Tag: sewing

How I Duplicated My Favorite Pair of Pants

Have you noticed I am not sewing as much as I used to? As Marie Kondo instructs, if it doesn’t bring you joy, let it go. That’s been my relationship with sewing, honestly, since 2024. Sewing and I had hit a rough patch in our relationship. No longer in the euphoric beginning, nor going deeper and bonding through the big sewing wins. We were burned out in the grind of sewing, striving to be better but lacking the proper knowledge to do so. Therefore, we’ve been on a break – off and on since 2025, and it’s been good.

It’s given me time to reflect on what I want to pursue, sewing, specializing, and what I feel like I should make because of the internet. It’s given me time to ponder what drives me to make my own clothes. When I began sewing, I was intrigued by historical styles, and then I drifted into more feminine items like dresses, blouses, and skirts. Shorts and pants were made and quickly cut up for scrap because they were such enigmas for my mind to understand. On this break, I’ve given myself room to figure out what I like to wear, which is key to sewing your own clothes. You can chase all the trendy patterns and styles, but if you don’t want to wear them, then you have a very expensive wardrobe of your own sweat equity that is useless to you. My desire was to break this cycle.

Going into 2023, I wasn’t sure what to make anymore or what I wanted to sew, but I felt this compulsion to keep going because I was so committed to this new hobby. A hobby I wanted to become my future career. It’s been in the midst of the slowdown that my artistic point of view has recalibrated. I like pants (trousers), overalls (dungarees), denim (dungarees), comfortable silhouettes like that of Lucy & Yak, and that is what I want to make.

This has only intensified since the Trad Wife trend co-opted the flouncy dresses, giving me the ick at the thought of associating with something I have always strived to avoid. Growing up in communities dominated by the Reformed Presbyterian church (a denomination I do not belong to and never shall) and Christian Nationalism spreading its snakey tendrils throughout the Christian bubble – I want nothing to do with the Trad Wife and all it represents.

That brings us to the present day, March 2026. After 2 years of sitting in my fabric stash, I finally started to cut the trouser fabric I bought to make my own pants in 2024. Too intimidated by my own past failure, I let it hide in my crafting closet, all of 2025, for fear of failing again. I did fail at pants in September 2025 with another fabric, so it was not unfounded fear. But what is the point of living in fear, especially for something so small? Would I learn that I am not very good at sewing? Sure, and who cares?! Is crafting a competition? No. It’s about making incremental steps towards success through practice.

For my birthday, Kyle gave me two garments from Lucy & Yak, something I had dreamed of since 2019. A pair of denim dungarees and a pair of corduroy pants. And you know what I thought of looking at them folded? What a lovely thing to take a pattern from. Use brown craft paper or wrapping paper, and feel free. I traced methodically, marking the seam allowance, and back from the front pattern piece. I carefully laid out my pattern, mirroring the right and left pieces for the front and back. Then, over two weeks, I slowly sewed these pants together by hand with a fresh sewing needle, which makes all the difference. Don’t be cheap like I used to be; buy new needles regularly to save your hands. Sew with courage, because this might be the time it all clicks. What if you never let yourself succeed? That would be more terrible than failing again at doing the hard thing.

I wish you happy sewing and good-fitting pants that make you smile every time you wear them.

How I am Preparing to Leave Pinterest, if OpenAI Buys Them

I want to start off by pleading with Pinterest, please don’t work with OpenAI. (I know this is purely a rumor, but even so, I think using the internet to voice opinions is important.) I have been using your platform since 2012, and it is so useful! It has become less useful over time, with the “purely financial” decisions of peppering in a multitude of advertising pins and allowing AI-generated art to invade the platform. Even so, it is still a platform I use and love to escape into for inspiration.

Without Pinterest, creative writing projects like Udal Cuain, knitting colorwork projects, sewing projects, and home decor ideas would have been more difficult to source and may not have been on my radar – ever. I’ve even learned simplified versions of songs to play on the piano before I bought proper books, for free through Pinterest. Now what about fandoms? On really difficult days, my Stray Kids board is filled with memes, SKZ Code, captured moments from lives, silly edits, and STAY inside jokes that would not exist in one place to make me smile.

