Tag: handmade

Will I Wear A Knit Tank?

This is a follow-up to my recent post, ‘Will I Wear a Knit T-shirt?’, where I examined the fibers and wearability of a knit t-shirt and discussed whether this summer knit project could be a suitable option. Since then, I finished and got to wear a new piece of knitwear – my first knit tank top. I wore it in July, in full humidity with highs in the upper 80s to low 90s Fahrenheit. My experience surprised me – I said before that my knit t-shirts are wonderfully comfortable, but have a temperature and humidity limit for me, but the tank top surprised me!

I think it was the high pima cotton content in the Knit Picks Comfy – a 75% Pima Cotton and 25% Acrylic mixture that uplifted the breathability for me. I was melting in the hot sun, but the air flow and temperature regulation were spectacular! This tank had delicate straps but did not have a lacy stitch or open weave. It was constructed with regular knit and purl stitches, with sections that had double layers of yarn due to two sections of colorwork graphics on the front and back.

With Pima Cotton, Silk, Bamboo, or Linen as the primary fiber, or a blend of these natural fibers, I believe knit tanks are just as breathable as woven fabric, and for sure more breathable than moisture-wicking tech fabrics, which are polyester. No, I wouldn’t work out in this top, but there is something to say for a garment that is comfy and breathable for those long summer days. It was a simple stitch-up up only calling for two hanks of 100-gram worsted-weight yarn, about 240 yards, with the addition of 1/3 or 40 yards of the accent yarn, another cotton-acrylic worsted-weight blend from Loops and Threads. You can make a tank like this for 30 USD or less, and this is a size large. So if you have a small amount of yarn, you can do a lot with it!

Do you think a knit tank would be an item you would wear?

Designing Clothing That Fluctuates With You

This is inspired by a discussion from Maybe Bre, which made me reflect on something I hadn’t discussed before. As well as my own experience wearing clothing, as a garden-variety human who loves fashion but doesn’t always enjoy how our clothing is made.

By this, I mean the patterns and fastening of our modern times. The zipper is a wonderful thing, and so is the structured waistband. I love them in jeans because denim that isn’t compromised by stretch is a rugged and sturdy garment that isn’t a piece that conforms to you; your body is housed within the trousers. I feel the same way about a structured coat. In doing so, I buy these pieces oversized for comfort, which leaves me with a garment that most of the time doesn’t technically fit me. If I did buy it to fit me right now, there is no guarantee that over many decades it would continue to fit me – I’ve been burned before by this problem. Hence, all my “staple, investment pieces” from college no longer live in my closet because they are no longer my size. If I had planned ahead and bought them a bit oversized, they might still be with me, but they wouldn’t have “fit” me at the time.

My problem with clothing is becoming clear, isn’t it? I desire longevity and wearability from clothing, in a way that is not offered off the rack. I desire my clothes to grow and shrink with me, depending on how my body changes over time. This has been my design focus in the last few years as I have placed myself in the driver’s seat of my wardrobe through the process of sewing and knitting.

My idea is not innovative; it is historical. Clothing, because it was so expensive and hard to make, was more adaptable in the past. Fastenings such as tie waist, lacing, and buttons with multiple sizes of tightness were common because clothing was not as easy or cheap, and they were not seen as disposable or replaceable. Changing fashions came with garment reworks, ye olde upcycling as it were. This is what I desire: the ability to change the fit of my garment.

I recently figured out how to sew with elastic, which is a game-changer for shorts and gathered sleeve hems! Before this, though, I was making most of my bottomweight garments with tie waists or several options of buttons to let the garment adjust to the needs of the day, I’ve also sewed with intentional relaxed fit, initially due to a lack of tailoring skill but over time it has been to allow wiggle room in pieces I have spent days or weeks of my life crafting.

Being present in the making process has taught me to treat my clothing with more respect, even when it is time to discard the current version of it for something more useful. I’ve stopped donating as much, decluttering, and rebuying, to be honest, to be more intentional with the garment and its life cycle. I am the one who brought it to life, I can’t simply consume and discard it like it is nothing. I am deprogramming my brain from decades of fast fashion insanity.

