Sophia's Backpack

 

I've been wanting to make my daughter one of these backpacks for several years. I've had the fabric and hardware, but just didn't take the time to do it. Finally, I planned on making Damian's Travel Bag and Sophia's backpack for this past Christmas, but I didn't get either of them finished on time. Well, finally both of them are finished! 
If you've been following my blog, you've seen this backpack pattern before. It's the Sew Sturdy Essential Backpack pattern, found on the Craftsy platform. You can buy the class or just the pattern. I've used it twice before: first for my grandson, and second as an insulated backpack for carrying lunches. Now, it was finally my daughter's turn. 
I do like the final product when I make bags, and a lot of the process, but putting it all together makes me wonder why I continue to make bags. Such a lot of hassle stitching through the multiple layers - I still can't comprehend how people make bags using heavier materials, like upholstery fabric or vinyl. Nevertheless, it's finished. And my daughter has already made a request for a sewing machine cover, so I'm not escaping bag-making yet (though technically, that will not be a bag). 
And I'm continuing my bread making adventures.

I made the cottage loaf, which made for a very interesting presentation. Not a bad bread, but interesting as to how one actually eats a loaf like this.

I also made the Split Tin loaf, though my split filled in rather quickly and is not as pronounced as the picture in the book. Both of these breads are from the British Breads section in The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making. 

And finally, I made the Naturally Leavened Sourdough Bread. It, too, turned out fine, though I have yet to figure out the best storage option for my bread. It gets rather hard in the fridge, but I don't generally eat it quickly enough to keep it from getting moldy outside of the fridge. Perhaps I should consider cutting loaves in half and freezing half. 
And that leads me to my freezers, which are overly full. I did get the smaller one defrosted and a little better organized. I have three bags of UFOs (unidentified frozen objects) and "use soon" items. My plan is to take out one or two items out at a time, determine what they are and decide whether to use them or compost them. I took out one unlabelled container and it turned out to be pizza sauce. I managed to use up my sourdough starter discard and made 3 batches of pizzas. That's 3 - 10" pizzas per recipe. I actually staggered my starting time for each recipe, so that I wouldn't have to be making all 9 pizzas at once, especially since I only have 3 - 10" pizza pans. But somehow, even though I started each recipe an hour after the previous one, they managed to catch up with each other. However, I got them all made, and into the freezer. 

Vegan pastrami, green peppers and pineapple

I made a huge batch of veggie cheese sauce that I figured would be enough for all 9 pizzas. But it was quite thick, and not very spreadable, so it only lasted for the first two batches. 

broccoli, vegan pepperoni and red onion

Next time I use that particular recipe, I think I may try adding more liquid. Fortunately, I did have some commercial vegan cheese shreds in the freezer, so I was able to use that for my final batch of pizzas. 

garlic soy chunks, garlic and olives

By the time it came to this last batch, I had run out of space on my cooling racks, and these pizzas were placed on the back of a large cookie sheet. 
And the pizzas have already come in handy when I failed to plan ahead and/or ran out of energy by mealtime.
I also found a pie crust and enough cooked sweet potato in the freezer to make a sweet potato pecan pie for Easter. 

I wanted to try something different for an entree, so I did an internet search for vegan Easter recipes and found a recipe for Lentil Wellington. I was planning on purchasing puff pastry and the website for my local grocery store said that they had it in stock, but after searching every freezer, I had to give up and decide on an alternate. 

I made it into a pie instead. I used a whole wheat pie crust recipe that I hadn't tried before and it was too crumbly. It was still tasty, and so was the filling, but it barely stayed together. 

And of course, I made hot cross buns. Originally, I was going to use a recipe from the King Arthur Baking website, but it called for both yeast and baking powder. That just seemed really weird to me. So, I pulled out my old Purity cookbook and modified their recipe. I made them out of white whole wheat flour and substituted mixed dried fruit for the candied peel (which I find disgusting). They turned out quite nice, but I've got to stop making such large recipes, especially when there's no room in the freezers. And they do tend to get dry and hard in the fridge.