The Best Things in my Brain, October 2025

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 thought I’d play around with offering a short and sweet post on the best things I learned, read, heard, or saw recently. This will run once a month on a week I’m not scheduled to post a longer blog.

How is it October already? I better finish up the hat I’m knitting my husband for handing out candy (mine is already finished) and then finally try to finish up the Yule sweater I’ve been working on for three years. And of course I’ve added the witch hat I’m crocheting for the Stitch and Bewitch MAL, and the Christmas decorations I’m knitting ….

Best Thing in my Brain, Craft Edition:

As I work on expanding my understanding of crochet, I’ve started dabbling in granny squares (over in the shop you might have spotted a few serving as set dressing in the newest shop photos). I recently stumbled across a YouTube video from Meema Makes with some really intriguing tips for improving the look of your granny squares, some of which run counter to the usual instructions (she does NOT advise starting with a magic circle, for example).

You can view the video on YouTube here.

Best Thing in my Brain, Non-Craft Edition:

My husband and I took a long weekend vacation to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in mid-September and toured the Yerkes Observatory. Once a part of the University of Chicago and host to such famous students and faculty as Edwin Hubble, Carl Sagan, and Nancy Grace Roman (NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy), it is now run by a local foundation that is restoring the site and developing programming to not only celebrate its history but also connect artists to the fields of astronomy and astrophysics. The building itself is an incredible work of architecture and the next time we visit, we’re hoping to be able to book the special 12 person tour that actually looks through the world’s largest refracting telescope (we took the standard tour that got to see the telescope but not use it). Highly recommend a visit if you’re in that part of the world.

The photo above is actually the dome of their smaller telescope but it really shows off the amazing architecture of the building. Here’s the actual refracting telescope from the inside:

What’s the best thing currently in your brain?

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