Better Living Through Literature – Words + Projects + Stuff I Like

Tuesday Project Roundup: Matchy-Matchy

April 7, 2026 KarenLeave a comment

I finally made some matching machine covers for the Luxury Sewing Lair so now the decorating is all done.

Look at all those matching machines! I used the Closet Core free patterns for this but adjusted them for my machines: I cut the serger/coverstitch one down about an inch in width and two inches in height based on the last time I made it since it’s a little big for a Juki. And I had to add quite a bit of width/length for the sewing machine cover, since my 740 is about twice the size of a regular machine.

The fabric is from Spoonflower. I just guessed quantities and got a yard of their heavier sateen wideback. At 108″ I was just able to fit all three covers on there, but I didn’t have enough to make a table pocket for the back of the machine cover.

That 6.5 oz sateen is a nice substrate, though. Part of me wants to get more printed so I can have a pillow on the couch that matches the machine covers, but that might be getting a little TOO matchy-matchy.

Semi-annual Cookie Fest

April 6, 2026 KarenLeave a comment

We did the new Easter tradition of brunch and cookie delivery over the weekend. Six dozen cookies and six pastry tips this time!

I took today off too, because it’s so slow/I decorated cookies most of Saturday. Time to eat cookies and sew!

Friday Links

April 3, 2026 KarenLeave a comment

1. I might be a little too excited about a woman in a rocket named after the moon goddess, but in our theme of space and parodies this week: Shoot Men Into Space. Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” for 2026.

2. Via Robin Sloan, the JR Kuyushi Railway Company site. Look at those trains! Let’s book the one that goes to the hot springs.

3. This is absolutely what Toyotas would sound like:

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Moon Rocket!

April 2, 2026 KarenLeave a comment

I haven’t made a new entry in the “space” category of the blog in six years (and before that I was really excited about, uh, SpaceX) (oh, my sweet summer child)–but the MOON ROCKET launched successfully yesterday!

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Nothing will make you feel more “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” like seeing humanity do an amazing thing in 2026, but the moon rocket did indeed cure my depression yesterday.

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Wednesday Poem

April 1, 2026 KarenLeave a comment

This might be the best thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, I love a parody but I also sincerely love how reassuring this is. Thanks, random Tumblr user! (and friend Mike who shared the link.)

EVERYTHING’S FINE 🙂
By W.B. Yeats

Tracing a neat straight line, adept and sure,
The falcon heeds the calling falconer;
Things hang together, and the center holds;
Mere symmetry is ordering the world,
The sea-bright tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence proceeds;
The best have strong convictions, while the worst
Are full of resignation and are sad.

Surely no revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming’s far away.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When an indifference borne of stable comfort
Leaves my sight clear: somewhere in sands of the desert
A lion with lion body and the head of a lion,
A gaze calm and leonine, as is usual,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the normal desert birds.
What a nice lion, right? And now I know
That twenty centuries have gone along
And things were bad sometimes, and things were good,
And if a lion slouches toward Bethlehem,
That’s ’cause it’s native to the Levant.

Two-Shirt Tuesday

March 31, 2026 KarenLeave a comment

Did you know? When you sew two shirts at a time, you end up with two shirts! I don’t usually batch sew things so this feels kind of like magic–I know intellectually that it took twice as long to make two of them, but it feels like I got a bonus one for no extra sewing time.

First there’s a Robert Kaufman woven stripe, which I think is intended as quilting cotton but looks like a washed oxford. It’s soft but substantial; I flat-felled all the seams and added a pocket and a contrast inside yoke (and a fancy label).

The second one is Liberty from deep in the stash, which I’m calling my “Easter dress.” This one got French seams and a contrast inside yoke not to be fancy, but because I didn’t have enough main fabric. (That contrast is also Liberty and it’s from even deeper in the stash–maybe 16 years old?) I can’t get the phone camera to capture that neon coral background and neon pink leaves situation very well, but trust me that it’s BRIGHT.

The pattern for both of these was the Jenna Shirt from Closet Core, which I’ve made three times before (only two made it to the blog). It’s my current ideal button-up shirt pattern, mostly because it’s oversized which means I won’t Hulk out of it after a year.

Organizing In My Lair

March 30, 2026 KarenLeave a comment

We didn’t get a hike in Sunday, but we did see both our families and I finished my Big 2026 Vinyl Project. Everybody got a bath; then if they had paper sleeves, they got a bonus round-bottom anti-static sleeve, and if they were missing a sleeve, they got an archival one. (The goal is to keep them all dust-free.)

Then I organized them within an inch of their lives:

Does this look as cool as a messy cabinet of vinyl? No, but my brain short-circuits when I have to look through a hundred titles to find what I’m thinking of. Plus I got to use my label maker! A lot! Because those tabbed dividers are labeled on both sides, because what if you look at the records from different angles? You still need to know how they’re organized!

Anyway, this was a fun project and I’m really enjoying listening to everything now. I may not have a huge collection (yet) but I like it.

Friday Links

March 27, 2026 Karen

1. This was fascinating: Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green. It covers color theorist Faber Birren, the Manhattan Project, and mid-century industrial design.

2. We didn’t have as much client feedback as expected on a big project, so this has been me all week:

3. But because it’s been a slow week, I’ve been hanging out in the basement with all my sewing and records:

Fantasy painting of a waterfall and a pond with swans on it, surrounded by flowers with a rainbow in the sky. Text reads, life when I craft in my room — Screenshot

Collected Memes

March 26, 2026 Karen

Every spring, without fail:

Forget some new shirts for spring, I need this:

Now this can be in your head too:

This is 100% what my brain does (minus the “dumbass”) (usually).

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Am I An Audiophile Now?

March 25, 2026March 25, 2026 Karen

I got my turntable in 2017 (thanks, blog archives!) but it lived in the big open kitchen/living room area and I never listened to records as much as I wanted, probably because that space was full of noise and other activities (and a kitty that would MEOW if he didn’t like the record).

Now that the records and turntable are downstairs in the sewing lair, I’m listening to something nearly every day. I have a lot more records, too, and I just got another haul of used ones. Clearly it was time for a record cleaning system:

This is the “HumminGuru EZ Vinyl Record Washer” and I got it vs the SpinClean because it comes with its own drying rack. (Of course there are options for every aspect of every hobby. You can also spend five figures on a cleaning machine, some of which require their own plumbing.)

The HumminGuru works great, though:

Even the records without visible filth are getting a bath, and they sound so CLEAN–no hiss or pops. It’s also been fun to handle everything. Most of the used ones I’ve gotten are classical, and other than the dirt they’re in beautiful shape. I like to think who had them before me and how often they listened.