Melanie Richards’ fiber crafts and sketchbook fun

A5 Sketchbook Covers

2026-10-02T00:00:00.000Z

I enjoy using Stillman & Birn sketchbooks, but the covers are not that cute. I thought I’d make a cover for my A5 sketchbook.

I followed this bookcover tutorial for the base pattern. I first made a simple quilted cover (this strawberry one) to make sure I was happy with the dimensions.

The tutorial suggests adding 1" to the width and height of the book, so I cut my main fabric pieces to 12½" x 9½". The flaps I cut to 8½" x 9½".

The measurements turned out to be perfect, even though I topstitched around the perimeter, rather that closing the cover with ladder stitch.

Then I made the cover I really wanted to make: a vibrant patchwork design! I made the patchwork for each half of the cover 6½" wide, for a total of 13" x 9½". I think I could’ve made the patchwork panels even larger before truing them up, since I always seem to lose tiny fractions of an inch here and there.

The front cover features an Economy quilt block, aka my first foundation paper piecing block and what seems to be launching an FPP obsession!

The inside of this one is cobalt blue with yellow flaps.

All in all, great way to use cotton scraps!

Matching Set in Ocean

2026-09-22T00:00:00.000Z

Just in time for the end of summer 😅 (literally posting this on the first day of autumn), I finished sewing my first “matching set”! I wanted to make a coordinated top and bottom from linen.

The top is my third Eucalypt Tank, this time with the decorative seam running down the middle. The shorts are the Chanterelle Shorts and the first “outside pants” I’ve sewn.

I really enjoyed sewing these Chanterelles! I found the pattern easy and fun to follow. I appreciate how the elastic waistband was constructed, as it was very forgiving for wobbly seams.

Learnings

I’m not completely in love with where the darts hit on this Eucalypt top, and there’s two variables there 1) I sized down one from the first couple times I sewed this pattern and 2) I used a cotton-linen blend that seems to have a bit more structure than a pure linen fabric. I might try tracing size 18 darts on size 16 pattern pieces? Is that a thing?
When sewing the elastic into the waist band, the Chanterelle pattern instructs you to pull the elastic taut. I don’t know if I pulled it too taut or cut too much length for the elastic, but the waist feels a bit looser than I’d like. Again, multiple variables to mess with next time.

Next up: perhaps making a set of Chanterelle Pants with this fabric I accidentally overbought?

Essential Shirt #2

2026-08-05T00:00:00.000Z

In July I started getting the itch to sew clothes again. I’d realized it had been a year since my last garment! To ease back into it, I decided to start with the most straightforward garment pattern in my collection: the Topstitch Essential Shirt.

I sewed up this Essential Shirt in a window-pane linen fabric I bought from Joann forever ago (RIP).

I finished it in July and decided to wear it to Flock Fiber Festival! I don’t have any knitted garments (yet) but wanted to wear a me-made regardless. This top was perfect for the fest, because it kept me nice and cool.

My hat is from Mabel & Jess, picked up at Flock this year!

Sketchbook Dump 001 ☼

2026-07-22T00:00:00.000Z

Earlier this month I finished the square, coral Talens Art Creation sketchbook I’d been working on since…December 2023. 😱

Alas, I don’t know who made this sticker. My brother bought it for me at a thrift shop.

There are a few reasons why it took me this long:

Talens Art Creation sketchbooks have a bajillion pages in them
I had another sketchbook going in parallel
As well as several other creative hobbies

I thought I’d do a quick sketchbook dump of never before seen spreads (AKA pages I haven’t posted to the blog yet).

Movie doodles

Doodled while watching Marty Supreme, a much more intense film than the doodles would suggest

Project Hail Mary scribbles, with black Posca marker over fountain pen ink washes

Scribble Brigades

A few pages from following along with Sophie McPike’s Scribble Brigade workshops (10/10 would recommend!)

From a workshop on abstracting flowers

An abandoned lot, three ways

Drew a weed-choked lot in three different media: (pan-dried) gouache, then Posca acrylic markers, then Neocolor IIs. So interesting to see how the vibe changes based on how my chosen media influences decision- and mark-making.

The pops of vermilion in the middle of the lot are lilies from days gone by!

On to the next one

Funnily enough, the Stillman & Birn ~A6 Alpha sketchbook I started in March is already 40% full, so I imagine I may fill that one this year!

Mid-2026 goals check-in

2026-07-13T00:00:00.000Z

Since the first half of the year has already flown by (how?!), I thought it would be fun to check in on the making goals I set in January. The headline: so far, plenty of sketchbooking and sewing.

Emoji status key

✅: Completed
👷‍♀️: In progress
📋: To do
❓: Unsure

Drawing & painting

✅ Participate in another Urban Sketchers outing: drew at the Greenwood Car Show
✅ Establish a regular sketchbook practice
✅ Give watercolor an honest shot: I still like gouache better 🤷‍♀️

Knitting

Not much knitting yet this year, thanks to healing my wrist postpartum.

✅ Finish the “My Baker’s Hat”
📋 Knit another pair of socks
📋 Attempt a sleeveless garment: up next!
📋 Knit more colorwork

Sewing

✅ Make cheerful and functional things for my family and our home
❓ (Probably won’t) participate in my Modern Quilt Guild’s Block of the Month quilt
✅ Sew a garment for myself: just made another Topstitch ATL Essential Shirt

Weaving

📋 I haven’t really woven anything the past couple years, so it might be nice to dip back into: nothing here yet.

Misc

👷‍♀️ Try crochet with the Sanrio x Woobles kits I bought: I made Pochacco and will work on Pompompurin 🍮
📋 Make a small trinket with clay

Feeling pleased with how many goals I’ve knocked out so far, and motivated to keep going in the back half of this year!

A pair of box bags

2026-05-10T00:00:00.000Z

I finally made a pair of box bags following Crafty Gemini’s pattern! Between the two of them, my mom and aunt have made a bunch of these.

I used leftover fabric from the toy storage cubes I’d made, in apple and egg cotton prints. The default dimensions for these pouches is perfect for taking art supplies on the go, because the length leaves plenty of room for long Tombow Dual Brush Pens.

I also tried throwing some Posca pens in there and was pleasantly surprised at how many it could hold!

A few making details:

I followed Crafty Gemini’s quilting pattern of straight rows in a zigzag stitch. I like the look of a zigzag width of 5 and stitch length of 2.5.
I forgot to put a handle on the first pouch (eggs), since that’s not in her pattern.
For the second, I had a 7" leftover piece of webbing that I attached on the opposite side of the zipper pull. I sometimes have a bit of trouble thinking in 3D, so for next time: the handle should go “inside” the pouch when sewing the side seam, so that when you turn the pouch right-side out, the handle is in the right place!