I don’t want to leave Pinterest at all, but there comes a time when we must make a stand for what is right – if you integrate with OpenAI, as rumors have thrown around, many other like-minded individuals, and I will leave because, as artists, we will not stand for the theft being carried out by generative AI of our work. Art is human. Generative AI is regurgitation. Art is for an audience of many; AI-generated art is for an audience of one. Human-made art has emotion; AI-generated art is the result of algorithmic decisions. AI-generated things are not new; they are not groundbreaking. They are human effort and human creativity scraped by these computers and served up as “new” all while consuming vast amounts of electricity and clean water, for nothing but perceived “innovation” that makes these tech bros wealthier. It gives nothing to humanity; it feeds the greed of the few. Alright, that’s enough of looking into the abyss for me.

How do I plan to make this change if Pinterest is bought by OpenAI?

  • Crafting Books
  • Used Books, Magazines, and Catalogs
  • Respectful Fan Accounts on Instagram
  • Physical Notebooks
  • Migrating to Milanote
  • Blogs and Research
  • Building a Creative 3rd Place Elsewhere
  • Creating Your Own Charts
  • Physical Moodboards
  • Acknowledging Frustration
  • Diving into History
  • Utilizing Libraries

Yes, we’ll be going back to analog inspirations, like going back to the 1990s and 2000s. I’ll be crafting even slower, researching longer, and spending more time digging to learn how to do new techniques like fillet crochet or how to paint using gouache paints, but that’s okay. At least it will be honest inspiration. In time, we will all come back together through a new creative community platform, and it will be a bit of a waste of time. So, Pinterest, put these rumors to bed, please, because when it comes to AI, we artists mean business, and you will be left behind.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk ❤

DIY K-Pop Band Tees Using Embroidery and Knitting

In 2025, one of my goals was to try my hand at crafting my own K-Pop Merch. Some bands are easy to find Merch for, and others, well, you are left to your own ingenuity. The bands I selected to try for this are NCT 127 and NMIXX, which I have tried and failed to find band tees for that I liked. For this project, I used two different techniques – embroidery and stranded colorwork knitting.

NCT 127 Embroidery

My first idea was to pick up a blank T-shirt from the craft section and get to work. The shirt I chose was a Gildan tee from Walmart, which I DO NOT recommend. This shirt is so freaking thin. Horrible quality compared to the blanks I have found at Michael’s, Dollar General, or even Hobby Lobby. But as I was dubious of my embroidery skills, I went ahead with the Walmart shirt as practice. That was the right call, because dang, embroidery is not as straightforward as it looks.

For this project, you will need: an embroidery hoop, embroidery floss bundles, a marker or pen to sketch your design on your shirt, and backing like embroidery interfacing or a fabric scrap that I used (because I forgot that the embroidery needed a backing).

For the design, I chose something simple. The song, the band, and a little imagery. I love their early album Cherrybomb (2017), but the song is almost 10 years old now, and it’s kinda hard to find any NCT Merch with it at this point. Seemed like the perfect option for a first try. I wasn’t expecting my stitches to be so tight; I felt like I was fighting myself across the whole piece. This was because I forgot about the backing for stability, and all this embroidery on this poor quality shirt, yeah, it wasn’t great. Afterwards, I added a backing to the embroidery with a scrap piece of another t-shirt.

Is it my best work? No. But is it a start for making better projects in the future? Yes! And I wear it anyway in the garden and as a sleep shirt.

Red Velvet Knitting

My desire for Red Velvet Merch was entirely motivated by the confusing announcement in April 2025 that members Yeri and Wendy did not renew their contracts with SM Entertainment, but Red Velvet was not disbanding. They have become one of my top girl groups after their release of Cosmic in 2024, so it seemed only appropriate to use the album Cosmic as my muse for a cotton knit tank with stranded colorwork. It’s a bit easier to find Red Velvet Merch on sites like Teepublic, from which I have bought a shirt. This project was more about expressing my love for this album, and I hope that Cosmic will not be their last release as a group.

