My favorite treat as spring has spring and summer rolls on has been homemade strawberry milk! As a kid I thought this was something you made with Hershey’s Strawberry Syrup but as I began to learn more about Japan and Korea, I discovered the real strawberry milk. Strawberry milk, banana milk, etc. With real fruit flavor and I had to try it! But there is one problem, I can’t have dairy without making myself sick.
This is why my favorite strawberry treats – strawberries with whipped cream and jello pretzel salad are no longer treats I can enjoy. It’s a bummer but if I make the strawberry milk myself, I am able to enjoy it.
And so this year I find myself happily blending strawberries in a food processor. Straining the seeds with a mesh strainer and spatula over a measuring cup all for a spectactular little treat – strawberry milk!
I finished my koala portrait from Koala Drawings in Pencil in a new medium, well a new old medium, a medium I haven’t used in 10 years, oil pastel! I forgot how good oil pastels are for color payoff and texture without being messy like chalk pastels or watercolors. I felt in control of the pigment while being able to direct shadows and highlights over the piece. I’m hooked!
This koala was inspired by a photo I found on Instagram from a creator with the handle @hidenoritsuzuki. Why was this image so special to me? The hand posture and facial expression reminded me so much of my stepdad and his favorite goofy way to feign exasperation. It was the hand! Totally brightened my day. 🙂
My go-to inspiration in high school was this daily calendar my mom had in her office. Each day featured a photograph from a scene in Ireland, and each day, at the end of the day, my mom would bring the paper home and give me the photograph to draw from. Before the days of Pinterest and Instagram, it was a bit tricky to find beautiful images to practice with. There were magazines of course and books, not to mention literally the world around you, but this was a game changer to get daily inspiration. In the 2000s, it was before the supremacy of the touchscreen smartphone with apps galore and fantastic cameras to snap photos in that you could carry around in your pocket. If you took photos for inspiration, you had to print them and it was not cheap. Printing even on printer paper was not cheap and trust me, parents did not like us wasting ink.
This is a taste of what the images featured via a modern source – Unsplash.
What is special to me about the framed image above is that I didn’t frame it. My grandparents did. It was a piece that I guess spoke to them and they framed it and hung it in their bedroom. Something I didn’t appreciate at the time, as a moody teenager I was embarrassed by it. Now in 2024, it hangs in the hallway outside my bedroom and when I see it hanging there proudly in its frame I remember how much they believed in my art, my writing, my fashion sense. I wish I could show them all that I am doing now. I think they would be proud.
People are ticked off regarding Selkie’s use of AI in their Valentine’s Day release, and I have to say, I can see their point! (Also, cupid, again? What is up with these dramatic “love-inspired” releases for 2024?)
Selkie made a creative, design choice. A big choice that may not have been the wisest decision for their brand reputation. As of three days after the announcement, the comment section is not pleased by the decision to use AI-developed patterns for their fabric instead of human artists to develop patterns for their newest crop of iconic dresses.
Now, right off the bat for me, I can see a contradiction in this decision just from an aesthetic standpoint. Selkie is a dress brand that took off in popularity in 2020, selling fantasy puff romantic dresses that evoke another time. They are fanciful, sometimes with corsetted bodices, other times they have high regency waistlines, but mostly they look like a dress to galavant around Versailles in with Marie Antoinette. They are not modern in the dream they sell, they have an intrinsic historical imagination.
They are princess dresses. Ladies of prestige in the modern time when none of them feel like princesses. Since the 1990s, we have seen a steep decline in formal fashion in our day-to-day life. Case in point, billionaire tech boys wear hoodies and t-shirts, not suits and hats like Carnegie and Vanderbilt. In 2020, this came to a head as remote work and social distancing created a new space of absolute nothingness when it came to fashion.
What was the point? You could wear pajamas and as long as you weren’t on a Zoom call, who would know? It was negligible. With face coverings, makeup became superfluous. Selkie, cottage-core, dark academia, etc. These movements in fashion revealed something deeper in our collective psyche. Although wearing pajamas and hanging out on our couches seemed like a dream, in reality, we were missing the fantasy of spectacle and splendor. Selkie is the typification of this.