All in all, super fun and quick little project. I could definitely see myself busting scraps with more box pouches in the future!

Plein Airpril 2026

2026-05-09T00:00:00.000Z

In April 2026, I participated in Plein Airpril! The intention behind this challenge is to draw or paint daily, on location, on “en plein air”. Taking inspiration from Birbfest, I decided to do a weekly drawing instead. These drawings were a mix of true on-location painting and drawing soon after from my own photo.

Forever kicking off Plein Airpril by drawing our pear tree 🍐

For #PleinAirpril week 2, I drew some American coots I saw swimming in a line in Seattle's Lake Union. Technically I did this one at home later (baby AND sketchbook being too much to manage at a bday hang).

A view of the Olympics from Golden Gardens, painted with #gouache (from pans)

Drew another scene from Golden Gardens! This time facing the land and rendered in Posca pens. I was coming down with a nasty cold at the time, so doubling up on a reference was the move.

That’s all my drawings for this year! At first I intended to practice my watercolors for each week, but in the end I’m glad I dabbled in different media, because it’s interesting now to reflect on how each of these has a different vibe.

Toy Storage Cubes

2026-04-14T00:00:00.000Z

For my next colorful trick, I made my daughter a couple toy storage cubes! I followed this Patchwork Storage Cube Tutorial (minus the patchwork), and added my own style of handle.

When I saw this cotton oxford in an apple and an egg print on Stonemountain & Daughter, I thought they were the perfect fit for a joyful toy bucket. I ended up accidentally getting too much fabric, which is not a problem because I can make extra things, like this pen tray (link requires filtering out lots of “distracting content”):

For the handles, I used 10" of cotton webbing. They’re centered in the middle 5" on two sides of the cube. I had to think real hard about how to attach them because it’s a bit tricky sometimes to think in 3D (sewing them to the outside was the right call).

On the first cube I made (apples), I accidentally cut 6 panels of the outer fabric, because I was thinking in terms of how many faces a full cube has. I ended up deciding to make this a design feature by using the patterned fabric for the bottom of the interior on both buckets:

That’s it! I’m thinking I’ll use the egg bin for my daughter’s soft toys, and the apples for anything firm. That is, until she’s a toddler and chaos reigns, presumably.

My Baker’s Hat

2026-04-13T00:00:00.000Z

Finally finished knitting my second hat…on the first weekend of spring! 😅 Luckily (?) it was still chilly enough to wear it.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve had a lot of pain in my right wrist over the past few months. Slowly but surely that’s been getting better, so I went from no knitting possible => knitting one round at a time => basically normal, if tiring out a little earlier than typical for me.

The pattern is “My Baker’s Hat”, but I made this one just for me. I had been considering a Purl Soho pattern, but I liked the look of the decreases on this beanie better. I don’t think mine look as nice as the sample photo, but I liked this pattern: simple and easy to follow.

I’m also feeling chuffed with myself for casting on yarn I bought at Flock Fiber Fest, within months of purchasing it. The yarn is Spincycle Dream State yarn in “Tough Love”.

I thought I had enough to make the hat from one skein, but alas had to take from the second skein as well. There’s a sharp-ish delineation between the skeins because the inside of one yarn cake had shifted to a completely different shade than the first while of the second cake but like, c’est la vie.

I basically got gauge with Knit Picks US "#6 16" circular knitting needles. I used the Magic Loop technique near the end of the decreases instead of switching to DPNs. At some point I should probably learn how to use DPNs…

I panicked a little after blocking this because the hat grew so much when wet. Luckily the fibers shrank back a little when fully dry, so the hat fits fine. I could probably afford a bit more negative ease, so next time I’ll try one size smaller needles and actually, you know, blocking my gauge swatch.

Would I knit this hat again? Yes, yes I would. And probably much faster next time.

Nursery Mug Rug

2026-02-04T00:00:00.000Z

For my next trick, the world’s biggest mug rug! I wanted to make a 12 x 8” mug rug for the nursery, since we tend to collect receptacles on my daughter’s nightstand: baby bottles, glasses in which we rewarmed milk, grownup water bottles, etc.

I used scraps from the Granny Core Quilt to put together this rising-sun mug rug:

I am positively thrilled by two things on this one:

Starting and finishing a project in the same day 💪
Trying pieced curves for the first time, and having my half-circle turn out as intended on the first go! Really proud of this one.

For the half circle, I followed some general directions for templates and piecing from Simple Geometric Quilting by Laura Preston. When I got to the actual piecing, I thought I understood how the book wanted me to scootch my sun around the seam as I sewed it to the background. Thankfully, tons of people share their knowledge publicly on YouTube, and so this video confirmed I had the right idea.

So that’s a goal ticked off my 2026 list (piecing curves) and an object we’re already getting a ton of use out of!

Granny Core Baby Quilt

2026-02-03T00:00:00.000Z

I sewed my first capital-Q Quilt! The Granny Core Quilt by Daisy Chain Patterns is the first item I’ve made for my infant daughter’s room. I pre-washed the fabric sometime around late August / early September and planned to make some progress before she was born but 1) breaking news: third-trimester pregnant person is too tired to do stuff and 2) her majesty was born ~3 weeks ahead of schedule.

So this quilt ended up being a postpartum project! I call it my first capital-Q Quilt because I’ve made quilted things of my own design, but I’ve never actually followed a pattern to make a quilted blanket.

Technically this will hang on her wall, until/if my daughter decides she wants to use it as a blankie.

My Aunt Brenda sewed the beautiful quilt on the back of the chair! My daughter also received a beautiful, incredibly soft blanket crocheted by my Aunt Linda. Lucky girl 💕

I used mostly Kona Cotton for this quilt: Sea Glass and Nectarine for the top, and Aqua for the binding. The back is a Ruby Star Society quilting cotton in a Hearts Ditsy pattern.