You will need: a pencil, pen, graph paper, and stitch markers. (Along with your basic knitting supplies – needles, yarn, scissors, tapestry needle)

To start, I searched Pinterest for album artwork and a logo. I found a lot of options to use as a compass for the project, but decided the simplest option would be best. I opted for one color to keep the floats simple. To make my colorwork charts, I always use graph paper and a pencil to be able to adjust the marks that I transfer from the image. Once I am happy with my design, I trace over it in pen and use a pencil to cross out the lines of the pattern as I complete the project to mark my progress. To understand the dimensions of the image as I worked, I also marked the “canvas” with stitch markers. It is also important to note your garment construction and how that relates to your chart. I made this tank knitting bottom up, so I began working on my colorwork from the bottom of the chart.

I am thrilled with how this project turned out! As my first stranded colorwork project with this complex of a design, it was far easier than I thought to complete. You just have to plan out your image and be patient with your floats. Try not to hold too tightly and remember that blocking will help the tension relax.

It’s Okay to Admit You Don’t Like It

A place I didn’t expect to reach this year, was the mental head space of dislike for a dream I’ve had for most of my life. Now could it be burnout and I just need a break? Probably. But I also think it might a healthy thing to acknowledge something you thought you would love, may not actually bring you joy as you wished.

What am I talking about? Sewing. I don’t like sewing as much as I want to. It is tedious, extremely complicated, and requires a level of patience I lack. I’ve been a sewist for 5 years now. I devoted a large amount of my time over the past five years to the study of garment construction, and I realized that it is not my medium, yarn is, and its not a failure to admit I don’t like sewing as much as knitting and crochet.

I think I have known this for about a year, yet refused to verbalize my feeling because it felt like I failed the one thing I always wanted to do. But why is that a failure?

Just because it’s not my passion, doesn’t mean I am going to stop sewing. I think having this space to put less pressure on it to be “my thing” could make me enjoy it more!

Because then I am free to create, to fail, to be a slow learner, to take breaks from sewing when I am ready to cry. I don’t have to feel pressured to get my skills up to par for selling my work. I don’t have to feel pressure to design my own patterns or build a business on sewing. I can go back to basics of what has always been at my core – art. I am an artist, I don’t set out to be, but I know its there inside me too afraid to commit to the bit.

I love what sewing brings me. It’s a fantastic skill to have. I can design my own clothing made to measure and that is luxurious even if my sewing skills are mid.

I can experiement with my style through upcycling. I love how I can recycle and repurpose fabric instead of donating. That is a important part of comsumption. We buy and buy but don’t think about the life cycle of the garment, but with needle and thread you can leave the buy and declutter cycle.

Sewing has taught me to be a wiser comsumer as well. I buy garments that I can’t sew. Complex garments. I also price compare fabric against pieces in store to figure out what is more cost effective to sew. Such as buying a 6.99/yard, one yard cut of cotton jersey to make one long sleeve basic tee. You can buy these from retailers for 35 USD compared to sewing one for 7 USD.

It’s not always cheaper, but sometimes it is and that is a huge win!

Finally, by allowing myself to feel these feelings, my hope is that I will be free to explore and create unencombered by goals of monetizing my hobby, instead that I enjoy the creative process again.

Have you ever tried sewing? Did you find it challenging?

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Bring the Fall

I have been a bit lax with my writing lately, but I’m feeling inspired. The chill returns to the sunny blue sky, orange steeps upon the leaves, and the need to stay warm welcomes me back with open arms. I love fall. I love sweaters, flannel, corduroy, and denim. Getting dressed when the weather is crisp.

These are my favorite outfits, I’ve worn recently, using pieces I have sewn, thrifted, or upcycled. The only piece I bought new is the overalls, because I failed to make my own.

I’ve been getting into whimsy-goth style, like Practical Magic. I’ve been layering with sheer, with knit, and with textures. I’ve been drawn to brighter colors for the darker months. I’m trying to find the joy, before the year ends, and find a better way to end this challenging 2025.

So now that I have sat with my thoughts for months, finding my way out of the woods with my crafts, I am going to get chatty again!