AI pops the dream bubble. Suddenly the clouds of tulle and puff sleeves that carried us into a dream world of palaces, picnics, and girlhood, evaporate underneath us and the lifestyle falls back to reality. As much as AI sells a dream of fantasy, it is a tool of reality. The reality of cutting corners, fast fashion, and jobs being cut from creatives is to cut costs because AI is cheaper. But cheaper is not always cheerful. In the case of a lot of AI art and AI work, you are getting what you pay for. It’s not the real deal, something is just a bit off.
I’ve watched several videos in 2023 of creators I watch putting AI to the test, and in each case when it came to AI having to work in our space, in the humanities, it couldn’t hang. The results were surreal, not real. In these videos, AI was used to interpret history, recreate art in a historical style, create portraits in photography, show examples of historical dress, and give advice on how to give yourself a makeover. In each experiment, the AI was not able to replicate the human experience and seemed to get confused by things involving the story of humans.
With Selkie’s historical aesthetic being a key to its branding, it is not surprising to me that AI seems out of the aesthetic wheelhouse. This is an interesting reaction to me because it has appeared since the turn of the 20th century that we as humans have been lusting over technology as the ultimate fantasy until we have it and then the intoxication fades away like blood alcohol and late-night attraction.
It is an interesting time for fashion brands for sure because I think this may be the era that humanness and authenticity to the world the brand is selling may prove to be more valuable than gold. I appreciate the commitment to humanness and personal ethics that consumers are voicing. Especially when it comes to human artists. We can’t change the fact that AI is a thing and it is easy to replace humans with technology, all we can do is voice our opinion and make choices based on what we believe.
I’ve looked through the comments on Selkie’s newest release and there were echoes of disappointment and displeasure from consumers, a lot of them being artists themselves. There was a different tone in these comments than the commonplace cancel culture of our current age, there was genuine sadness. Like when a parent isn’t mad, just disappointed.
The criticism was delivered respectfully but firmly. This gave me hope that we can begin discussing things online with more frankness and kindness than in recent years. If you are a big proponent of AI, I ask dear reader that you don’t take my thoughts on the subject of AI personally. Maybe you can be the one to show us all what makes it great? 🙂
I smell snow. An iconic line from a one-of-a-kind character, in a show that successfully captured the magic of winter despite being filled in southern California. They have me fooled every time!
Gilmore Girls has some of the most inspiring winter fashion of any show I’ve watched! I get excited as the temperature drops each fall because I know it’s almost coat season, hat season, scarf season, etc. From season one onward, Lorelai’s love for winter is magnetic! She has a passion for the flakey white accumulation, wrapped up in the atmosphere of cozy nights, and of course her cold weather accessories. She shares this dynamic winter wardrobe with Rory who can rock a good scarf with the best of them.
These items are not just layers or bulk, they are a canvas upon which to paint and express who the characters are by what they wear. They are sentences without words. Personality in yarn. A conversation starter, or simply a colorful way to brighten the gloomy and the gray. A bright point in our day. When I was thinking about adding a new cold-weather accessory to my wardrobe this was my ethos. It had to be special, something I would treasure and wear until it fell apart.
The Plan
My goal for this winter season was to make a striped, colorful, skinny scarf in the early 2000s, aka prime Gilmore style. To accomplish this I thought I would need a myriad of colorful yarns. You can see from my inspiration photos above, there is a lot of color. In my extant garments from that time in my life, there was also a lot of color. My skinny scarves from Aeropostale in the early 2000s were blended with a myriad of shades, but to my surprise, when I began to work on this project, a small color palette of three produced the most impact.
The Pattern:
On US 8 needles with worsted weight yarn, knit for 40 stitches, purl 40 stitches, and swap colors every 2 rows. To a desired length, I believe my finished product is around 48 inches. If you make one, I wish you happy knitting!
