I love October!  It begins with my birthday (the 5th!), ends with Halloween, and it means the beginning of fall, with its wonderful cold and misty mornings.  Today is one of those days in L.A., gray and overcast and still.  My favorite!  Weather-wise, I'm sort of mismatched with this city for most of the year; I've lived in Southern California for 10 years (weird) and the only year that was rainy enough for my tastes was the year of El Nino.  I was living in the dorms at CalArts then, and our campus is on top of a hill.  I used to put on layers and big boots and walk around the hills that separated our campus from the Valencia suburbs in the rain.  If only I had knit back then!  Think of all the projects I could have made during all those hours spent backstage, or waiting at rehearsals, or napping studying in between classes at the library.

When the weather turns like this, I spend a lot more time in the kitchen.  I've always loved to cook; I have a big Southern family, with lots of great cooks on both sides... lucky me!  Every time I visit either of my grandmothers, I spend an afternoon at the kitchen table writing down recipes and listening to family stories; easily one of the best possible ways to pass the time, I think.  I bake a lot when the weather gets chilly.  One of my favorite desserts to make is a chess pie.  I've found that in California, people haven't really heard of chess pie.  It is a really simple, classic Southern pie. My family has at least five different "family" recipes for chess pie, each a little different.  The basic idea is always the same: lots of eggs, lots of sugar, a good amount of butter, and lots of heavy cream or buttermilk.  It's basically a sugar pie, honestly, so you know it tastes good.  It is very easy to improvise and add little touches of other ingredients to the custard mix (I often add rum, because I'm often baking chess pie on Thanksgiving or Christmas, and there is often rum on the counter for cider). I've been playing with a lemony chess pie lately, and I think the results are so creamy but light, I decided to pay attention while I baked on so that I could post the recipe here.  Especially if you've never made a chess pie, try it out!  A less-glowing and dreamy, more accurate photo can be found on my Flickr page.

Buttermilk Lemon Chess Pie

A light, fresh-tasting version of one of my family favorites.  Definitely a crowd-pleaser!  Feel free to use your very best pie crust recipe; I'll confess right off the bat that I use a (quality) frozen crust.  I always have one in the freezer in case the urge to bake a pie or quiche strikes.  You'll need a deep-dish pie crust for all this yummy filling!

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter
• zest of 1 lemon (organic if possible)
• juice from 1 1/2 lemons
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1 9-inch pie shell

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, heating a baking sheet inside.  Prick the bottom of your pie crust with a fork.  If you have fancy pie weights to keep the crust from puffing up, use them!  I just keep an eye on it.  Place your crust on the warm baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, just until the bottom is starting to get golden.  Remove pie crust and baking sheet from oven and let them rest.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until they are a fluffy light yellow.  Beat in the flour (no lumps!) and then the buttermilk.  Beat in the rest of the ingredients and stir until everything is well mixed.  Pour mixture into pie crust.  Carefully slide the baking sheet with the pie crust back into the oven (on the middle rack).  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  You can test the pie's done-ness by giving the baking sheet a slight shake.  The very middle of the pie will jiggle slightly, but set as it cools.  Let the pie cool to room temperature on a rack, then refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.  Enjoy!

Three mini-hanks of chocolate-covered cherries BFL. My very first handmade yarn!

Mystery delicious fiber (the color combo is so unusual, and so beautiful). Spun up at a cafe during my lunch break.

To my inexperienced eye, I did the best job with this little hanklette. Julia's spindle (on loan; she's a generous friend... who is also getting me - and my budget - back for all the fabric links I've been sending her way since she got a sewing machine!) with some merino-in-progress in the background.  I'm trying to spin the rest of the merino a little thinner than my other wee hanks; we'll see how that turns out.

Just a quick note:  have you seen Bonne Marie's newest design, Ariann?  I really, really like that sweater!  I'm thinking a great big knit-along is on the horizon...

I have to admit, I've been "spin-curious" for quite a while now.  I like to make things.  I like yarn.  Add a little good-natured peer pressure, and soon enough, pretty obvious I'd want to learn to make yarn.  Enter a sunny afternoon on a good friend's deck, laughter and great company, and it all adds up to an afternoon (and evening) well spent. 

Gathering my things to leave, I experienced the previously documented "enabling" side of spinning.  "You'll want to try this; but it has a short staple length." (merino wool, the color of a camel after it has been dipped in butter) "This has alpaca, and silk, and rayon; the rayon will be the tricky part at first, take two." (gleaming bird's nests the exact combination of my childhood cat, a calico with olive eyes) A loaner spindle!  Resistance is futile.  I drank the Kool-Aid, pretty much.  (many, many thanks for all the tips and practice goodies! I brought the spindle to work today... not that I'm a little compulsive or anything.)

Aw, a little mini-hank of curlicued beginnger handspun! Experienced spinners, I'm sort of in awe of you lot.  It takes Time, doesn't it?  And of course, lots of practice and skill.  I kind of have... none of those things, but it's really fun to learn something new!  I think the next new thing I learn should be how to get by without any sleep at all, because I sort of really need to learn that right away.  I have so many projects in progress, it actually is a little bit hilarious...

Jacob had a good suggestion for me, after watching me practice spinning for a bit earlier this evening.  "That's really cool," he said.  "You know what you could do next?  You could grind some grain into a fine meal, and shape up some patties for the wood oven!  And then you could go out and herd the goats in the pasture."  That cracked me up.  

A (very very beginner, because that's where I am with spinning) question though, if anyone feels so inclined to answer:  can you pre-draft a lot of yarn at once, or is it better somehow to do it just before you spin? 

...because I'm certainly making slow and steady progress with the knitted polo.  I've been hovering just above the waist decreases for almost three weeks; the good news is, I've been knitting this shirt in the round, rather than flat (as Beth's pattern is written in Greetings from Knit Cafe), so I really don't have that much further to go.  This shirt is on the knitting back burner right now, but I will admit to taking it out every so often just to make sure the yarn is as soft as I remember.  It always is.

The yarn is absolutely wonderful.  Classic Elite Premiere, a 50/50 pima cotton/tencel blend; so, so soft.  The fabric has a lovely drape, weight, even a slight sheen, and that delicious buttery yellow may be my most beloved color right now.  I have very, very high hopes for this one.

Embroidery.  Instantly I remember a pale blue hoop; refuge from humid August afternoons; Mam-maw showing me her needle-threading trick. I love the need to be precise, to focus.

Wee Wonderfuls Stitchette pattern by the always inspiring Hillary. I backed her with some passamenterie pack fabric that I love.  I mean really, really love it.  Lots.  I picked embroidery floss to go with the fun floral pattern; purple, red, and yellow are colors I rarely use, but now I can't figure out why on earth I avoid them. While in progress, I had a hard time deciding what I wanted the embroidery to become... torn between putting it in a frame and making a sweet, simple stuffie, I decided at the last minute to blanket-stitch a circle of wool felt to the open bottom of the stuffed doll. A display doll; with the felt bottom and some interfacing, it stands up straight, but is still soft enough for a toddler to run around with.