1. Old but worth it, just for the links to covers/mashups: The Story of the DuckTales Theme, History’s Catchiest Single Minute of Music
2. Found this on the gram (from artist Dakota Cates) and it’s excellent. 
3. On the other hand….
“I’m going to start meditating”
MY PHONE: pic.twitter.com/W7SFyUI2iA
— Asher Perlman (@asherperlman) February 17, 2021
You might have noticed in yesterday’s post that I did end up buying the neon spandex I posted about a couple weeks ago. But what about fabric I already own? I was falling asleep the other night and pictured these three printed lawns all together–and then realized I had a pattern that called for 3 different prints, too.
There’s been a lot of fabric/sewing content lately but it’s about all that gets me excited at the end of the winter doldrums, coming up on a year into a pandemic. I want it to be spring, I want to be able to leave the house safely, and I want to do it all in a floral explosion of a prairie dress.
After thinking about one for nearly a year (and strategizing some Xmas/birthday gift cards). I finally bought a cover stitch machine!
I went with a Juki MCS1500, as it got the best reviews on Pattern Review and I could use my gift cards for it. I’ve loved my Juki serger and this is very, very similar for top threading–a bonus.
(Cat for scale)
A cover stitch’s primary function is to do that stretchy 2-row hem you see at the bottom of t-shirts, but it can do so much more! It can apply arm and neck binding like a champ for a super-professional finish on your gym tanks:
You can use the reverse side of the stitch to mimic the look of a commercial merrow stitch on your gym tights: 
(You do have to stitch the seam on a regular machine or serger first and then topstitch with the cover stitch, but it’s worth the time to look so fancy.)
You can even apply stretch lace and lingerie elastic! No more homemade-looking zigzags!
If you’re on the fence about one, I say go for it. Yes, I could do all these things with my fancy Bernina and my serger, but the cover stitch just makes it faster, easier, and nicer. As my dad says, “You need the proper tools for the job.”
…looking at the internet, mostly, but there’s good things on there sometimes.
Got cabin fever? Got spring fever? Me too. From artist Crocodile Jackson, via Instagram: 
From artist Michael Schneider, via Instagram
From the best meme account and wow, I repeat this to myself most days:
And finally, now that I’m back at work today (via):
1. I will read anything Anne Helen Petersen writes about jobs, work, “productivity culture,” and how none of those things benefit the actual workers. This is from her latest newsletter:
2. In honor of Valentine’s Day Sunday, here’s a love poem from Naomi Shihab Nye (author of this favorite, too). Those last two lines!
I follow Rachel Cargle’s Instagram and for the month of February, she’s been putting up events and culture related to Black History Month to google on your own.
It’s been eye opening and uncomfortable to realize how much I don’t know about either Black history or culture. And that quick daily search usually leads me to more links and more I didn’t know about. And I think back to how entirely whitewashed my education was and how I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.
So I’m sharing a little of my journey here, not to get “woke points” but just in case your education was similar to mine. This is what I’ve just researched in the last week that I never heard about in school:
and, to end on a note of Black joy, I listened to the “Black national anthem” for the first time, Lift Every Voice and Sing.
First of all, have you seen this (entirely sold out and nowhere near my price range) collaboration between Gucci and North Face?
The whole thing might have been engineered in a lab to appeal to me: Bright primary colors! Being stylish in the Alps! PRINTS ON YOUR PARKA!
Seriously, shopping for ready to wear outerwear is just all solids, all the time, and the colors you get are either teal, black, or olive. Shopping for outerwear fabric is a little better–I have neon orange softshell waiting to be sewn up right now–but I can only hope that this fashun moment will trickle down into more prints on the trail.
Until then, I found this DWR polyester while shopping for my softshell and I bet you could use it to re-create that Gucci lewk:
Jalie even makes a pattern for a puffer. Hmmm…..
I finished the first pair of my Year of Socks just a couple days into February–so far I’m on schedule! (It helps that this pair is made with two strands of sock yarn held together, so it knits up twice as fast as a regular pair.)
These are the Thicksgiving Socks from Summer Lee Knits in sock yarn from my stash (I actually unraveled an ancient unfinished sock project to get that purple yarn and finally use it up). Overall, they might be a little big, but this pair is FINALLY long enough for my foot–turns out that I was starting the toe decreases way too early on all my other pairs.
I also made my first peasant heel and yes, they are super fun, but all the reading I did about the fit not being great was right. I found that NOT doing a kitchener stitch at the end and just drawing the yarn through the last 12 stitches helped them stay a little flatter. (Kitchener on the left, “top of a hat” finish on the right below. You can see my heel stitch pickup on the right/second sock is nicer, too:)
I feel like I’m off to a good start with my sock project and have already learned a lot. I’m trying the other Thicksgiving Sock variation for my February pair (in the same size, since I suspect the ribs in January’s might be throwing off the fit).
Sock science! 
We went out to the Great Salt Lake yesterday to see the mirabilite mounds that had formed. The mounds were cool–I had no idea there were underground springs–but I was really taken by the lake (again).
Maybe it’s the pandemic and the fact we haven’t gotten out much, but the lake on a windy, unseasonably warm day was beautiful. It reminded me a lot of the southern Utah desert–that high-altitude, late winter light, the blue distances, the spaciousness.
I don’t think I’ve had enough coffee to keep pretending to be Terry Tempest Williams, but consider this your recommendation to visit the GSL in the winter.
1. There’s some really good stuff in this Times article “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love String Quartets.” I think I’ll put on the full playlist they included at the bottom and remember why I love string quartets.
2. I saw this post this morning; sometimes what’s most helpful about therapy is just having that validation of “yes, this is hard.”
The trick is to keep doing the work.
3. I am…jealous of these capybaras. The first thing I’m gonna do after vaccines is have a spa day.
Replace Groundhog Day with Capybara Spa Day pic.twitter.com/EjO72X0Un2
— Clayton Cubitt (@claytoncubitt) February 2, 2019
