The Best Things in my Brain, March 2026

I’ve always been a person who loves to learn and find new things and share them with others, but these things don’t always warrant a full blog or social media post. So I’m offering a once a month, short and sweet post on the best things I learned, read, heard, or saw recently.

In Chicago, it is *definitely* not spring yet but we are getting above freezing more days than we are not now so I’ll take it.

Best Thing in My Brain Non-Craft Edition:

It’s almost garden season! I started tomato and pepper seeds at the end of February in my Orta self-watering seed pot. Orta pots are terracotta pots made in the US, after being unimpressed with my results with plastic seed starting trays (especially with how much they fell apart after just one use) I decided to invest in something more durable and, hopefully, more effective.

I highly recommend joining the Orta mailing list if seed starting/gardening in general are topics you’re interested in – Anne has a lot of useful tips and you get a heads up for the big once a year clearance sale in the fall (which is when I got my pot).

This year I mixed my own seed starting mix following Anne’s guide (and including my own compost), and I’ve got grow lights and a heat mat, so it’s a bit more of a production than previous years, but the photo above is just 10 days after I planted, so it seems to be very effective thus far!

Best Things in my Brain Craft Edition

This was a lovely feature on Knitty City, a New York City yarn shop celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. It was very briefly my LYS when I lived on the Upper West Side in 2016 – I had a chance to meet Pearl, the founding owner, on one visit and she was a truly warm and memorable person even in our short interaction.

I also wanted to highlight preorders for a forthcoming book Sashiko: The Untold Story. The author, Atsushi Futatsuya, is the same person behind Upcycle Stitches, the website I found super helpful when first dipping into sashiko last year, so I’m excited to explore more of this craft with his guidance.

*The preorder link is an affiliate link at Bookshop.org; if you order through that link I do get a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.

What’s the best thing currently in your brain?