I believe if clothing were made with this design philosophy, that clothing would fluctuate with you over time, I believe we would enjoy wearing our clothing more because instead of buying stretch fabric everything, we could still wear good natural fibers, maybe a bit bulkier than spandex and less figure hugging and lurex denim, but would be better for the humans and the planet. Style and substance, as they say on the Great British Baking Show!

Will I Wear a Knit T-Shirt?

I asked myself this question last summer with genuine uncertainty. Knitting is such a cold-weather medium that a knit made to be breathable and light for warm weather seemed, well, a bit like an impractical fashion piece. I think this is an important question to ask of ourselves before we jump on a trend. Whether it is to buy a knit t-shirt or to handknit (which means you are dedicating weeks of work to a project), having the right expectation matters. Trying on a knit t-shirt beforehand helped me visualize what I was in for. Knitwear for all seasons is currently having a moment even in ready-to-wear, which makes this a great time to go try on a piece before committing to a big project.

Wearing my Grandma’s cotton knit t-shirts, although they were two sizes too small, helped me visualize knit as a process to make a fabric instead of a woolly winter garment. That’s what makes knitting and crochet extraordinary skills; they are versatile. The fiber maketh the project. The stitch maketh the airflow. Lacey, open weave? Fantastic for hot and humid days. Not so much for a pair of mittens. 

To remedy this, I think fiber acquaintance is a fantastic way to learn whether a knit t-shirt is right for you. When I began knitting in 2012, I knew there was wool yarn and acrylic yarn. That was it. However, there is actually a rainbow of fiber waiting to be discovered, and the lineup sure has expanded in the last 13 years!

Cotton

Linen

Bamboo

Hemp

Pineapple

Lyocell

Rayon

Yak

Alpaca

Camel

Mohair

Cashmere

Silk

Did you know that wool has two unique properties? It helps you regulate temperature and is naturally antibacterial/antimicrobial; therefore, it inhibits bacterial growth naturally on the fiber and prevents odors, which is why it is such a great sock material! Although I wouldn’t recommend wool for summer tops, it is a remarkable fiber. There are two fibers, though, that are breathable and naturally don’t let bacteria and microbes hang around – it’s linen and silk! For fiber education and the chance to feel these materials, I recommend finding a friendly local yarn shop and talking to the experts.

Finally, I do have one possible hiccup with my current selection of hand-knit t-shirts. I can’t wear them in 85 degrees Fahrenheit weather and above with humidity, but I do believe a knit tank would fix this problem, and a lacey stitch technique in future projects will solve this. I don’t like sweating a lot in my handknits, and because I was learning with my first few tees, the knitted cotton fabric is a bit bulky. That’s my error. You know what is so cool about knitting, though? You can unravel the finished garments and try again, so I can rework these finished garments in the future. Anyway, I hope you will consider the knit t-shirt as a warm weather staple in your wardrobe, it’s a lovely way to use crochet and knitting all year round!

Ideas for Summer Stashbusting Projects

As a yarn enthusiast, sometimes I have many skeins of different yarn that I don’t know what to do with. This happens when I buy sale yarn, find unexpected yarn secondhand, or buy too much of one color for a project. Purchasing the right yardage is definitely a learning process!

So, how can you make your yarn stash go further and use up those skeins you don’t know what to do with? An easy fix I’ve found is to get really scrappy, lean into stripes, experiment with colorwork, and my new favorite – blending yarn by holding two strands of different yarn, even variegated yarn, to make something fresh and inspiring! This has helped me need to destash, donate, or feel weighed down by my yarn inventory.

Once you have a color story, what do you stitch up? There are the tried and true tanks, tote bags, and scrappy cardigans, but what about something outside the box?

  • Baskets
  • Small Storage Bags with Zipper
  • Shorts
  • Sailor Collar
  • Overalls
  • Mini Skirts
  • Koozies
  • Tapestry

I get stuck in the idea of knitting as wearables, but it can be used to make so many things, and at the end of the project, you’ll have something truly unique from your own hands!

One of the most satisfying ways I have found to use up random yarn is colorwork. Hints of color with scrap that add a touch of whimsy? Sign me up!

