Emchap's Shit from the Internet 03/17/21 🍠

After finally figuring out how to have something approaching a kitchen table again, I’ve been slowly trying to get back into sewing, which I’ve intermittently tried to be good at for like 20 years. I was excited to learn last week that I have been threading my sewing machine incorrectly for most of that time.

As part of that I spent some time last week digging into free patterns in an attempt to spend less money on it until I prove that it’s something I’ll stick with. There are actually a wide variety, but they—as well as the paid patterns from companies with my preferred “weird linen sack” aesthetic—are all print at home. I don’t own a printer, and so wound up down a rabbit hole of how one might get a sewing pattern printed if a) you can’t do it at home and b) there is a plague on.

It was weird to stumble across an example of the ways in which the internet is sometimes cool as a result. Local chain print shops often charge $16 a job to print large-format pages, like the ones you might print sewing patterns on if you didn’t want to have to tape together the whole thing. But, of course, folks who sew keep track of alternative options and one is these folks, who for $1.39 a page will print your stuff off and mail it to you. There’s a $10 minimum and the shipping can be steep (it’s a bulky set of pages) but it’s still much cheaper than going to Kinko’s and you don’t have to be in physical contact with anyone. It has exactly the kind of functional but old school website that you’d expect for a specialty printer out in Richmond, VA.

Obviously it was still a commercial transaction, but there was something very pleasing to me about how old internet it felt to type “t-shirt pattern” into Google and find a free pattern from some small-ish company, find a random fabric blogger talking about large-format printing, and end the interaction up at a very classic print shop somewhere else. Nobody had infinite scroll on shit.

I am of course still waiting on the actual fabric, but I am pleased so far that I have my giant blueprint-sized pages to play with. A bright spot in an otherwise challenging week.

I donated to Red Canary Song in light of the racist terrorist attack in my hometown; for those looking they seem to be a solid place.

Shit to read

• Ah, my youth.

• Nature! Is! Fucked! Up!

• This almost convinced me to buy a microwave.

• Cool cool cool.

• A deeply wild story about a man I am jealous of.

• I do not! Enjoy! This year!

• I enjoyed this piece about Eddie Izzard.

• You have no idea how mad I am that bupropion isn’t on this list.

• The future is bad!

Shit to eat

1. Spend some portion of the afternoon crying.

2. Realize suddenly that it’s 7 pm and you haven’t tried to do anything for dinner because the time change has you fucked up.

3. Turn your oven to 400.

4. Clean and chop a potato into quarter inch rounds. Same with two portions of sausage and a carrot.

5. Put them onto a baking sheet and salt and pepper and oil them.

6. Chop a quarter of a cabbage into four pieces, and do the same with it.

7. Into the oven for 20 minutes.

8. Take out, flip everything, back in for another 15.

9. While that’s happening, mix together oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, salt, some garlic, and some honey.

10. When everything’s out of the oven, dump the dressing on top, scoop into a bowl, and enjoy your evening.

(Adapted from Budget Bytes.)

Shit to listen to

• Nana Grizol, while sad.

Shit to buy

• Soy milk, which really does improve smoothies considerably.