I think what is bringing me the most excitement right now is kpop. Karma has been a wonderland. Chaeyoung of Twice’s solo release was Black Keys perfection. Nmixx new Blue Valentine era is thrilling, Red Velvet-esque, and the most exciting sryling I have seen from a girl group other than Twice in 2025. Taeyong is coming back from the military in December and I am beyond ready for punchy NCT to be back. It’s been 18 months of change and sadness since he left, we need the NEO king back. I’m also impatiently waiting for fellow NCT’s Yuta to release his full album at the end of October.

In other things, Mia is doing well and we are so bonded. It’s everything I hoped for! I’m excited for Saskie & Co’s second book to be released – Saskie Knits. I’d like to get my hands on both of her books. The Great British Bakeoff is back, and that has made for a lovely few weeks. I’m learning new crochet stitches, such as the waffle stitch and granny stitch. I can identify single crochet, half-double crochet, double crochet, and treble crochet stitches. I have also mastered using my yarn swift and ball winder!

I am faltering on my language learning, with a steep decline in practice sessions since June. But I have begun to hear the difference between Korean and Japanese. Even being able to identify a YouTube AI mishap where a kpop song had English subtitles with kanji appearing instead of hangul. By reading the Japanese, I concluded they did not match. I can also tell the difference in speech patterns between Korean and Japanese, identifying key grammar structures. So, I guess, if nothing else happens this year with my language learning, it is marinating up there and I am retaining it.

There have been some really trying personal things going on behind the scenes, that although I probably share too much on here, I can’t discuss. But I can say I have never felt more like I have been drowning than this year. As we head into fall though, I think the source of the stress is healing and I am grateful to be moving towards peace.

My last bit of good news is that I got a rebounder! Also known as a miniature trampoline for cardio. It is a blast. I can’t wait to get healthier and hold less tension in my body.

What exciting things are on your horizon?

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Project Runway, I Have Notes

In August, Project Runway returned under a new network and reshuffled the format, hosts, and challenges to make a show I think was actually okay. Compared to where the show was left on Bravo in 2023, I think bringing back Heidi Klum was a good choice compared to the choice of Karlie Kloss, whom I didn’t see as an appropriate casting choice for a role that requires personality and colorfulness. It was boring. So were the new judges. The only new casting decision I was excited about at the time was Christian Siriano, my ult bias from the original show. So what was the good and the not-so-good, in my opinion, of season 21? And how has the show changed, for the better, yet in some ways, become less about fashion? These are my thoughts on my beloved Project Runway in 2025.

The Evolution of Project Runway

The original show premiered on Bravo in 2004 with host Heidi Klum, mentor Tim Gunn, and judges Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. It was filmed in NYC, at Parsons The New School for Design, where Tim was on staff, and the competition culminated in three finalists showing their work at NYFW Bryant Park. This format remained for the first five seasons, season four featuring Christian Siriano, who won his season.

After season 5, the show switched networks to Lifetime, where it remained until season 17. This change for season 6 also changed the location, with the show being filmed in Los Angeles at the FIDM campus until the finale, which was held at NYFW. Season 7 returned to Parsons and NYC, where the show stayed the course until season 11, when Zac Posen replaced Michael Kors. Zac Posen, Nina Garcia, Tim Gunn, and Heidi Klum remained through season 16.

Because of Harvey Swinestein being a producer of the show, and #Metoo movement addressing his depravity, Project Runway changed hands and returned to Bravo for season 17, sans the original cast. Karlie Kloss was the new Heidi, Christian Siriano the new Tim, and the judges were swapped for Elaine Welteroth and Brandon Maxwell.

The show remained this way through season 20, until the show changed again, switching to Freeform as its network, returning Heidi Klum to the host position, retaining Christian Siriano as mentor, and returning Nina Garcia to judge, with a new addition of Law Roach as the second judge. It’s a lot of change.

The Three Fashion Musketeers

When Project Runway moved back to Bravo in 2019, it was not the only fashion competition show in the American market; Netflix launched Next in Fashion for two seasons. Finally, Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum launched their own show on Amazon Prime, called Making the Cut, which was the equivalent of the original trio of Top Gear UK launching The Grand Tour on Amazon.

In my memory, from watching these three shows, Project Runway felt like a shell, undercut by Making the Cut, but losing the carefree fun of what Next in Fashion captured with hosts Alexa Chung and Tan France. All this change made me question what was the purpose of these shows anymore? With the rise of fast fashion and social media, it seemed like a relic. I could watch fashion design content on YouTube with varying points of view, to decide for myself what I thought was good fashion. Why would I care about the judges or the magazines anymore?