Making notes

Color selection: I knew I wanted some bright colors in my daughter’s room that coordinate with pink, not necessarily an explosion of pink. She already has a mustard-colored, Mustard-brand locker as a nightstand, so I thought orange might go nicely in there. I chose a very light warm blue as a complementary color for the background.
Seam silliness: a few pieced strips in, I realized I was losing a bit of width somewhere on my strips. Turns out the edge of my normal presser foot is 3/8", not 1/4" as I’d thought for some reason. I purposefully continued that mistake for the rest of the quilt top so it would be consistent, but there are some bits of funkiness where the design doesn’t totally line up accurately as a result.
Bias binding: this was my first time attaching bias binding to a quilted object, vs the self-binding I had done on smaller items. I followed this video to attach the binding to the quilt top, and these instructions on hand-sewing to the back. I ended up finding hand-sewing meditative, but I still dislike and am not (yet) skilled at knotting / securing the ends. Let me know your favorite method!

Despite goofups, I’m pleased with how this turned out and have officially been bitten by the quilting bug!

Birb Fest 2026

2026-02-02T00:00:00.000Z

This January I participated in Birb Fest for the first time! This month-long drawing challenge is hosted annually by Monkey Mintaka, who selects a list of birds to draw.

In praise of shortlists

I decided to participate using the weekly shortlist. Daily drawing challenges are too much for me in this season of life, what with taking care of an infant and trying to hold myself together amidst the collapse of society.

The shortlist ended up being perfect for me! I was able to return to my sketchbook weekly because the parameters were decided for me in advance: the subject matter, the materials I planned to use, and the style I wanted to employ across drawings. Having a weekly instead of daily challenge worked so well for me that I think I will apply it in the future:

For example, picking my favorite Peachtober prompt for a given week, instead of doing them all (meaning, not doing any of them)
Setting my own month-long sketchbook projects with a weekly prompt

My drawings

Without further ado, here’s what I drew!

Week 1: Bronze-Wing Pigeon

Weeks 2–3: Andean Cock-of-The-Rock, Short-Eared Owl

Weeks 4–5: Galah, Red Junglefowl

Photo reference credit

Bronzewing Pigeon: (composite of image search results)
Andean Cock-of-The-Rock: Andres Vasquez Noboa
Short-Eared Owl: Lizabeth Southworth
Galah: Ray Turnbull

Red Junglefowl: Abhishek Das

Reflection

I had planned to do a quilt motif around each bird (as I had done for the pigeon), but I’m glad I switched up the corner / border motifs to suit each bird.
My favorite drawings were of the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock and the Galah. These were both more graphically strong and simpler than some of the other birds, but they still ended up with some personality.
I enjoyed how forgiving Posca pens were for this, as I reworked some areas I didn’t quite like on the first pass.
Taking photos of my sketchbook continues to be a struggle for me; I never quite like how it turns out. I’d scan the pages but don’t like that look either, hmm.

2026 Making Goals

2026-01-20T00:00:00.000Z

Another year, another chance to make fun things! Here are my making goals for 2026, more of a buffet of options that I might like to get to, vs a checklist:

Drawing & painting

Participate in another Urban Sketchers outing
Establish a regular sketchbook practice
Give watercolor an honest shot, including trying it out in my Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook. I see other sketchers create beautiful things in watercolor, but I can’t seem to make it work for me. I’d like to give it another try before deciding it’s not my medium. Watercolor is so handy for sketching on location!

Knitting

Assuming I can fix the “Mommy’s Wrist” that is currently afflicting my right thumb and wrist…

Finish the “My Baker’s Hat” I have cast on, and make a matching hat for my daughter
Knit another pair of socks
Attempt a sleeveless garment: a tank top or vest
Knit more colorwork!

Sewing

Make cheerful and functional things for my family and our home
(Maybe) participate in my Modern Quilt Guild’s Block of the Month quilt: it’s weaving-themed!
Sew a garment for myself further on in postpartum, when my weight has maybe stabilized?

Weaving

I haven’t really woven anything the past couple years, so it might be nice to dip back into. I should probably do something small, like a bookmark, but actually what I’d love to do is attempt to use my rug weaving loom again. Setting it up was difficult and intimidating, but I think weaving a rug will be really fun!! Let’s be brave in 2026.

Misc

Try crochet with the Sanrio x Woobles kits I bought (Pompompurin and Pochacco!)
Make a small trinket with clay

What would you like to make this year?

Made in 2025

2025-12-30T00:00:00.000Z

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.

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

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.

Knitting

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

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?

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.

Sticker sources

Honk if you’re chonky: Hissing Mink
Bird with strawberry: tomboi club
Milk: my hospital
GSAP, W: Webflow (my work)
Grasshopper: ??? No idea
Everything else: Artchiu and STICKII

Flower Power Socks

2025-09-04T00:00:00.000Z

I finished knitting my second pair of socks, this time with colorwork! The pattern is from Volume I of Summer Lee’s Cuff Club, and the very first chart at that.

The flowers make me so happy, even if they look more like clovers in the deep teal yarn I chose for my contrasting color.

Knitting the colorwork

I realized midway through my first attempt at the colorwork that my float tension was a little dicey at the ends and midpoints of rounds. It was very likely too tight to be able to fit over my heel when all was said and done.

Sure enough, I looked things up and someone—likely Summer Lee herself—mentioned switching from Magic Loop to a shorter cable for colorwork. I ordered addi EasyKnit Rocket 10” Circular Knitting Needles (Size 2) and caaaarefully swapped these in for the color chart. This worked out great! One drawback is that these small circulars hurt my hands a little bit. If I were working on socks that had colorwork all over the foot, I would probably try other techniques to fix the float issue with Magic Loop. Stone Knits demonstrates her approach here, and I’ve also heard folks have success with knitting colorwork inside out.

Gusset

This is only my second pair of socks, and already I’m feeling much more comfortable picking up and knitting the gusset stitches! So much less drama than my first pair; it just kinda feels normal now.

Toes are weird

For this second pair of socks, I decided to knit a size M instead of a size L. I have long feet, but they’re not terribly wide. On my first pair, I learned that my right foot is longer than my left, so this time I knit to the length of my right foot.

Well. I tried the sock on my foot after closing up with Kitchener stitch, and the fit didn’t feel quite right. Kinda like the seam was just barely on the upper-back of my toes. I put the sock on my left foot and that felt better.

I realized that there are probably more rows on the size L than size M in order to decrease to toes to the final number of stitches you need. As I run quick math now, it does seem like there are 4 extra rows for the size L toespace.

Maybe I have longish toes? In any case, I decided to knit the foot of my second sock a little bit longer: to the bottom of the nail on my second-shortest toe, instead of the tip of my pinky toe. This certainly made the fit more comfortable on my longer foot!

Moar socks!

I’m really really enjoying two things in my knitting practice: socks and colorwork! I just want to knit all the socks.

