I make stuff

Matcha themed kitten catch mittens are finally done!! Not gonna lie, I’m pretty proud of these 🤍💚

I even knitted a gauge swatch on 2mm needles to adapt the pattern to a baby version. It was torture. Be proud of me.

Pattern: Kitten Catch Mittens by Florence Miller Yarn: Knitting for Olive Merino in Pea Shoots and Wheat

dividers

It's warm... it's fashionable.... it's hot coo-ture!

i made a the pigeon sweater (by Michelle Tsai) for my friend! i've been wanting to make another top for ages, but I have way too many sweaters already, so when she mentioned seeing a sweater she really wanted it was like serendipity 🕊️

i'm so psyched with how this turned out; she lives over a thousand miles from me so i had nothing but some measurements, math, and a lot of faith that this would fit properly (and it does!! perfectly!!)

1. You probably dont suck at your craft as much as you think you do, I bet a lot of people are amazed at what you can make, and

A simple thread turns into lace. Knot by knot.

I know how hard it is to start when every diagram looks confusing and you’re not even sure which shuttle to buy.

So I put together a beginner-friendly guide — just what I wish I had when I started.

It’s a PDF, with photos, slow steps, and a little project at the end.

If you’ve ever wanted to try tatting, this might help.

No pressure — just sharing something I love.

You can find it here:

Read the manual. Work through the manual from front to back. Read the troubleshooting section even when you're not having a problem. Read it. Keep it handy. Maybe download a PDF too, just in case the hard copy walks off.

Buy an iron and ironing board. They don't have to be fancy, a bigger board is only better if it is stable. An regular Ikea board has worked for me for years. A $20 iron from Walmart will noticeably improve your work. Press every seam before another seam intersects it. Don't just iron at the end.

Sewing machine needles have sizes AND types and you need to match them to your fabric. They also wear down. The often quoted rule is 8 hours of run time and its a pretty good rule.

The problem is almost never the tension settings, and even less often is it the bobbin tension. The problem is almost always your threading or needle.

Using your fabric efficiently? Makes total sense. No objection to that.

But specifically designing patterns such that every single part of a length of fabric is consumed by it? You're setting people up to fail. For one, you can really only do this with patterns made mostly of rectangles and right triangles, which can only make a very narrow range of garments that simply do not play nice with many people's bodies (especially bodies with lots of curvature). For another, a zero-waste pattern is also a zero-error-tolerance pattern. One wrong cut or measurement and the whole thing's toast. The wiggle-room that a more standard pattern allows also allows you to fix problems when they occur.

If you make a zero-waste garment and never wear it because it looks bad on you? That's not actually zero-waste. If you start a zero-waste garment and can't complete it because you made one little mistake? That's not actually zero-waste.

But more importantly, the whole idea of 'zero-waste' as a desireable outcome is antithetical to the methods and traditions of sewing. It's a form of functionless, guilt-driven, aesthetics-first minimalism that has no place in actual sewing practice. The scraps of fabric left over from cutting a pattern are incredibly useful. Larger pieces can become parts of new projects. Smaller pieces can become patchwork. Even really tiny scraps can become stuffing or batting or kindling or any number of other things. Home sewing has always been about not wasting things, but the way to not waste things is not by piously making only garments that suck, it's by repurposing, reusing, and recycling everything you buy. Once that fabric reaches your house, 98% of its environmental impact has already happened.

HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO MAKE A MEDIEVAL STYLE TIE ON POCKET? WELL, AFTER MANY YEARS AND MUCH REQUESTS I HAVE FINALLY SAT MY ASS DOWN (with the help of a friend) AND TURNED MY VERSION OF THIS BITCH INTO AN ACTUAL SEWING PATTERN!!

Look at that bitch!! This is the new one that I made so that I could take in progress shots of the whole thing, but I made my first one in 2021, and that bitch is still going strong! It's had to go through a few repairs at this point (cause I switch between it and 4 other ones almost every single day) so rest assured these bitches at STURDY!

This is also like, my idea how many times attempt at making a pattern but THIS, yes THIS BITCH, THIS TIME is when I have finally succeeded in getting all the way to the end of the process! So if you'd like to make one of these motherfuckers head on over to the link (aka my kofi shop) to purchase the PDF printable pattern!

Finished stitching my Oversight series.