I have this new widget on my phone, the verse of the day, and what I love about this new widget is that I can’t accidentally close out the notification like I can with the Bible App’s push notification. I’ve done that so many times by accident and it frustrates me because I like having the verse of the day reminder at the top of my phone. Why do you ask? These verse-of-the-day notifications are sometimes like a voice in the wilderness, paraphrasing Isaiah 40:3. It cuts through the chaos, the world’s inhumanity, and all that life throws at us. It reminds me to stop and remember who stands beside me through every moment – Jesus.
Today’s verse of the day is a verse I remember from childhood, it was the theme verse of my Bible cover. It was shortened to include the first phrase of the sentence – “a friend loves at all times” and featured a cartoon-style illustration of a group of kids with their arms around each other like they were posing for a photo. They were united in love for one another. I liked that case because it reminded me that I could feel the fellowship I longed for being an only child with my friends. I could get a taste of the community my friends and cousins had instead of feeling like the odd one out.
It wasn’t until much later, it could easily be my Bible read-through in 2020-2021, that I understood there was more to the verse. There is more to this verse, and the entire second half of a sentence that fills me with emptiness not because I am an only child, but understanding what the verse means – family united. Recently there has been a lot of family in my life again and it has taken me some time to get used to having people around again.
In the last ten years, my family has seemed more like Coyote to my Road Runner.
There has been a lot of betrayal, suspicious decisions, and big divides. When I read that verse this morning I was struck by how I associate friends with the security of family and family with the cloak of the adversary in my life. The villain mostly instead of the place I run to. Am I really that jaded? Cause that sounds jaded and not like a person in a healthy place. I shouldn’t be scared of family, but I am. I don’t want to get hurt again. I don’t want to be let down.
A longtime friend and I just ended our friendship and the weirdest part about the whole thing has been the rollercoaster of emotions flooding my mind. I feel grief like she died, but she didn’t our relationship did. I feel like I lost my sister, but ironically what sent me running for the hills in our disagreement was how much she began to remind me of my sister, my dad’s youngest. We have different moms. We have a lot of baggage and the relationship is quite toxic.
In the final days of our friendship, I was freaked out once I saw how much our friendship had grown into a toxic state mirroring my relationship with my sister. The crossover from a safe friendship to a toxic family dynamic frightened me. Ironically since we had to part ways because we couldn’t seem to right our problems, I have been grieved about losing a “sister” figure in that friendship. Even though the friendship was unhealthy for a long time, I felt a sisterhood with her because she wasn’t actually related to me, and I overlooked the ways we were unhealthy for each other because it is safer to cling to this faux-sister thing than to leave it behind. I completely wish my friend well and want her to find a support system that works better for her because the toxic dynamic that we brought out in each other was no good for anyone.
And yet, I find myself feeling like that little kid again with the Bible cover hoping I find a new community even though I do have a community right in front of me, but some of that community involves family. I’m definitely supposed to learn something here.
So, why am I sharing all this? When I saw this verse pop up on my widget I was struck by how serious this is for our communities and our world. Family should not be the ones who hurt us, but they can and they do, on varying levels of seriousness, some being very, very serious levels. God gave us the structure of family and of friendship. They are inherently good things. But we use them for bad because we are fallen humans. We are capable of creating unrepairable damage, where I stand with several family members and it sucks knowing that we may never be able to repair this on Earth.
I think being a Peacemaker, as God calls us to be is more than just finding reconciliation, I think it’s also about filling those gaps in society. Some people have family members who have done evil things and their actions and continued choices have made it impossible to reconcile on Earth as it stands, it’s all in God’s hands for now. Being a peacemaker does not mean forcing insincere apologies, or forcing families back into dangerous, even deadly situations. Being a peacemaker challenges us to bring God’s kingdom here. To love, to comfort, to fill the gaps, and to show who God is and what He freely gives to us all if we accept Him. None of us have earned it or deserve it and that’s not the point. The point is to glorify God and allow Him to transform our lives and our world. Being a willing vessel is what is important.
