Everything-ish I made in 2025

Hands down, the coolest project this year was my first child. Baby S was born in September and she is the best and cutest little thing.

Sewing

This year I tried sewing knit garments for the first time. I used the same Closet Core T-Shirt pattern twice: once for a t-shirt and another time for a t-shirt dress.

A dark teal t-shirt folded in quarters on top of a slightly wrinkly white fabric background. The pocket is on fairly straight and has two angled bottom sides.

Me smiling on a small porch outside, wearing a dark teal short-sleeved t-shirt that falls just above my knees. There's no pocket on this dress, but the sleeves are nice and floaty.

I sewed some things for my hobbies and my home, like a book pouch, a knitting project pouch, and a set of mug rugs.

A boxy-bottomed pouch made from black material. The flap has a patterned fabric of painted vertical stripes on a cream background.

A zippered pouch with a cream zipper and a front panel done in a medium-dark green canvas, along with a strip of heavyweight cream cotton. On the cotton fabric are illustrations of hamsters that are shaped like onigiri and which are holding things like nori strips, shiso leaves, and little octopuses.

Two 6x9” quilted mug rugs, with stitch lines in a diamond pattern. The cream fabric features hamsters shaped like onigiri and holding items that are usually paired with the rice balls, such as shiso leaves, seaweed, and octopus

I’m also pretty far along on my first real quilt, the Granny Core Quilt in the Baby size. I was hoping to finish it before the end of the year, but decided instead not to rush the binding. I just finished the actual quilting of the fabric sandwich the other day.

A baby-sized quilt top lying on cotton batting and then a hardwood floor. The foreground includes 2 pixelated plants in a saturated dark orange, and the background is a very light teal blue. The bottom of the quilt shows a checkerboard pattern in the two colors. The quilting traces the outline of the plants, with a gridded quilting pattern for the checkerboard

Knitting

I discovered a love for colorwork knitting, and made a Kraken beanie as well as a second pair of socks.

A beanie knitted up in navy, ice blue, and cream colors. The ribbed cuff is cream. Above this are stacked different bands of colorwork: a water motif, the word KRAKEN in large letters, Seattle repeated around the hat, and then solid ice blue.

A pair of socks in variegated yarn of cream, pinks, and lime greens. Around the cuffs is a dark green flower motif.

In December, I cast on some pretty Spincycle yarn for My Baker’s Hat, but started feeling wrist pain while working on the brim. I learned Mommy Wrist is A Thing and it’s suuuuper annoying during peak knitting season. I hope I can clear it soon.

Drawing

Still chugging away at a couple Talens Art Creations sketchbook I have in a small square size (shown in this post) and A5 size.

For some reason I haven’t been vibing with the A5 book, but can’t seem to just put it down when half the pages are still blank. IDK, perhaps I should just let it go if it’s not inspiring me to pick it up. Either that or just use it as an “ugly” sketchbook whenever I’m figuring something out…sigh, sketchbook guilt is so silly. Anyone else wrestle with this?

A small square sketchbook with a drawing of a tree-lined path in vibrant greens. There’s a cool, fairly dark green for the lines and shadows and a warm green for the mid tones.

A liine drawing of the Port of Salerno, with some added color from olive green and bright turquoise markers

A sketchbook spread showing two drawings: on the left, a burgundy tile pattern labeled 'cool tile @ in-laws'. On the right, a spread with an apple, banana, and pear labeled 'tiny fruit, small and sweet' and surrounded by stars.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what role drawing plays in my making practice. I carry baggage around drawing that I don’t with other creative pursuits: that I must draw at a particular frequency, or with a particular amount of skill, etc. That probably has its roots in being a teenager with 1) an art journal and 2) an interest in attending art school. I planned to study graphic design—and did so—but there’s this assumption and expectation from people that art = good at drawing.

My intention is to use drawing and painting to explore and document my world, to celebrate color, to practice an active sort of mindfulness. I hope to keep coming back to that in 2026.

Journaling

I filled two B6 Sterling Ink notebooks with memories. I’m switching back to a Hobonichi Techo (A6) in 2026 and had some second thoughts. As it turns out, Sterling Ink still has not restocked their plain gridded notebooks…so I’m glad I didn’t take a dependency on them after all.