Project Runway in 2025

So now, six years later, what did the new Project Runway feel like? To be honest, it doesn’t have its own identity anymore, in my opinion. This could easily be RuPaul’s Drag Race with the amount of drama they packed into these episodes. The original format of challenge, runway, judging, and elimination was gone. Now you find out who goes home next week, which was unnecessary for me. I am tuning in each week, don’t make me have to, I want to, so just tell me who goes home so that the point of the show doesn’t seem like it’s an MTV reality show. It was hard to remember what challenge they were judging from last week. In some ways, I didn’t care; I just wanted the new challenge to be presented.

The contestants fought a lot, with Jesus and Veejay being a near constant. It was too much, and that leads me into one of my biggest gripes with the new season of the show. The editing was off. When Veejay was announced as the season 21 winner, I was confused. The final two eliminations before the finale were also edited strangely, because each time it seemed as though they were not going to keep Veejay, the judges’ critiques reflected this, and so it created this uncomfortable tension for the final three episodes, where it seemed like they were keeping Veejay in the competition so that she would become the first trans winner because of all the fighting.

That frustrated me because Veejay was doing good work, but then why make it seem like she was at the bottom, if the judges saw her work in high regard? It was really awkward. So was the out-of-control arguing between Veejay and the Estrada brothers, which I think the producers wrongfully kept in for a toxic series of episodes that is problematic, and I thought was manipulative. I wish for everyone’s sake that they would have paused the competition in a Tim Gunn fashion to unify the contestants again, because I liked this group of people. I can see where Jesus was coming from, and I can understand how bullying from the past can bring up past hurt, like Veejay expressed.

This is where the show shifted for me into a trash television show, such as Teen Mom, The Challenge, Real Housewives, or Keeping up with the Kardashians. Finally, the omission of NYFW for a quick 6-piece collection immediately after filming the bulk of the show felt lame. Every collection for me was a letdown, and this was the production’s fault once again. 8 out of 9 challenges were one-day challenges, so every other day, they were creating a brand new garment; it’s a recipe for burnout and mediocrity. The final runway show was like a fart instead of a spectacle of creativity, and it was underwhelming.

I hope they get a bigger budget for season 22 because the show has captured its thing again, but the finale and shift to the focus on drama over scenes from the workroom was a poor choice in my opinion. When I think of good reality competitions that have carried on throughout the decades, Survivor and Great British Baking Show are great examples that I may dive into in a part two.

Have you ever watched Project Runway? Did you think it was about planes? That’s what I first thought when I heard about the show in the mid-2000s.

I Am My Own Crafting Worst Enemy

This is an unplanned part three of my “Drafting Shortalls From Scratch” because I did not succeed in making my overalls for winter. Although I have made shortalls twice this summer, a few silly, but very human mistakes, led to the project going awry. This is what I think went wrong:

  • Flew too close to the sun when tailoring
  • Planning < No Plan
  • Lack of Focus
  • Measure Once, Cuss Twice
  • I kinda hate sewing when it feels this hard
  • Putting too much pressure on myself
  • Not Buying Enough Fabric
  • Not Mocking Up
  • Not using my Patterns when I’m stuck
  • Research the Basics

It’s so easy to think we’ve got this and be too confident when going into a project. With knitting, this approach of fearlessness had led to some great projects, but with sewing, this artistic type of approach crashes and burns. Sewing is fabrication, as weird as that sounds. I think I was prepared to sew such complex tailoring projects, such as my shortalls, this summer, because I spent the spring building a screened-in porch with Kyle. Woodworking is very similar to sewing, I learned! It is about measuring, planning, creating things in a specific order, and constructing something that is built to last. When we started working on the porch, I never imagined how much it would teach me about garment construction. But it gave me a template to focus on. Who knew that woodworking would be such an inspirational experience for me?

So why am I sharing this? I am really struggling to accept that sewing is not coming easily to me; no matter how much I practice, it continues to challenge me. I’d like to invite you to join me in not giving up on those things in our lives that are hard.

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