I was watching a documentary last night called Jonathan & Jesus, it’s on Amazon Prime, and in it, Jonathan Roumie met with the leader of Civil Righteousness, Jonathan Tremaine Thomas, and spoke about what being a peacemaker is and I was struck by how much daily myself and the world around me misses the point of what that means. Especially for me, I think of my family. It’s like we have divorced ourselves from acknowledging that is part of the Christian life. But in the early church, Christians were the peacemakers, the outposts of hope in dire situations like plagues. There are a lot of things, I remembered, that we are missing the plot about. Some days it feels overwhelming to think about creating change, even in my own life not just in my community, or my country.
This verse of the day really humbled me. The documentary humbled me. The words of Jonathan Roumie, Brandon Flowers, Alice Cooper, Jonathan Tremaine Thomas, Francis Chan, etc humbled me. But also filled me with hope and purpose. A reset. I’m resetting a lot this month, I guess between my schedule and my focus. That’s why I love the verse of the day, God speaks through this app and through documentaries, His voice is everywhere as long I listen.
I’m not a big New Year’s Resolution girl, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seriously done that or just made a joking one in my head when I was a teen cause I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. What I do like doing instead is resetting my habits and schedule after Christmas. Because no matter what phase I am in my life that week between Christmas and New Year’s seems to wreck my daily schedule and motivation like no other.
Blocks of Productivity
My plan was literally to plan, I opened Google Docs and made myself a table for a daily schedule. I have tasks I want to be doing each day or every other day – devotions, exercise, Japanese learning, writing, sewing, knitting, art, and cleaning. Without the schedule, I tend to fixate on one thing all day or jump around not making progress on much of anything except for getting through my YouTube music playlists. My solution? Blocking my time like college. Spending a chunk of time, an hour or two, the most three on a given task to get things done and keep my motivation up.
In the morning I’ve decided I have the option to do devotions, Kanji study, art (natural light dependent), or writing. In the afternoon I prefer knitting, sewing, or writing. Intersperse cleaning and exercise in between tasks. The results? One week in and I’d say, I like it! I’ve made progress on my Kanji vocabulary goals – learning 60 Kanji between two lessons. Blocking the Japanese lessons for first in the morning for two hours is the best time for my brain to absorb it. Knitting or sewing in the afternoon has helped me through that mid-afternoon slump.
It’s also allowed me a way to walk away from sewing if I am not enjoying the process. Instead of devoting a whole day to sewing like I did in the past, blocking sewing to a few hours in the afternoon lets my mind feel like I can accomplish a project and still feel okay walking away after an hour. Because sometimes sewing can make me angry. Yesterday, sewing made me quite mad after my three of my hems jammed into the needle plate. The hem was driven down by the needle and unable to be removed without stitch ripping and eventually ripping a hole in the hem. I was angry and ready to be done and instead of angry sewing, I pivoted to something else knowing I could pick up tomorrow and I would because of my new schedule.
Balance in Writing
Another motivator that prompted me to reset my daily schedule was the writing ideas I had. I mentioned before that I have a fiction idea that I have tabled for now for a more pressing idea, a non-fiction fashion research project. This is going to be a big project that needs structure to get done because I have not researched since college and it intimidates me a bit to think of doing that again without the access of inter-library-loan. I don’t know how straightforward the process is going to be on my own without the resources and my mentor to encourage me forward.
I’ve started writing poetry again, mainly to cope with big emotions, something I want to discuss further in a separate post. I’m enjoying it. I enjoy how it makes me feel to write for the fun of it again. I’ve been writing for the fun of it more and more. Last week, I wrote two lengthy pieces that could be blog posts, but I’m not sure if they are “done” yet if that makes sense. And then there is this blog, I need to be more consistent. A reset I am after this month is to get consistent and if necessary make a content calendar to keep myself on task like I used to in my digital marketing job.
Sunshine Come Back
I want to paint more, to sketch daily, and I truly feel handcuffed by the weather. This fall and winter it has been exceptionally dreary. Like we get hints of sunshine and then the gray rolls in. Today, it is mid-morning and the sun has technically risen but I can’t see it behind the sleet, the dark shadows cast by the gray clouds, and the racing wind. It is hecking depressing and I like rainy days and spooky gray skies, but this is truly messing with the art. I need to figure out a lighting situation. Once I do that I hope to get sketching and painting consistently again. Either way, Spring will come or my lighting solution will.