Knitting a Dress for the First Time

Knitting a dress, how hard can it be right? It was actually pretty managable garment as an intermediate knitter. I would not recommend unless you have made a sweater before but would definitely recommend knitting a dress if you want a soft and stretchy garment that hugs you!

Inspiration

I have made plenty of dresses over the past 5 years, but they have all been cut and sewn from fabric. Knitting kicks it up a notch, asking you to assemble the dress, but make the fabric to boot. I thought it would be silly to try until I discovered some lovely crochet designers on You Tube who make with imagination!

I was inspired by Mama Gwen of TL Yarn Crafts to give designing a knit dress a try. She makes such beautiful dresses all from self-drafted patterns in knit and crochet. Along with Dana from Blondie Knots. Her Coachella scrap two piece outfit helped me have the boost of confidence to try something new.

Materials

Last summer at Joann, before the shenanigans began, I purchased 14 Big Twist Cotton 50g skeins on a sale with the intention of knitting a top. Many months later, this yarn was sitting in my stash with my mind uncertain if the punchy color changing yarn was my cup of tea for a cotton knit top. But a dress? Yes, that could work. Did I have enough yarn though? I’d have to make it so because there was no more being sold.

Because of the circumstances, I decided this dress would be my goodbye to Big Twist.

Design

I knew from sewing, my design would need to be a dress that was either tubular or empire waist to suit my body shape. I decided to knit this on US 7 needles, straight needles. Sometimes I would shift to circular, but this was not knit in the round. With the combination of yarn minders, a measuring tape and patience this dress came together!

To start I knew I wanted the bodice to be the anchor I worked out from so I cast on stitches to work horizontally. From the bodice, I then added one strap to plan the width and placement of the top. I was uncertain how much yardage the skirt would consume, therefore I paused to determine sleeves later.

My plan for the skirt was to knit a section by casting on the bottom of the bodice, adding stitches to increase width until I finished a skein. Repeat and fill out the row by picking up stitches to join the sections vertically into a tube. I continued on, and on  until weeks later I had a skirt but panicked that I was not going to achieve my desired length and second sleeve!

I decided to pull a teal yarn from my Landscape Painting with Yarn project. This hue pulled the cool tones into harmony in a pleasing way. I used two skeins of this teal color and then finished with the original Water Lily tonal yarn. I finished the second sleeve and tried on the piece with relative ease. There was one fit issue – plunging neckline. But it was a lovely, cozy knit from scratch dress!

The final touches to this project were addressing the neckline and the sleeves which were set too deep. I cast on to the neckline to fill in the gap and provided structure to the straps with several rows of decreases to give the dress a cap sleeve befitting my vision.

Final Thoughts

I am definitely making more dresses with knit! It’s far more pleasant than sewing if you want a comfy yet elegant style. You have both control of the drape and the fabric design. It’s your world, as Bob Ross would say.

This project was more than a goodbye to Big Twist, it was a new chapter for me. I began this journey 5 years ago to learn how to make and now I feel empowered by knowing I can make my own clothes, not just with fabric but with skeins of yarn and needles. It has been a wonderful journey of discovery!

If you want to knit a dress, I’d say go for it! If you’re a beginner, make one but not as your first project – you will be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of time this project took. It was weeks of work that as a beginner, would have scared me. In time I know you can do it though! ❤

Starting a Knit Garment

Do you ever get stuck in start mode when beginning a new thing?

Like you’re wandering through a maze of ideas. Maybe it’s the planning stage, too many ideas, not enough organization? It’s weird. I feel such a rush when I have multiple WIPs on my needles. The satisfaction of binding off stitches and slipping that garment onto my body makes every week of work worth it!

The void though, between new idea and casting on a new project, is a shape shifting process. The indecision sets in.

  • What yarn should I use?
  • Do I have a color palette
  • Stockinette or a new stitch?
  • Texture?
  • Colorwork?
  • Do I have an inspriation garment in mind?
  • Have I thought about how I want to garment to fit?
  • How much positive or negative ease should I plan for?

The next phase is choosing needles, selecting the amount of yardage, and gauge swatching the stitches to inches ratio to calculate the size of the garment.

It feels as important to start with the correct amount of stitches as it does to pour a concrete foundation evenly. I think this is why I get stuck in neutral instead of shifting into gear – when you get a creative idea sometimes the final design outcome is a little fuzzy.

