Our Domicile

Last month while Lauren and I were down in Seattle at The Lab doing some book chatting, we took our regularly scheduled trip to Elliot Bay Books. Mmmm books. Because I had indulged in more than my share of spending the day before at Anthropologie (damn I’m a sucker for that place), I held back from picking up a copy of the ever-so compelling Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day in favour of taking it out of the library when I got home and giving it a good trial run before I made a purchase. I often do this with cookbooks, as one can only tell so much from reading recipes vs. actually cooking with them, and my cookbook collection would otherwise tend to grow a bit of out control. Plus, I was kind of unsure about the whole “artisan” in five minutes a day concept to be honest. I count myself amongst the snobbier of bread consumers and wasn’t sure this would really measure up.
I had to wait in a queue at the library and the book came up a week or so ago. I dove right in and tried out the basic recipe. Now, to be honest, after spending on evening flipping through the book, I actually didn’t think that trying out the basic recipe was going to give me what it did. I thought the basic recipe, which has its own little section at the beginning of the book, was kind of like the sponge or base you’d begin with and that I’d be able to throw some whole wheat or (my favourite) rye flour in there to make a more interesting loaf. Turns out no. If you want to make rye bread, you use the rye dough, if you want multigrain, use the multigrain dough, etc. While this seems really obvious in the retelling, it didn’t at the time. The book was structured to devote a whole intro chapter to this basic recipe and then the rest of the book is devoted to other breads. I guess I just made some faulty assumptions there, but I was kind of bummed when I went to bake a less “white” bread the next day and discovered that I was already locked into a specific recipe. So be warned.
The bread itself? Well I suspect it’s a lot like the no knead bread that made the internet rounds. That seems to be what they’re getting at (they stress that you should not knead the dough) and while I never made the no knead bread, I did eat it somewhere and it was quite similar. I’ve so far only tried the one basic recipe (we went away so I abandoned my bread making for a bit there) and it was fine. Not nearly as good as the recipes coming out of Local Breads, but really much, much less time consuming. I adore my copy of Local Breads, (as I’ve said before I read it before bed and dream of bread making), but I don’t often have the time to be home to engage with the bread during its various rising/proofing stages. I’m eager to try the other 5 minute bread recipes and see if they sell me a bit more on the book and concept.
We’re talking about following the path laid out in Babara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in September and eating more locally. Not quite a 100 Mile Diet kind of a thing, but a definite local focus/local challenge. Like Kingsolver, we’re going to have exceptions and one of ours may be flour so that I can make all our bread. We’ll see though, we’re still working it out as a family.

To say that I wanted to love this book wouldn’t really do things justice. Really, I just assumed I would love this book. Like, L-O-V-E love it. Afterall, I adore Amy Butler’s fabrics. Regularly succumb to ordering her patterns online (which then too often sit languishing in my sewing room, but that doesn’t mean I love them any less), and am a big fan of Amy Butler’s In Stitches, as I’ve mentioned before. The format of Little Stitches is the same as In Stitches, meaning it’s a combination of general sewing tips and know-how, gorgeous photos of sewing projects, and then a full set of patterns and instructions tucked into the back, but instead of focusing on general household/personal projects the theme is all babies. Specifically babies from newborn to 1 year old (for pattern sizing), nursery projects, stuffed toys, and things like diaper bags for mom.

So where was I? Oh yes. I was sure I’d love this book, so when my friend Annemarie asked if I wanted a review copy I jumped on it. I’ll admit, my only hesitation stemmed from our ongoing struggles to conceive (still not happening), and the pages and pages of cute newborn projects I would be confronting myself with. But, I do love making gifts for friends and I’ve got no shortage of friends with new wee ones. Plus, any chance to make adorable things with Amy Butler fabric inspirations seemed like it would override any emotional tingles.

So, I set out to make at least two projects as a way to test the book’s actual patterns as a part of my review. I chose the booties and the jumper dress as they seemed like great gifts, and were frankly easily made out of existing pieces of fabric I had lying around. (As a side note: I so love making things for little people when it comes to fabric usage. It’s so satisfying to indulge in lovely fabrics but  not break the bank due to the small amounts required.) Both projects did not really turn out. The booties — which I double checked pattern and measurement sizes on several times — ended up with a leg hole far to small for chubby baby legs, and the jumper I ended up abandoning the instructions for half way through (there seemed to be a stray waistband that did not figure into the pattern in any way I could work out) and pieced together with my own plan/logic. The final product worked out, but seemed in the end to have required a far more steps/complication than really should have been necessary for such a simple garment. I have to admit, I’m wondering if I was suffering from some sort of sewing curse that weekend, as one of the things I’ve always loved about Amy Butler is the simplicity in her patterns. I’m quite tempted to try another pattern to see that was the case (and I hate to judge a book on two patterns alone) but honestly, the other patterns all look like their likely way more complicated. And here’s where my other concern with the book comes in: the patterns are far too complicated/intricate for the moms of newborns that I know (and the sizing only goes up to 1 year). (And I know some really overachieving, driven, seamstressy kinda mommies). So I’m not totally sure who the audience is. It seems like it would be a super awesome thing to give to your talented mom/sister/mother in-law/grandma who has the time to make you a full set of crib bedding, but I’m not convinced the average pregnant/new baby gal has the chops to get into the level of projects in this book.

I’m curious though. Has anyone else picked this up? Sewn with it? Am I suffering from a sewing curse? Am I loosing what remains of my mind due to the emotional rollercoaster that is my own trauma with conception and pregnancy? Help me out here. And more specifically, if you made one of these patterns and it worked, which one? I’m happy to try again, because I really do want to love this book.