Seasons of Fashion
My sewing and knitting waves of creation follow seasons, the weather seasons, and not the fashion seasons because I can’t keep up and tend to forget that fashion seasons are the opposite of what you would think they would be. That being said, I made a big push in the fall to wrap up cold weather projects before December and since November, I have taken my foot off the gas pedal. But this coasting has to come to an end at some point and that is what this schedule is for because I have purchased fabric for some big, ambitious makes and those are going to take time. For knitting, I’d like to develop more knitting patterns and start looking at launching a shop in some capacity either with patterns or finished goods. I feel more confident in my knitting skills right now than in my sewing skills, but I am going to challenge myself to track my patterns for sewing this year.
This reminds me, I need to transfer a self-drafted pattern I cut out yesterday to my brown kraft paper before I sew up the side and finish the garment. I should go do that before I forget!
This post is inspired by videos created by Drew Joiner and Steal the Spotlight who offered their unique takes and got me thinking about where I could see fashion trends shifting as we move into a new year.
Cosmic-Cowboy or Sailor-Cowboy
In 2023, we had the Coastal Cowboy aesthetic and Copper Cowboy hair color for Autumn. Cowboy will keep going strong, but there will be a twist. I could see a sailor-cowboy mashup influenced by One Piece or a glitz, chromed cosmic-cowboy. I picture a Vegas-esque cowboy with space accessories. I can see Brandon Flowers rocking this.
Gameday Fits
No matter how much I don’t like TS I have to admit that Taylor Swift’s presence at Kansas City Chief games is drawing attention to the gameday outfit. Athletes have been doing this for a while but for fans, this has been a niche thing. It’s not really “fashionable” just functional and decked out in team gear. But Taylor’s outfits have drawn attention and sparked the creative juices of sports attendees to add a little extra. Team this with the importance of the jersey in Blokette core in 2023 and I see this going strong in 2024!
Bonnets
Steal the Spotlight brought my attention to this trend through her deep dives into K-fashion and J-fashion. The knit bonnet, which looks like a headband that covers the ears and ties around the chin is a fascinating idea that has been styled in Japanese street fashion all the way back in the 1990s. I’d love for this to be explored further in 2024.
The Resurrection of Parasols
Skincare and anti-aging have become billion-dollar industries, with baby botox becoming a normal idea for teenagers. I believe that the idea of sun umbrellas or parasols, like how they use umbrellas in Korea, could trend so that we can keep those wrinkles at bay, per the beauty standard. I would be in favor of this because the sun hurts my pale blue eyes and vampire-esque skin.
The Return of the Flip-Flop
We’ve had Tevas, Crocs, Birkenstocks, etc and I’d say it’s time for the 2000s rubber flip-flop to have its moment again. The ones that were hugely popular in the States during the 2000s due to Old Navy’s $1 or $2 flip-flop sales. I used to also get these for free from Victoria’s Secret if I spent $50. Because of the economy and the shift away from maximalism brewing, I think these coming back would make a lot of sense.
Patches and Visible Mending
This has grown in popularity since 2020 but I think the DIY element of this will become more of a focus in 2024. It would be a vehicle for self-expression while focusing on sustainability, helping with no-buy years, and in general looking cool, as the tik-tok aesthetics desire.
ARMY-core
As of December 2023, all seven members of BTS are enlisted and completing their military service. To get ready for their return I could see military styles with a K-pop and BTS flair becoming popular as fans globally miss their Bangtan Boys. I could see this in garment styles and accessories, with a distinct BTS flavor. Outfits could be inspired by music videos, performances, album concepts, and color stories.
Gilded Age Finery
I think we are sleeping on the Gilded Age aesthetic. The fashion plates of the 1870s-1880s and the costumes of the show are stunning. I don’t understand why this is not taking off like Downton Abbey’s 1920s fashion or Regency-era styles from Bridgerton. Historical fashion communities have been growing in popularity since the late 2010s. I’d love to see people experiment with the silhouettes, fabrics, tailoring, and accessories!