I have some pretty variegated sock yarn I bought from Flock Fiber Fest this year, which would be fun to use in a more textured pattern. I have a couple patterns from The Sock Project bookmarked, and I’m signed up for Cuff Club vol II.
I’d like to try one of Stone Knits’ many delightful colorwork-all-over patterns. I already have both Joyful Colorwork Socks and Charming Colorwork Socks on hand.

Oh, to have a drawer full of socks of my own making!

Made in July 2025

2025-08-04T00:00:00.000Z

Sewing

Sewed a couple quilted mug rugs using the leftover onigiri hamster fabric from my project pouch. Sometimes a quick little project is just what you need as a palette cleanser. This was my first time self-binding a make. I found this short and sweet YouTube video to make sure I had my approach right with the mitered corners; I actually have no idea what the audio sounds like—I watched it muted and that was clear enough!

Knitting

I’m now on the foot of my second sock for Summer Lee’s Cuff Club. This design is from August in the first year…why yes, it does take me ~3 months to knit a sock. But! This is my second pair of socks and it’s probably going twice as fast as the first pair I knit. Picking up gusset stitches no longer terrifies me, huzzah! 🎉

Drawing & painting

Didn’t get much sketchbook time this month. I did get to draw a little bit with my six-year-old niece while my family was visiting, aww.

Onigiri hamster project pouch

2025-07-19T00:00:00.000Z

I’d been meaning to make a canvas project bag for knitting, in similar dimensions to a bag I purchased many moons ago. When I saw this onigiri hamster fabric on Stonemountain & Daughter’s website, I knew it was destined to become a liner for this bag!

This lined zipper pouch is essentially “self-drafted”, and its dimensions (12” wide, 9.5” tall) are inspired by the store-bought bag—just ever-so-slightly taller.

Quick process notes

I was a dork and cut 12” pieces of fabric for use with a 12” zipper, instead of remembering to add seam allowance to my pieces. I purchased the last bit of the hamster fabric, so I didn’t have enough to recut everything. I ended up adding a strip of this heavy-ish cotton to the outer canvas, and did the inverse for the lining. It’s nice now to have the hamsters on the outside too!
I did have to seam rip one of the outer panels, because I placed the hamsters to the right on both panels. Based on how the fabric sandwich works, that would mean the outer panels wouldn’t be mirrored in terms of where the hamsters are placed. So I ended up moving the hamsters to the left side of one panel. I feel like I’m explaining this poorly but yeah, sewing 3D objects requires spatial thinking!
I used a ¼” seam allowance when sewing the zipper to the fabric.
I sewed 3”-long seams to box the corners, since that was roughly the size of the corners on the store-bought bag. When I’m boxing corners I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, but actually it turned out correct???
The entire timed I sewed this, I kept muttering “hamstahs!” to myself in a Brooklyn accent and giggling over the sheer cuteness of the little onigiri friends. Get yourself some fabric that makes you laugh! 🐹

Closet Core T-Shirt Dress

2025-07-19T00:00:00.000Z

I sewed another Closet Core T-Shirt, this time as a mild “hack” into a dress!

The story here is that I accidentally bought shmaybe double the amount of cotton modal fabric from Blackbird Fabrics that I had intended to. I’m not entirely sure how that happened, but I had ample fabric left over from the first t-shirt to make a dress. This was my second project with knits!

Pattern prep

I added 10” of length to the pattern, based on another dress I had and liked the length of. This basically entailed cutting on the “lengthen / shorten here” line and taping in 10” of printer paper (I printed the pattern at home).

Fabric prep

I rough cut the fabric into smaller sections to make it more manageable; this way I could cut more precisely on my cutting table (a kitchen island from IKEA) rather than crouching on the floor. You need to be careful of cutting layout when doing this—but given how much fabric I had, I could be a little free with it.

Sewing

Sewing order this time

I did what made sense to me, instead of what was in the instructions:

Shoulder seams
Side seams
Bodice hem
Sleeves’ side seams
Sleeve hems
Attach sleeves
Attach neckband

By “what made sense” I mean “left my arch-nemesis, attaching the neckband, til the very last”.

Speaking of neckbands…

The neckband turned out MUCH better this time, but not without a fight. As instructed, I started sewing it to the bodice from the back of the neck. Easy peasy. When I got to the front, I kept ending up with extra neckline fabric, not matter how I stretched and cursed the gods of knitwear. The problem was in how I divided the quarters of the neckband. I either forgot to make notch marks on the neckline—or they’d rubbed off at some point—and I was aligning quarters to the shoulder seams instead of those notch points.

Seam ripped, drew the notch marks, redid it, and it wasn’t so horrible. The way the fabric lays around the neckline doesn’t look totally, 100%, ready-to-wear smooth, but it is FAR better than my first attempt at knitwear. I’m pleased, actually!

One of the great things about becoming more confident with stretchy knits is that…I’m currently pregnant with my first child!! 🐣 Sewing something comfy that I can easily wear both now and postpartum puts my mind at ease on, “how do I sew for a changing body, without wasting time and fabric?” I actually wore this dress to our baby shower; I’m pleasantly surprised by how much better I am handling knits on my second such project, and was proud to be able to wear something I made…in honor of something (someone) else I’m making. 😆

Making something that you can continue to wear or use really feels like a form of conjuring magic, and I felt that big time on this project!

Chloe Book Pouch

2025-03-09T00:00:00.000Z

After a series of more-challenging garment sewing projects, I’m pleased to have sewn up something quick and easy: the Chloe Book Pouch by Sewing Illustration!

I typically keep my journal in a Moterm cover, which does a good job of protecting the journal. However, this cover can add weight and bulk to a travel backpack, in which I’ve shoved 900 other things (I’m a plane activity over-packer). I decided to sew this boxy book pouch as a slimmer protective case for my journal. The pouch is meant for a paperback book, but since a B6 journal is roughly the size of a common Western paperback book, it’s a perfect fit.

This pouch took me less than a day, from ironing and cutting scraps from my stash, to final assembly. So nice to fly through a project!

The pattern doesn’t really include an enclosure, so I added a simple adhesive velcro dot.

The lining is the same linen from Stitches (in Seattle) that I used for the ottoman / pouf in our living room many moons ago.

The exterior feels a little bit blank, but I’m thinking I could put some pins there if I want to jazz it up. All in all, feeling very happy with the pouch and looking forward to using it for travel!

Seattle Kraken Hat

2025-03-08T00:00:00.000Z

Finished in February: my first beanie! Or toque, if you’re a Canuck.

