Keep those Buns Toasty Warm with a Bread Quilt!

This week, I’ve been challenged by Kim over at Persimon Dreams as part of her 2019 Project Quilting Celebrity Challenge. Read on to see what my challenge was and what I came up with!

I had been watching Kim’s blog, saving up my creative energy and flexing my quilt muscles. Her first challenge was titled Hope Springs Eternal, the second: Red, White, and Blue. As week 3 rolled around, I was sure I had this—I can handle these parameters!

I anxiously opened up my email on Sunday and just stared when I saw the words Bigger than a Bread Box.

Hm…

That’s broad.

I scrolled down hoping for some more direction. The only rules were that it had to be bigger than a bread box, and include 1 quilting element: quilting, patchwork, or appliqué.

I’ve noticed that my creativity is endless when I have lots of restrictions. It forces me to be creative, but broad guidelines tend to leave me grasping at straws.

So, I decided that I’d wouldn’t only make this project larger than a breadbox, I’d make it bread themed! (And now for the background on why I did that…)

Why Bread?

I am currently in the depths of a bread obsession. For Christmas, I asked for Wild Bread by Maryjane Butters.

I read the whole thing in one night, and mind you, I have NO patience for recipes and rarely stay awake long enough to finish 1 chapter of any book. It was fantastic and I felt inspired to rekindle my sourdough efforts after a series of previous failures.

I set out to really overachieve on this project: I bought a 10 pound bag of Quinoa, sprouted it (10 pounds seemed like a good amount for a first timer—I hope you can hear me rolling my eyes as I say that), and then used my Kitchenaid Mixer Grain Mill attachment to grind my own flour…I was feeling pretty legit.

As you may or may not know, sourdough takes about a month to really hit its stride. It’s a lot of effort for some pretty weird tasting bread during this first month. Despite some weird results so far, we are rounding the corner into week 3 and I can’t wait to see how she shapes up for me on baking day!

NOW, I’m sure you’re wondering if I’m ever going to explain what I made for this challenge. The answer is yes:

I made a Bread Quilt…or more accurately, a bread blanket.

Why a Bread Quilt?

Now, I know that this sounds kind of ridiculous, but think about it for a second:

You know how the bread at restaurants is always toasty warm when you unwrap it from its pristine white napkin? And how those butter packets just melt into that warm, fluffy bread?

I wanted to create that scenario in my own home, especially if we’re going to be eating homemade bread every week now.

Now, I was originally going to make a legit little quilt for this project, but I decided that the layers might lock in too much moisture and not only keep your buns warm but also soggy. I still wanted to make it as quilty as possible to make sure I landed in the project requirements, though. I did an invisible machine appliqué of a little bread symbol in the corner. Then I fired up the Bernina and got to practice with my Binding Attachment for the edges. I was pretty pleased that I had both the main and binding fabrics in my stash! Even better, I have this same fabric for a tablecloth and can’t wait to serve bread in a little warmer that matches the tablecloth!

Side note: I think this would be an amazing project to use with Sashiko fabrics. Check out my tutorial to see what I’m talking about!

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why my bread looks as though it not only needs a blanket but also a pillow.

Let’s say your bread is toasty warm as you tuck it into its little blanket and you lay it on your matching table with care…but then your guests get a little chatty and by the time you’re ready to lather on the butter, the bread is cold!

(Say it isn’t so!)

So, in addition to an outer layer, I’ve created a little flax seed pillow to keep the bread extra warm in it’s cozy blanket. Simply throw it in the microwave for a few seconds to get it warm and your bread is going to stay perfectly warm until you’re ready for it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little bread journey! I certainly have. And tomorrow is baking day, so I’ll let you know how it turned out!

If you’d like to see the other incredible projects that came out of this week’s challenge, make sure to check out Kim’s blog and start scrolling!

***DISCLOSURE***

I cannot take credit for the pretty bread pictured above. I’m still on the “beginner breads” part of the book and these rolls are beyond me at this point! Stay tuned for pretty breads by me in the future!