So how do I get out of it and move forward with my design? I sketch, even simply shading the colors together in simple patterns helps me see if the image in my head will fit the realized garment. I also start working with the room to frog the yarn and begin again.

That is my favorite thing about fiber art, you can tear out and begin again without ruining your materials. Even though the first stitches feel like concrete the process is flexible.

Do you get stuck in planning? How do you move your mind forward? Thanks for spending time with me today. You are amazing and I hope you know that you are loved. Until next time. ❤

Playing Animal Crossing Has Improved My Style

As a kid, one of my favorite pastimes was designing. I loved the fashion styling flash games from Lizzie McGuire and My Scene. I designed my own catalog of clothes for a made-up brand with my friends in 4th grade, illustrating with my school supplies and piecing it together with scrap paper. Mary-Kate and Ashley’s movies captured my imagination through their use of clothes to characterize each sister’s personality.

That’s So Raven enveloped me in imagination, not from her psychic abilities, no, Raven Baxter’s closet pulled me in! Raven’s room was a stunner as well, like Zenon Kar’s space station cabin, and my Fashion Polly’s colorful playsets that folded out like Richard Hammond’s caravan. My friends and I discovered shows like What Not To Wear and Trading Spaces, which launched my sketches from clothing brands to interior design. I had a notebook full of room drawings. There were designs with slides, hammock beds, and intricate themes. I drew a Survivor-themed room with a tribal council area on the lower level, an outer space room with circular windows and futuristic lighting, even a beach room with a lofted bed, sunset paint scheme, and a pool placed in the middle of the floor. I wish I knew what happened to these sketches; it’s been such a long time.

When I discovered Animal Crossing in 2020, I was curious what the fuss was about, and later the next year, we bought a Nintendo Switch, opening a world of design I thought was lost to childhood. I was thrilled! Animal Crossing New Horizons debuted in March 2020, and because of the unique time, it had a huge following for its charming island life. You begin your game landing on a deserted island as part of a Nook Inc. Getaway Package, and assist Tom Nook in developing the island with the help of Timmy, Tommy, Dodo Airlines, Blathers, Isabelle, and the villagers who move to the island with you.

But what about the fashion and the home decor? This game first places you in a tent that you upgrade into a house, with subsequent expansions costing large sums, but with a relaxed payment policy. You also gain the ability to design custom things with Nook Mile redemption upgrades, craft unique recipes from resources on the island, and buy items from Nook’s Cranny and clothing items from Able Sisters. A ridiculous amount of my gameplay, even years later, comes from pairing and collecting new clothing items for my character to wear on her adventures. This game loves coordination!

As a player who is well-versed in the Animal Crossing fashion catalog, I wait and anticipate finding my favorite pieces with each new island. The game has four seasons, with clothing corresponding to the season at play, including specialty garments for holidays. Currently, as I play in June, it’s wedding season and Able Sisters is selling traditional Japanese wedding attire, Nook Shopping is selling Father’s Day items, and International Children’s Day pieces, which include a paper crown that is oh so cute!

How has this impacted my own personal style, though? Well, it has brought me back to the mindset of creating a full look. Working from home or working in professional painting at jobsites for most of my adult life has killed the style I used to have. I no longer felt the need to put together a look, but instead I got used to throwing on pieces and wearing things for function, not fashion. But that’s not who I really am, just what the environment of life drifted me into. I was missing intentionality, Animal Crossing lit that spark once again. My little character doesn’t just get dressed to do life; she wears a head-to-toe look with hats, bags, glasses, specialty socks, clever shoes, cute tools, and interestingly paired garments. This game got me out of jeans and a t-shirt, or a hoodie and leggings, because this game has trousers in many fabrics and shapes, shorts in colorful prints, skirts in a bouquet of fancy, coats, hats a plenty, tops that span the seasons – it’s a blast to explore! There are dresses – modern and traditional. I can where a kimono! I change her outfit at least once, maybe three times a session. You can also curate hairstyles and experiment with colors.