Years ago I attempted to knit the Classic Cuffed Hat from Purl Soho, to disastrous effect. This time my attempt to knit a beanie went super smoothly, which I think is a testament to “right level of challenge” for your current skills.

In Winter 2025, I knitted the Base Doodle Beanie from Pacific Knit Co’s Doodle Knit Directory Book. When I was working on this Doodle Headband, my friends remarked that the color palette reminded them of the Seattle Kraken, our local NHL team. With this next project I decided to lean in and actually make the hat Kraken themed.

Here’s the digital chart I put together:

The water motif and repeating band of “Seattles” is from Pacific Knit Co’s Seattle Deck. I found a letter chart elsewhere online and added some sparkles next to the word KRAKEN.

This all came together pretty quickly, and I even attempted a pompom or two for the top! I decided I wasn’t quite happy with the fluffiness of my pompoms quite yet (that was a first attempt) so decided to nix it for now. Maybe I’ll try again for the next hockey season!

Closet Core T-Shirt

2025-02-26T00:00:00.000Z

I made a t-shirt in January! This is my first garment made from knit fabric and whew, that neck band almost did me in.

The Core T-Shirt is a free but very good t-shirt pattern by Closet Core. I made a size 18 with the short sleeves of view A, and longer hem in view B. The shirt is sewn up in a cotton modal fabric in the “peacock” colorway.

Cutting the fabric

I was a bit intimidated by cutting knit fabric with stretch, but it really wasn’t so bad. I simply proceeded delicately and tried not to stretch the fabric at all while cutting. I did try using a rotary blade to cut some of the pieces, but ended up preferring scissors.

Sewing

My mom let me try her serger on a scrap piece of fabric, but I could tell my skills weren’t there yet and it would be a big stretch (heh) to construct the shirt with a serger. I ended up sewing the seams on my Janome HD-3000 with a zigzag stitch (#12) with zag size (?) 3, stitch length 2.5, and tension 3. This is mostly reference for myself, by the way!

I thought the pocket might be tricky to attach without looking wonky, but the pattern includes markings so you can line this up correctly.

Attaching the neck band

The first thing the Core T-Shirt pattern has you do after sewing the shoulder seams is to assemble and attach the neck band. This was absolutely the hardest part, and I had to put it down for later.

I ended up having to employ a few different tricks in order to successfully attach the neckband:

Inserting my pins perpendicularly to the seam line, instead of parallel. It’s usually recommended to go parallel (so you don’t strike a pin with your needle), but I found doing it this way made the pins less likely to pull out as the fabric was being stretched.
Pinning on top of my tailor’s ham. I was able to kind pull things mildly taut over this curved surface as I was pinning.
Basting before sewing the final seam. I actually did this twice—once before (1) and (2). The first time I ended up with a lot of gaps as the neckband shifted around. So the second time I basted a quarter of the neckband at a time so I could re-orient myself and fix any mistakes earlier.

The neckband attachment isn’t perfect—there are a couple ripples in the back—but I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out (AKA it is fully attached).

Shoulder & back neckline binding

The next step after attaching the neck band begins: “This optional step requires patience and precision, but results in a clean and professional finish inside your t-shirt.” The neck band did not carry the same advisement, so I absolutely skipped this optional step. Nope. Not gonna go well for me.

Instead, I did a simple topstitch (matching the topstitch on the pocket) to keep the neck band seam in place.

Sleeves

I got a little bit confused about how to orient my pattern pieces when attaching the sleeves to the body, so I found a sewalong video on YouTube. This person sewed the top in a much different order than the instructions, notably she did the side seams and the sleeve side seams (my term here) before attaching the sleeves to the rest of the garment. This is actually the second walkthrough video I’ve found that does things in a different order than the pattern. I like this approach because the pieces feel more “stable” to me.

So I sewed those seams and then shimmied the sleeves into the armscyes as the YouTuber did. Crafty Studio has some great tips for easing the sleeves in, starting around ~20:10.

I did make two mistakes here:

I first topstitched the sleeve hem at 1/8”, which I found to be too close to the edge. I did it again at 1/4”.
Next time I need to make sure the right sides of my sleeves are touching the right sides of the body, as I ended up with sleeve side seams facing out in the final garment. Not a big deal because they’re under my armpits in a dark fabric. If you notice that, you’re looking too closely!

The finished result

I ended up finishing my t-shirt the day before leaving town for a work trip, so of course I brought my shirt with me! It was so comfy to wear during a whole day of meetings, and (I think) looked nicer than a tech t-shirt.

It is a bit roomy, so I think I could afford to go down a size if I sew this up again. I accidentally purchased way too much fabric 😅, so I think I’ll make this shirt again in view B—with the long sleeves—and no pocket.

Doodle Headband

2024-12-31T00:00:00.000Z

One last project for 2024, which I bound off late last night: my first colorwork knitting!

The base pattern is the Doodle Headband by Jamie Lomax, which I bought at her (Pacific Knit Co.’s) booth at Flock Fiber Festival in Seattle this past August. For this small project, I used a single snowflake chart from Jamie’s Winter Doodle Card Deck.

This took me less than 2 weeks to knit up while watching TV after work; I put it down during holiday travel and then was able to bind off and knit in the ends! And y’all…I had soooo much fun knitting colorwork. I foresee a lot of this in my future. Jamie’s Doodle Card Decks are also plentiful and can be combined in so many different ways—so smart to create a modular system that enables knitters to take a more active design role.

Learning the basics

Pacific Knit Co. patterns do assume you know a little bit about knitting colorwork, so for the basics I consulted Tin Can Knits’ quick and easy walkthrough. For this project I used their “first timer’s easy-peasy method”, which worked out nicely for someone who knits English style. Soon I might try two-handed knitting.

I also appreciated that Tin Can Knits explained yarn dominance and how to achieve it in a very simple way. It was so satisfying to be able to make sure my pattern really popped, from my very first colorwork! You might notice that when I switched into the band with the dark blue background, I was still holding the dark blue yarn dominant, so some of the stitches in the first row or so recede a little more than the others.

What’s next

My friends remarked that the yarn I chose for this looks on-brand for the Seattle Kraken, and it totally does! I might try to lean into that and knit a colorwork beanie (touque) fit for game day.

Cozy Reading Socks

2024-12-30T00:00:00.000Z

I knit my first pair of socks!

The pattern is I’m So Basic Socks by Summer Lee Knits, which I think a lot of people probably start out with, and for good reason. The pattern is easy to follow, and Summer made fantastic YouTube videos walking through the steps.

