Friday Faves

• Scrap idea: make a braided basket

• I was able to get a darning plate for my Elna! Sewing Machines Plus helped me figure out that my machine is an ElnaSuper 62C, which I hadnt realized in the 20 years I’ve had it. And they were able to source the plate through Janome, which has bought Elna. Wheeee so I’ll be able to learn to free-motion quilt!
• My other favorite company for sewing machine parts and accessories is Sewing Parts Online. Both companies have had excellent customer service and have really tried to help me find parts that will work with my fifty-year-old machine.
• Favorite sewing podcast: Love to Sew. It’s so far the only sewing or quilting podcast I’ve heard that does a land acknowledgement in every episode. Favorite episode so far is Sewing for a Changing Body, which is brilliant and super relevant for me as my body keeps changing in unpredictable ways in size, shape, and composition.
• Another sewing resource who has a land acknowledgement on their website, and a recent blog post about the importance of supporting trans people and especially trans kids during a time of increased hostility against us, is the Confident Stitch.
• Free meditations on the Insight Timer app, especially yoga nidra sessions.
• The gorgeous tulips, and the pale purple lilacs across the street.
• Today being the end of isolation in the household! After another ten-day stretch of masking in the house prophylactically, we can relax.
• This means I can start basting the baby quilt on the dining room table without a mask on, and prepare to quilt it. I’ve decided on an orange peel design and I’m very excited about it! I guess it counts as straight-line machine quilting, since it’s not free motion (I’ll be using a walking foot and the feed dogs in position, uncovered, so the machine will feed the fabric through on both the top and bottom surfaces of the quilt). But it’s a curved design:

I love Sharon Holland‘s clear instructions, and this quilt’s colors! But I’m planning on drawing out the quilting lines with tailor’s chalk, tracing around a bowl if i can find one with a 9″ diameter in the house.

• Favorite thing about crafts: cross-training! I flared from making the quilt top for the baby quilt, and it’s been excellent to be able to knit just a few stitches at a time on the wristwarmers I’ve been working on for M for over a year. I’m almost done the first one! Eeee.