This exercise has shown me that pink hair is something I’d like to try. It’s my most-used fashion color. It has inspired me to introduce cute socks of varying heights and weights to my wardrobe, even making some of them. I’ve started wearing hats anytime I leave the house – it pulls the look together! My taste in bags has changed; no longer an option for a sleek purse that looks designer, instead give me a duck bag with feet. I love colorful knitwear, flowing skirts, and shoes that are beyond my comfort zone of boots and Converse. Taking those moments in the game to pair weird combinations together has positively impacted my design sensibility. When I plan a sewing or knitting project, I take into account what I’ve learned from dressing up my character, seeking to inject the whimsy and delightful wares of Animal Crossing into my real-life closet. I’m not the only one; I’ve seen this across Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.

But what about interior design? Well, this game not only presents the opportunity to design your house and the island, but you can also download Happy Home Paradise to design vacation homes for clients. This has really challenged me in a fun sandbox way to care about how a room is put together. I’ve become far more intentional about my furniture layout, what types of pieces I want to bring into my space, and how I want to pair pieces for a style that tells a story.

Buying a house last year was the icing on the cake of this new foray into design, as we have painted rooms and dug the garden beds, I’ve felt like it is Animal Crossing come to life. I have this canvas to put my stamp on. Moving from rented landlord-beige homes to a space where we can be colorful, it has shown me that the little details do make a space more welcoming and conducive for creating. The simple act of moving our dining room table from one side of the room to the center, allowing for walkways on either side, has made the room a place I want to be instead of a place I pass through. By filling the empty gaps of cabinets in our kitchen with tables, shelves, and a microwave stand, we have transformed the empty space into a room that feels complete. The simple change of painting my sewing room lavender created an entire mood, a calming and happy vibe that makes me excited to work within those four walls. The garden beds and the screened-in porch have been works of dimension, the outdoor space has useful and designated spaces for us to use that make it more beautiful and purposeful.

I am filled with a sense of possibility again, like the girl who sketched those rooms in a notebook, instead of a person muddling through life. In this time when we feel burned out by AI and stale creativity, it’s been electric to feel the sparks of imagination. The crafting aspect of the game has inspired me to be more creative in my own house. We repurpose, re-finish, and build things in our house from scratch. Because of life’s twists and turns, I have a lot of second-hand pieces that at first felt like a let down, like I was poor, but now I see them as incredibly meaningful items that I have the pleasure of caring for in my home. The game’s customization tools, such as kits for sale or the custom services of Cyrus, demonstrate how a coat of paint truly pulls a room together without buying something new.

Did I think when I purchased Animal Crossing New Horizons that I would see an impact on my own design sensibility? Not at all, but it has been the gift that keeps on giving. It’s an incredibly cozy game, full of wonder that I have grown fond of, year over year. Four years later, I still look forward to running around the island, hunting for recipes, wishing on shooting stars, and besting those pesky Happy Home Academy judges. I hope that I never lose my zeal for dress up and design because it is such a fun little way to relax in this wild and wacky world.

Structure and Flow: Sewing in Two Minds

Like I said in my 2025 So Far Has Been a Creative Slump, I am sharing the projects I’ve hidden away in my closet and the photos buried in my gallery. It’s time to catch up on this blog on what I’ve been sewing, because it’s been a journey of new discoveries.

Go With the Flow

In 2022, Kyle gave me a unique birthday present. He curated a mystery box of fabric for me to do my own “Project Runway” challenge – one of those fabrics was this sheer wheat colored criss-cross fabric. It has lived in my stash ever since. It was a fabric that scared me but intrigued me. It’s a stretch mesh burnout pattern, and for over a year, I was baffled at how to sew it without destroying it.

Even so, after I sewed it into a garment, how would I apply it? Would it be a garment that would be sewn layered on top of an opaque fabric? What would that look like? Should I use a high contrast fabric or something similar in tone? It stumped me. I lived with it a bit more in my stash, and it came with me through the move and into the fall once more. In 2024, after two years, I had an idea – sheer layering. A garment I could wear under or over other pieces to add dimension and disguise the oatmeal color that I was concerned would wash me out.

My decision was to make a shirt. I thought making it a “basic” would provide the most opportunity to style it in my wardrobe. I sewed the delicate fabric with my machine very slowly. I relaxed the tension of the thread and progressed delicately, ready to hand-sew at any moment of panic. It was not terrifying; it was possible.