Colorful Knit Accessories
Kawaii and K-pop influences have definitely had an effect on knit accessories this year from animal ears to stripey hats and arm warmers coming back. The hat and scarf connected combo was iconic. I don’t see this going anywhere in 2024.
Exaggerated Tailoring
I think with the rise of quiet luxury and minimalism due to the economy I think exaggerated and surreal tailoring will break these styles out of the blah and bring something to the table that we maximalists will hang on to in 2024. Personal style is beginning to dwarf the larger trends and what is a better way to stand out than flipping the script on traditional cuts and proportions.
Jersey Shore nostalgia
I’ve seen too many reels about this time period to not believe this is coming back in some way. Club fashion in the early 2010s was something unique. Good or bad it has left a mark and I think youth culture will want to explore the studs, the bandage dresses, the leopard print, the Affliction tees, and True Religion jeans with sunglasses and a poof. Extra points for Gym Tan Laundry.
What do you think will be trending in 2024? I hope you enjoyed this just-for-fun list of things I think would be enjoyable to see. I wish you a wonderful new year full of peace and love. I’ll see you in the new year, friends. ❤
I began learning Japanese in January 2023, and I have to say when I started this journey I bought four college textbooks thinking I would be through most of the lessons by the end of the year, and that statement did not come true. In fact, I haven’t finished the first unit book.
Now is this because I’m saying Japanese is so difficult that I couldn’t do it? No, I managed my time poorly and put my language learning sessions as a third or fourth priority in my day which made it easier to procrastinate and not do it all. I made choices that took my attention away from language learning. Now some of these choices were really good choices!
Like I chose to start writing on this blog which has been a huge blessing creatively! It required discipline to keep going and make writing a habit. I also decided I wanted to become a more skilled knitter this year and chose to tackle several sweater projects this year. That stretched my patience and time management skills to get those projects completed quickly to use them in the colder months. As well as sewing my new summer wardrobe, a new coat, and new pajamas.
These were a good distraction, one that taught me about tailoring and fit. I became a better pattern drafter through this practice and learned how to duplicate designs. This was a great use of my time! But it wasn’t language learning, and so in my head I am wrestling with the fact that I didn’t complete my goal yet I achieved many goals that I had. I became a better student and more prepared to learn Japanese through the ways I spent my time this year, ironically not learning Japanese.
I think coming to terms with the fact that we as humans cannot be perfect, is a tough pill to swallow no matter how mature we are or how “laissez faire” we approach our time and therefore when we feel like we need to tick every box off our list and smash every challenge set before us in rider to feel like you did your best, it is hard to show yourself grace that you came short. I hope I did the best I could this year and I hope I gave Japanese my all! I made flashcards to help myself practice hiragana and katakana and tried to immerse myself in culture, grammar, conversational practice, vocabulary, etc.
I have a lot of respect for the language since trying to learn it, more than I did going in. I was intimidated going into the first day of learning but now I am more in awe of the way Japanese as a language works and has worked for 1300+ years. I learned that the first written example of Japanese dates back to the 8th century. I’m amazed by the way Japanese has multiple writing systems and blends its own language with the Han characters of traditional Chinese.
My own native language is a blend of Germanic, French, Latin, and Greek origin words. I understand the blend but I am amazed by the unique way Japanese did it compared to how English did. Dipping my toes into the study of Kanji has made the process of Japanese feel like a full circle, maybe it is just the fact that Kanji seems less scary since my mind is training itself to recognize a new writing system or maybe this is progress, although small, towards understanding Japanese.
Being ready to commit my time to learning next year is a top priority.
It’s bigger than a New Year’s resolution, it’s a plan for my time next year. It is that time of year when we reflect, take stock, and dream for tomorrow. So, what are you planning for? I hope whatever it is dear reader, that it goes well and you have the confidence to chase your dream.
Domo arigato gozaimasu for spending time with me today!
One Rabbit Riot 