I’m a slow knitter (English style), so these socks took me forevvver: 10 months total, 5 months per sock! Granted, I put the second sock down for awhile after a heel turn disaster—more on that in a moment. I also knit a pair in size L because I’ve got big feet!

Challenges

Getting gauge

I tried and couldn’t quite hit to get gauge with size 1 and 0 needles. I didn’t want to try going down to 00 because the size 0 needles were already so small, so I just went with size 0. When I tried on the first sock as I was knitting, it seemed like a fine fit, but the socks ultimately turned out pretty roomy.

I’ll consider this first pair to be big, cozy reading socks. If I use this particular sock yarn again (and I do have it in another color), I think I’ll try sizing down a to medium. My tension seems to be on the tighter side, so it may be that this particular yarn calls for sizing down a bit.

Heel turn

I had an off-by-one error on both my heel turns, as I got a little confused by the video walkthrough. Summer instructs you to slip 1 and then knit so that half of your stitches are on one needle, so I slipped 1, knit 17 (I knit the size L). If I had followed the written instructions, I would’ve slipped 1 and knit 18.

I fudged it on the last row of both heel turns by just knitting 2 instead of 1 after my SSK.

The Great Catastrophe

With fiber crafts—and this project especially—I’ve learned that it’s often best to just accept a mistake and keep moving forward, rather than try to fix it. Seam rippers etc are our friends, but sometimes undoing creates more problems.

In this case, I tried to undo a few rows on the second sock’s heel, as I got the pattern wrong. I knew it was a bad idea because I’d probably get confused by the slipped stitches in this part of the sock. I did it anyway and…tl;dr my knitting ended up no longer being on the needles.

I tried to get my knitting back on the needles, but the loops were so tiny they kept getting pulled out. Frustrated, I put the project down for a few weeks. Sometimes that’s what you need to clear your head and have a great idea. I experimented with threading the needles into the second row from top, pulling the top row out, and voila, it worked!

Joys ✨

My socks being blocked in a metal tub

Magic Loop: this was my first time using this method, and I loved it!
Kitchener stitch: some people seem to not like it, I find it fun? You do have to concentrate to avoid messing up the pattern.
Blocking: soaking socks in metal basin makes me feel like an old-timey woman. I was also surprised that I could smell the sheepiness when the wool is wet, and how much of a difference blocking made to the shape:

You may also notice that one sock is longer than the other. I based the length of the foot portion off of where my pinky toe ended, and this is how I learned that one of my feet is notably longer than the other! Maybe it’s silly I didn’t realize that already, but it wasn’t important information before?

What’s next

I signed up for the Colorwork Cuff Club and want to try the flowers from August! Stone Knits also has a ton of fun colorwork designs, I especially love the pizza and the shrimp…

A tale of two (Eucalypt) tanks

2024-11-29T00:00:00.000Z

I’ve started making Outside Clothes, starting with two copies of the Eucalypt Tank, Curve range!

I made the first version from some white linen I had hanging around, purchased either from Fancy Tiger Crafts or Joann (can’t remember which). The second is sewn up in Spruce Viscose Linen—and each tank has its pluses and quirks.

Planning & cutting

The first Eucalypt Tank I started in September 2024. Based on my measurements, I fall in the overlap between straight sizes and the Curve range. I opted to go for the Curve version because the pattern has darts and I wouldn’t need to make a full bust adjustment—this tends to be where I’ll need a little more space.

I ended up cutting a size 18 (I miss you, vanity ready-to-wear sizing).

Construction & darts

This tank is interesting because you can whip up the body of the tank top pretty quickly. 80% of the construction time (hello, Pareto rule) is spent on the bias facing for the neckline and armsyces.

This was my first time sewing darts, and oh boy I was intimidated at first!! YouTube, however, is such an asset to crafting knowledge. This video on darts was quick and instructive; I referenced the first method. After a little bit of thinkies about which way the fabric was supposed to fold, I was able to sew the darts! On the first linen tank, one of the darts was a little twisty underneath, but my second attempt was pretty clean actually.

Bias facing

Attaching the bias facing was a bit more involved, and one of those steps that I need to visualize vs read about in a pattern. Luckily the pattern maker has a blog post about attaching bias facing, including a walkthrough for the Eucalypt Tank.

The neckline is where I can really see how the two fabrics differ. The linen looks nice and crisp along the neckline, whereas the linen viscose is drapier overall, and the neckline looks maybe a bit stretched. I am sure a good portion of that is user error, as this is my first time working with a drapier fabric than linen or cotton.

Regardless, I am super proud of both tanks and can’t wait for my next sewing project. Shall I sew something with buttons? Attempt knit fabrics? We shall see!

Quilted Kobo Pouch

2024-11-18T00:00:00.000Z

I’ve been traveling with my Kobo eReader in the strawberry marker pouch I made, which is decidedly summery and only fits the Kobo in one direction. So I decided to make another zippered pouch!

Way back in 2017 I bought a few fabrics in Tokyo and took awhile to actually use my stash. One of these was a quilting cotton printed with a Shinkansen pattern. The Shinkansen is a network of bullet trains across Japan. I’d still like to use this fabric for something topical—maybe something to hold a passport or rail pass in—but I had plenty and decided to use it for this pouch!

Planning

My initial plan was to make the outside of this pouch half navy fabric and half trains. I don’t know if I had misplaced, used, or never had the navy fabric I was thinking of, but the navy was replaced by a bright yellow that incidentally matched the zipper I had on hand.

I decided to make the pouch 8x8" to account for: (the long side of the Kobo Libra 2 + the thickness of the Kobo + a little extra space for fabric loft and crooked seams)

Outer fabric

To make the outside of the pouch, I:

Cut 2 pieces each of trains and yellow fabric, 9 x 4¾"
Sewed the yellow to the trains with a ¼" seam allowance
Cut cotton batting and backing fabric to 11x11"
Quilted the whole sandwich in 1" intervals from the center seam

The idea with the quilting pattern was that the horizontal lines would mimic the directionality of the trains.

Pouch construction

Whenever I make a zippered pouch, I follow MADE Everyday’s zipper pouch tutorial: clear, simple instructions at 13 minutes including intro and outro.

The challenge I always face when making lined zippered pouches—particularly when I’m using quilted outer fabric—is that the sandwich gets so THICK. Sewing through the side seam near the zipper was always pretty sketchy.

