chill

It's 64 degrees inside this morning, and I'm opening the house up, because I'm certain that it's warmer outside! The east coast is having a snap of fall weather, as P said it was cold in DC yesterday. Well it could be that we're just hothouse flowers, transplanted from the tropics, but it does feel nippy, and the Must Have cardigan has finally felt like something other than overkill!

Back when it was warm, aka, last week, I broke out the ice cream maker and whipped up a batch of vanilla ice cream.
Was intending to make a fig/lemon recipe, but my figs were few and not really that luscious, so I satisfied myself by eating them with chevre instead. What we made, this dreamy french vanilla, involving a cooked custard and real vanilla bean, was yummy and consumed with some hot fudge sauce. I have a problem with maintaining the texture of my homemade ice creams; they go a bit icy in the freezer. My research reveals that maybe 2 eggs in the custard are insufficient. Mayhaps 5 or 6 are needed. Yeesh. I saw a recipe that called for 8, suddenly making 5 eggs seem not all that excessive.

Pleased to find another spindler in my knit group. It gives me the motivation to go on with this silly little fascination of mine with making small amounts of inconsistent (ie, Novelty Yarn) and wrecking my wrists in the process. I have spun up all the blue and brown Romney, and am now in the process of plying it, which goes slowly, and with much attendant wrist and elbow soreness. I will post the finished yarn, which I don't think is going to make my hoped-for 200 yards goal.
I do think this roving is really pretty drafted up, and I'm hoping the yarn itself will soften upon washing, as it's a wee bit scratchy now.

Because of the (ahem) chill around here, I started knitting Wanette Clyde's Felicity hat. I had some Cascade Dolce in my stash, and I'm hoping it's enough, since I sized up the needles to #6 and #8. The Dolce is my new true yarn love, soft, shiny and strong all at once. I have never knit a hat I liked, due more to mismatches of pattern and yarn and gauge than any real dearth of good hat patterns out there, but I'm hopeful for this one, as my hat buying days are over, or so I intend them to be.

More coffee is called for at this point.