back to it's pre-wedding shape.

Now about this bread! It's the light wheat bread from Smitten Kitchen, originally from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Now, I've heard talk around the internet about how some people are afraid of making yeasted breads--too many opportunities for something to go wrong or some such nonsense. I say, charge ahead, leave your fears behind, and bake this bread already. It's delicious and holds together perfectly for sandwiches. We slice it and keep it in the freezer, per Deb of Smitten Kitchen's recommendation. That way we always have fresh homemade bread on hand.

All you need (you know, besides the ingredients) is a little time and a warm spot in your kitchen. The actual amount of time you'll spend working on this bread is very small, a matter of a few minutes here and there and then hours of rest time during which you can clean, go for a walk, or make a craft.* As for a warm spot in the kitchen, Kentucky in the summer is a wonderful place for making bread. All of the humidity here makes for some excellent, super-fast rising loaves of bread. You can find the recipe here.

As for the napkin, I was inspired by Heart of Light's embroidered "Eat" napkins. I wanted to make something pretty and also useful, plus I'm interested in reducing my garbage output. Cutting down on paper towel use seems like a good idea. K and I don't generally use too many paper towels, but when we have people over for a meal, I feel like I should put something out for them to wipe their hands on. So, cloth napkins make perfect sense. I picked up four of these navy blue ones for 25 cents total at a yard sale. What a deal! Also, my mom made a lot of colorful cloth napkins for the wedding, so we've got those now, too.

I really like the how the cross stitch turned out. Kind of folksy and old-fashioned. I'm planning on cross stitching the other three blue napkins with similar (but different) corner patterns in various colors. I can't wait until we have people over to use them!

* * * * *

*These are just my go-to options. I'm sure you can come up with your own ideas to occupy a few hours.

Cross stitch pattern from here.