And then. I learned what that dang black button on the side of the presser foot is for! I followed the advice of the linked video on this project and was able to get through that thick patch much more easily.

After I turned the pouch right-side out, there was still a lot of strain on some of those stitches. My mom’s advice for next time was to go back over that area (before turning it out) with the triple stitch on my machine. I say next time because I mostly employ a “just keep swimming” strategy with craft projects, for better or worse. 🐠

The moment of truth

My Kobo fits nicely! I really love the square aspect ratio of the pouch, and I’m glad I gave it a little extra padding. 💛

Matchy-matchy PJs

2024-09-16T00:00:00.000Z

The pajama set I started sewing is now complete: I sewed a Topstitch Essential Shirt and a scrunchie to go with my Carolyn PJ pants.

While button-down PJ sets are really cute and classic, I don’t like a lot of extra stuff around whilst I’m trying to sleep. I do appreciate sleeves, however, so I went for a hunt of woven tops that could work for PJs.

There seem to be much fewer indie patterns for woven tops, as compared to knits. But the Topstitch Essential Shirt seemed to fit the bill! This pattern was designed by absolute beginners, which is great for a few reasons:

It’s optimized for use with easier fabrics, i.e. wovens.
There are just two pattern pieces, and construction is a simple as seems possible for a top.
The instructions explained the “why” behind things I’d heard before, and gave little encouragements. For example, they remind you that your first garment is like the first pancake in a batch—it might not turn out how you like!

I ended up being able to do this project in one day, start to finish: from taking my measurements to parading it around the house for praise and admiration. The Topstitch Essential Shirt was fun and frustration-free!

I didn’t take any particular notes with this pattern. Next time I sew it, I might try grading between sizes. They recommend you choose your size based on the bust measurement, so I have a bit of extra room in some areas of the shirt. The one drawback of using wovens and sewing a boxier garment is that it can be a little less flattering for my body type. If I do make a top for outside the house, I would consider:

Grading between sizes
Trying out a floatier knit
And/or strategic hem tucking

With the leftover fabric, I ended up making this free scrunchie pattern from The Spruce Crafts. Real 90s fashion here, kids.

The scrunchie took me just under an hour to make, and half of that was just turning the darn tube right-side-out. Pretty quick time investment for something fun! The only note I have is that I used 1/2" elastic instead of 1/4", because it’s what I had on hand. Funnily enough, The Spruce’s photos look like they’re using 1/2" elastic…

I bought this fabric YEARS ago at Mood with absolutely zero plan for it, and it turned out to be the perfect yardage?! Love it when these things work out.

Next sewing challenge: a woven tank top!

Carolyn PJ bottoms

2024-08-19T00:00:00.000Z

A couple weeks ago I was very brave 🌟 and started my garment-making journey with a pair of Carolyn pajama pants!

I’ve felt intimidated by the idea of sewing clothes, because bodies are complicated and ideally the clothes actually look good worn. For the same reasons I’ve also felt drawn to making my own garments: I have a lot of feelings about how my body looks at age 35 (not helped by the pandemic), and it also feels harder than it should to find clothes I like. I am not trying to wear the fashions of my tween years, but alas they are BACK.

Anyway, I decided to take the plunge with a pair of pajama pants, because if they look bad, who cares! I’m just going to wear them around the house.

Aaaand I ended up being pleasantly surprised by how well they fit!

Here’s how the process went.

Planning

I decided to use some cotton fabric I purchased forever ago at Mood, when I definitely wasn’t sewing clothes and definitely didn’t have a plan for this fabric.
I measured myself and decided on a size that is three sizes larger than my ready-to-wear pants. GASP! This is kind of expected, there’s not as much vanity sizing in sewing patterns.
I didn’t make a top (just the pants in View A) because I don’t like a lot of buttons and such when I sleep, as it turns out.
I didn’t make a muslin because I am lazy / impatient. Maybe I would do that for more precious fabric or something more challenging that I’d want to wear out of the house.

Pockets

I got a bit confused about how to tackle French seams on the pockets. On my mom’s suggestion, I found a random person on YouTube who had done a sew with me for this pattern. She ended up using a serger on her pockets, so I had to figure it out on scrap fabric anyway, but this is such a hot tip anyway. As I was going through the pattern, I’d watch how the YouTuber tackled the project. This was illuminating when I was mildly confused, and gratifying when I had interpreted the instructions correctly myself.

For the pockets, I think it would’ve been easier to work out the spacial thinking, had I used patterned fabric. I used solid Kona cotton fabric for the pockets.

Faux fly

I used the overcasting stitch on my Janome HD-3000 to finish this and any other seams that needed it. Finishing seams is fun! You get to make the sewing machine go brrrrr without worrying much about the structural integrity of the seam.

Side seams & inseams

The YouTuber did her side seams first and then inseams, which is the opposite of what the instructions suggest. I liked this order and ended up copying it: to me, the side seams seemed more stable and the inseams a more fiddly operation.

I was concerned at first on this step because the back and front leg pieces look so different from each other. But if you line up the notch marks and ease the inseam into place, it all really does work out just fine.

Waistband

Why is it that one of the last steps is often the hardest? Two things here:

You have to stitch in the ditch from the outside to create the waistband casing, which was quite the struggle for me because it requires precision. Stitch too high and you’ll not leave enough room for the elastic; stitch too low (more likely in my case), and you won’t catch an interior fold properly. I’m not describing this well because I am trying to forget (JK).
I wish I had watched this step on the YouTube video first, because she was SO SMART: she wrapped the elastic around her waist (separately from the pants) and make sure that was a comfortable fit, before threading it through the waistband. I did not do this and it was super annoying to cut down the elastic while it was fed into the waistband.

Tada!

I’m pleased with how the fit turned out, though I think I could’ve gone down a size based on how much I took in the elastic and how much breathing room I have generally. However, I do prefer a bit of breathing room in PJs. Maybe next time I’ll hem a little bit more of the length away.

What’s next

I do have more of this fabric left, so I went on the hunt for a woven t-shirt pattern and found the Topstitch Essential Shirt. I’m surprised that this pattern doesn’t have many makes on Instagram; perhaps I’m searching the wrong tag? It seems useful, beginner-friendly, and very cool that there’s a full bust adjustment panel included. Anyway, stay posted, maybe you’ll catch me sharing a matching PJ top!

Creative Maker Supply Case

2024-06-29T00:00:00.000Z

It’s been a couple weeks since I finished this project, but I am still SO THRILLED to have finished sewing my first Creative Maker Supply Case! This is a fabric notions/art supplies organizer that zips around the outside.