Structure of a Bodice – Armor

Many years ago, back in 2021 (four years ago, what?!) I crafted a structured dress, based on Lizzie Bennet’s dress, when Charlotte Lucas announces her marriage to Mr. Collins. It was a vest and a skirt, with buttons and a collar. It was ambitious but rubbish, yet a project I can’t stop thinking about how I could have made it better.

Enter this fabric and this bodice shape. It looks like an armor piece made of vintage ditzy flower fabric, lined with muslin. I wanted to reclaim what I learned in 2021, but try again in 2025, since the failure of my early projects made me shrink back to “easy” projects. I’ve made things that have challenged me a little bit, but not a true experiment. Constant growth is painful. Think of your body after consistent workouts, you’re going to hurt. It’s part of the process of getting stronger, and it feels at times like a negative experience. That feeling ground me down. I was tired of the learning experiences that felt more like loss and waste than an expression of crafting and artistry. It’s human, it’s passion, how can we not want the fruit of our labor to produce something good?

I made this dress slowly, over several weeks, while working on other projects, while being sick. It was a slow, steady, careful process to make a dress that would bring me joy from the creation and the wearing. The other thing I had to wrestle with, in this project, was shaking off the demons of my Lizzie Bennet dress. It was a dress I felt pretty in, but that I took a lot of crap for my appearance when I wore it out. It was structured, fitted, and flowy. The waist was not perfectly matched to the small of my waist, due to my lack of tailoring knowledge. This dress prompted a stranger to ask me when I was due, and then doubled down that I looked pregnant. I wasn’t pregnant, so to her, I looked fat. Thanks lady.

It was rude and such a breach of boundaries. Don’t ask random strangers if they are pregnant; wait for them to clearly tell you. It feels like a slap in the face for so many toxic culture reasons, the main one is the unwanted comment on your body with the double standard of “pregnancy being the most beautiful,” but don’t look pregnant, aka don’t be fat, because the zeitgeist is fat-phobic. I got rid of the dress and don’t have any photos saved of the dress; that’s how much this experience ruined the dress for me. I lacked the confidence to brush it off. I didn’t understand my body’s proportions and lines, therefore, I blamed my body and myself for the dress not working, instead of my tailoring skills being the problem.

2025 Style – Layering and Reclaiming

I chose to confront this feminine dress style once again. I knew it would clash with the natural lines of my body. I don’t have an hourglass body shape, which this fit and flare dress calls for. I’ve been scared to wear it, but I am challenging myself to try. I layered the sheer shirt I made in 2024 with this dress and a belt to create balance. It’s going to take time to get comfortable, for sure.

The dress not only has this flowy skirt, but it is fully lined, and the front gathering has been tracked down with stitches to reduce waist bulk. I also added eyelets and lacing at the back of the garment to define the waist, Lastly, I added a belt to my waist, which I don’t enjoy wearing, but the effect of pulling the eye to the waist should reduce unwanted comments, I hope. I like the contrast of these garments together. They have flow and structure. Together they create a complete thought, and in my opinion, look like designs with a point of view, which is what I am aiming for in my designs 2025.

My 2025 So Far Has Been A Creative Slump

I can’t believe it’s May already, I’ve been so busy with our garden project and a follow up project of screening in our back porch, distracted by Joann’s closure and the evil running rampant in our world that I have been on a slow creative trajectory, and its really catching up to me!

Upcycling, Alterations, Mending

As of late, the bulk of my sewing projects have been preservation, updates, or reworking the garment into something new. In mid-winter, I decided to tailor every t-shirt in my closet. This meant I would be hemming every shirt to end above my hip and bringing the end of the sleeve upward, to end higher on my arm, which is more flattering to my vertical line. I’ve had to repair a few garments and mend some older pieces. I’ve also been taking some of my clothes in and tearing them apart to be upcycled into new projects I can’t wait to share. That I thought I already shared. This leads me to the next point: I have a backlog of projects I held back last fall.

