If you have the option the borrow one form the library that’s a great! In my knowledge those small sewing machines are really lacking in basic features, you’ll probably save time and frustration borrowing the library one.
If you have more questions ask away :)
A lot of people mention podcasts, but what really helps me do boring tasks are audio dramas. They are shows meant to be listened to. These are different from audio books where you get a narrator, they have sound effects and several voice actors playing different characters.
Some good starting points IMO (all on Spotify)
Is your thread cotton? I personally always have trouble with cotton thread snapping, so I prefer poliester.
The thread snapping might also be fixed by rethreading the machine, so you can try that as well.
About the back stitch, it’s a shame your machine does not have it. I consider it an essential feature, but I understand you’re just dipping your toes. Most full size entry level machines should have it, and they can be pretty cheap second hand.
If you are turning your piece make sure you lower your needle into the fabric before lifting the presser foot.
If the top thread is the black one and the bobbin thread is the white one then your top tension is waaaaay too low. Set the tension to a middle value and adjust from there. Don’t forget to rethread the top thread after adjusting the tensions by big amounts. In general it’s also a good troubleshooting step.
About finishing the end threads, part of the issue is the tension. If you fix that it will get better, but the correct way to finish the seam is with a back stitch. Most machines have a button dedicated to that function, see if you can find it on yours.
In some situations it is also acceptable if you pass over one of the threads to the same side as the other one and tie the ends yourself. The back stitch is preferable because it’s faster and less fidly
Welcome to the hobby, have fun! :)
Before Your Eyes. I was going through some major stuff at the time and I’ll associate the game with that summer forever. It has a very unique mechanic and it ties into the game really well without feeling like a gimmick. Takes about 3 hours to complete, so not a huge investment either.
I personally like fanfiction.net better than AO3, but I believe AO3 is the bigger one
I just buy notebooks to keep by my side and serve this purpose. This prevents me from having loose sheets everywhere that can get lost.
I keep the three on my desk, the most recent two filled ones and my current one, and it has happened to me to go search one of the old ones for some random info I know I scribbled in there and need later.
I don’t know if this is normal, I can sometimes remember the side of the sheet I wrote something in, the approximate height, ink color and sometimes how far along the notebook it is. This helps with search, but even without memory like this I still think it’s easier to search a notebook than a bunch of loose sheets
I’ll preface this by saying I understand it might be hard to get into this mindset, I’m not trying to be patronizing or reductive of your feelings.
I try to appreciate tiny little things in my day. Pleasant smells, seeing the beauty of everyday items, the warmth of tea, how pretty the sky looks when I happen to notice it.
Along the years I’ve collected little things that bring me joy to use, like nice dishes and mugs, a pretty pen with a color I love to write my notes in, clothes I feel cozy in. I don’t acknowledge them every time I use them, but they bring me little moments of appreciating what I have and the beauty of everyday items.
This is one of those chicken and egg things, I don’t know which causes which, I can tell you I consider myself quite happy with my life, I’m very grateful for where I am in life, even though my family and I have been heavy a rough year in terms of circumstances.
As for passions, I love learning and crafting, lately I’ve been focusing more on sewing, but I haven’t had much time to dedicate to it. I like spending time with my husband, just doing boring grown up stuff like buying groceries is better with company :)
I hope you get better soon!
Is this from the Finch app? I should re-download that at some point
My mom had her driver’s license at 18 as soon as she was able to. Then she went on to stop driving after having a license because she did not have access to a car to drive. Later in life she had a car to herself but had forgotten a lot of how to drive and is a worse driver today as a result. She had her drivers license already, and classes are expensive, so she relearned how to drive all on her own.
I learned form her and took my driver’s exam later in life, when I felt like I was being held back by not having a car or driving. I had a car of my own a couple of months after my exam, and drove a lot late at night with my boyfiend just getting used to and confortable with it safely. I learned to drive more in those late nights after having my license than in classes. I did not feel super confident driving when I took my exam. It took months to get truly confortable, and thats OK.
Now you decide what lesson to take from this. It’s fine if you don’t drive ever, but if you intend to later I would advise you to practice more soon to really cement in driving, its habits and have it become second nature.
I hope this one is just the right amount of interesting for you. I particularly like that there are recurring characters and you can keep up with, and “cameo” style apearences and references if different episodes. Easy enough to ignore if you’re not into that. My favorites are the baker and the cat Marmelade. Best of luck sleeping!
If you haven’t tried it yet, I’ve listened to “nothing much happens” podcast for years and years now and it helps me fall asleep faster. If you don’t like this one in specific, there’s plenty of the same genre online for you to try. I prefer sleep specific content because the audio does not have any sudden changes or loud noises. Also screens on while sleeping decrease sleep quality, IIRC
Stardew valley, minecraft and sometimes mass effect 3 multiplayer. I’m still impressed I can regularly find matches in such an old game.
Just in case you’re serious, taxidermy is not a good option if you want a faithful representation of how you look like. Taxidermy often results in not exactly the same look something had when they where living because replicating exactly the bones and cartilage to put the skin over is not easy.
This is OK for some random wild animal you don’t care about representing the individual it once was, but for pets it usually results in unsatisfactory results, and for people it’s just very uncanny because our brains are very good with human faces.
Play the NYT wordle, mini crossword, connections for the day. I have some small simple games that can be stopped at any time. My most played ones are cake sort, water sort, sudoku and sometimes minesweeper. Also scroll lemmy sometimes, it’s small enough that it doesn’t take long to see everything that is new, so there’s no risk of getting sucked in for long
That’s so interesting! I wonder if some immigrant took it from one country to the other, along with the story
Chorizo is the Spanish variant, our neighbors. Chorizo and chouriço are not quite the same, but similar. AFAIK they have different seasonings.
Out of curiosity, is the soup similar?
From Almeirim in Portugal, there’s “sopa da pedra”, translates to “soup of the rock”. It has several kinds of meat, beans, potato, and it’s usually eaten with bread (some say even a specific local bread type, but I’m not picky on that). It used to come with a stone in it traditionally, but for higiene reasons restaurants are not allowed to anymore. Some people at home still do it, I believe.
With it there is an old tale:
There was once a poor friar that was traveling. Once it came time to rest, he knocked on someone’s door and asked for their hospitality in exchange for a soup. His hosts let him in and they see the friar pulling an old smooth stone from his pocket and putting it in a pot, along with water.
“Some seasoning would make this soup better… Do you happen to have any chouriço?” [best translation I’ve got is “meat”, or maybe “sausage”] asks the friar. And so his hosts find him some chouriço that they throw in the pan.
“It’s looking great! Now this soup would really improve if we could thicken it up a little. Do you happen to have some potatoes or beans leftover from yesterday?” And some potatoes and beans have indeed been leftover from yesterday. The friar adds it to the soup.
The friar asks for a few more spices, olive oil, and soon there is a delicious smell coming from the pot. What a nice soup!
They eat and once the soup is finished the friar fishes out the stone, washes it and puts it back in his pocket. Tomorrow he’ll knock on someone else’s door along the way ;)
Often what people call “dandruff” is not actually dandruff. You might have dry scalp, which causes flakyness and the dandruff shampoos do nothing to help (I’d argue they even make the dryness worse!)
In my case it was dandruff and what made a huge difference is to wash twice in a row (lather, rinse, repeat). I leave the shampoo in my head for a bit on the second wash while I do my other shower business.