The Head Games of Content

I still battle imposter syndrome, and in doing so, last year, feared that I would run out of ideas. So I slowed down my posting to keep these good ideas and projects in the tank for a rainy day, and instead of this giving me the freedom to create and write without pressure this gave my type-B nature and out to avoid writing, because I had the ideas, and so I sat on them and now it is almost a year later, without these projects having their time to shine. Grinding it out on Instagram last year definitely took my focus from me, and then these constant recession fears have kept me in a place of fear, which has stifled my desire to create, in case I can’t buy more materials in the future. I worry too much. Writing for two years, on this site, led me to a sophomoric slump heading into 2025. I lost the urgency to keep going and backslid into complacency and a lack of creativity. I have also transitioned into a slower creative process in hopes of gaining that spark again!

Hand Sewing 2: Electric Boogaloo

When I began sewing in 2020, I did so through sewing by hand through the tutorials of Bernadette Banner. I did this for two years and then acquired my Heavy Duty Singer, which I switched to using exclusively from the end of 2022 through the beginning of 2025. But this year, I am having some struggles with my sewing machine. I love the speed at which you can make things, but I fear that this boost in speed has dampened my craftsmanship.

When I was sewing by hand, I had the time to consider the project and to ponder where the design was going to lead me. With my sewing machine, I have fallen into a bad habit of making without pausing to ponder. I also started designing simpler, easier-to-sew garments for efficiency instead of art. But speaking of efficiency, I don’t think sewing machines are as efficient as we make them out to be. Mine is quite finicky. It eats fabric and thread. I go through the thread considerably quicker using my Singer than I do by hand. I have to rip seams and sew again, many times, because the machine messed up a stitch or skipped stitches altogether, and I’m tired of it. So my machine and I are taking some time apart.

Slow and Steady, A Life of WIPs

And so, here I am months later with a few finished garments, many WIPs, and a better life balance. Including a refreshed creative well. The time spent working outside with Kyle crafting our screened porch, tilling garden beds, painting, upcycling furniture, studying Japanese, drawing, reading, exercising, etc, has been a wonderful way to remember why I love creating. I find knitting to be my happy place. For a week, I barely knitted, and my mind was filled with far more rage without the needles weaving yarn into cloth. I’ve come to a place in my sewing journey where I want to learn and be ambitious again. I’ve filled my closet with good handmade pieces, but I want to create exceptional, one-of-a-kind things.

I have learned that knitting is my favorite mode of creation, and sewing is the freedom to make what I don’t want to buy or can’t find offered. The process is just as important as the final product, as trite as that is, creation and crafting are where we thrive, not consuming. I find moments of calm in working with my hands and feel satisfaction in stepping away to old creative haunts, like painting or gardening. I think the slump was an important part of growing. I hope that you find creative refreshment and know that you are loved. Stay safe out there, these are dangerous times, and know that I care about you all very much.

#71 – Caramel

Luscious, warm, a decadent note that makes a dessert sing in perfect harmony. I used to crave this in candy bars, a Twix, or perhaps a scoop of Bruster’s Chocolate Turtle ice cream.

The Great British Bake Off opened my eyes to Banoffee Pie and the simple luxury of making a caramel without instructions. The process is a beautiful as the finished product. A melting sugar and butter, finished with cream.

The Caramel Macchiato taught me what coffee can do beyond ice cream sundaes and candy confections. It can be comforting, a delight to grab between classes, or an awful first job.

But how does one enjoy something they can not eat? I’ve been stumped on how to recreate this treat since my dairy-free lifestyle began, until I picked up a pint of dairy-free Phish Food from Ben & Jerry’s. It had the marshmallow fluff (which I discovered I could eat again this past winter) and ribbons of soft caramel. Caramel that tasted like the real thing.

I began to search for knowledge on blogs and Reddit until I found a recipe so simple I had to give it a try.

  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt

It was so simple. Melt the ingredients together on medium-low, then boil and reduce for 20 minutes. Let cool in a glass jar and store in the fridge. I made it last night and it was marvelous!

I found Vanilla Bean Oat Milk ice cream at the store for a sundae, and bam, I was a kid again, making an ice cream sundae with my grandparents on a summer evening.

What is a flavor that takes you home? Is there a food you haven’t had in a while that will comfort you in these trying times? Make it, your inner child will thank you.

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