I followed the suggested design, which was to create two pockets on one side of the case, and a series of elastic loops (which kept wanting to pop out of their stitches) on the other side. You could really do anything you wanted in here: I like how Sienna designed bespoke pockets for her knitting cases.

Here’s the case opened up! I closed the interior panels using a slip stitch on my mom’s recommendation. She said that often turns out a little cleaner than top stitching around the piece to close it shut.

The reason I’m particularly ecstatic about finishing this case is that I really thought it wasn’t going to happen! I actually put it down twice. The second time, I was on something like step 22 of 25 and it just got SO DANG FIDDLY trying to put together layers of fabric and foam and zipper that I just couldn’t be arsed. I felt really discouraged by that, because I want to be resilient, but I just wasn’t enjoying the process at the moment.

I decided to put it down for a couple months and bring it with me on my next trip to visit family. My mom and my Aunt Brenda have remote “sew days” together, and I’m so glad I brought my project! Their moral support and second pair of eyes was just what I needed to find the courage and get it done.

My almost-completed work on top of my mom’s machine. Clover clips as far as the eye can see!

A Hot Pocket of fabric before being turned right-side out. At this step I basically had to FOLD half the case and squash it inside my sandwich. Apparently I’m like my aunt and I stop breathing when sewing something a little scary, haha!

What tangibly helped on these last couple steps was using a denim needle. What spiritually helped was my family (including my sister and niece) cheering me on.

If you’re a less confident sewist, I would absolutely recommend purchasing the tutorial video alongside this pattern. The video instructions are very clear and thorough, and it was an immense help to me; any struggles I had at the end here were more a product of not having done these steps before.

Here it is all filled up! Both the cover and interior feature fabric I bought in Japan years ago. I like how the black and white patterns hold visual interest, but contrast my art supplies really nicely.

The left side can hold an A5 notebook, though the photo shows a smaller B6 version. I would probably not recommend putting a thick hardcover sketchbook (like a Talens Art Creations) in there at the same time as the thicker Ecoline markers that I have in the loops. Things get quite puffy when zipped and I worry about strain.

In any case, I’m super happy with how this turned out, and still thrilled and amazed that I was able to finish it. The sense of accomplishment is such a rush, and now I can’t wait to try something else in my stretch zone. 😅

Like the stickers in my case? They’re designed by Autumn Chiu!

A small tapestry for my niece

2023-12-20T00:00:00.000Z

This one’s not too deep! Wanted to weave a little thing with yarn I got in a kit from Maryann Moodie ages ago. I freestyled the design as I went along (which you can tell from the color transition at the top, which I weave last), and decided it was a color palette my smol niece might like.

(By the way, it’s impossible to take a good photo right now. Seattle: what is sun?)

Techniques include basic weave, soumak (the little cream bumps), and rya fringe. There were a few different cream-colored yarns in various weights, so I wove little bits of fluffier yarn into the main blocks of cream.

Strawberry marker pouch

2023-08-28T00:00:00.000Z

To coordinate with the pen pouch I sewed earlier this summer, I made a zippered marker pouch!

This was my second time following MADE Everyday’s zipper pouch tutorial, which is well explained and (IMO) straightforward to follow.

The last time I made one of these I had a beast of a time getting a needle through the full sandwich of fabrics + the zipper strip. I was hoping this time would be better since I had one less layer (fusible fleece instead of quilting the outside to batting + another thin layer of quilting cotton). Alas, my machine just doesn’t want to go through that thick section. I had to hand-sew a little bit, hence the lumpy bit next to the zipper.

For this pouch, I knew I wanted to do a random-ish checkerboard pieced pattern, and I knew I wanted the pouch wide enough to fit those mile-long Tombow brush pens. Happily, I had a bright red 9" zipper on hand!

I made a game-time decision to cut two different colors for the pouch lining, and I really like the effect!

While there are obvious imperfections in this pouch, I’m actually really happy with how it turned out! The dimensions and heft of the pouch feel really nice in the hand. The thickness is nice and sturdy without being bulky, and I think this will work out well for urban sketching with my Ecoline markers. 👩‍🎨

Summer Pen Pouch

2023-07-14T00:00:00.000Z

Using and collecting fountain pens is a hobby that I’ve gone deep in the weeds on over the past year or so. I recently started carrying around a pocket notebook as a bullet journal, and decided to make a to-go-friendly version of a pen pouch to accompany it.

Take one

As seems to happen with all new-to-me sewing patterns, I made a silly mistake on the first go-around with this watermelon-patterned quilting cotton:

There are 2 outer fabric panels, and the little strap is supposed to be attached 1" from the end of exterior fabric B. I attached it one 1" from the wrong end of that fabric panel, which means the pouch doesn’t shut fully when there are pens inside it.

That strap is attached before many other seams are sewn, and I did not have the heart to do so much seam ripping. I decided this would be a prototype that holds flat things, like loyalty cards.

Take two

That same day—it was a day off work—I tried again with some strawberry fabric and it was a success!

This copy of the pouch came together much faster as well. This is certainly a project you can do in an afternoon.

I still have plenty of growth to do as a sewist to get these turn-it-inside-out projects feeling crisp, but my lil strawberry pouch sparks joy. 🍓✨ It’s already come around with me in a tote bag and is doing the work of protecting my pens!

Made in 2023 Q1

2023-04-04T00:00:00.000Z

I got married (twice!) this quarter, so I didn’t have much time for analog making other than 1) designing wedding materials and 2) keeping up my journaling habit. I did get in some small projects here and there!

Journal cover

I sewed a journal cover for my Hobonichi A5 Day-Free! I had intended for this to go inside a plastic cover, but it didn’t quiiiite fit, so I put Velcro dots under the flaps. If I were going to make this again (without the plastic cover), I’d sew the flaps down. I am not quite sure who makes this fabric; it’s a quilting cotton I bought in Tokyo years ago.

I’ve really been enjoying my journal with this nice cover on top. Sometimes if I’m writing on pages near the front of the book, I’ll un-Velcro the cover so that things are a little flatter. I also picked up an elastic band to keep the journal shut.

Bookmarks

For our the U.S. wedding I made fabric bookmarks for the people in my bridal party. They’re a solid forest green quilting cotton, and go along with a hand-selected book for each person.

I used this pattern, but I can never seem to get the fourth edge as crisp as the pattern author.

Seedbed scarf

In December I finished actually knitting the Seedbed Scarf for my now-husband, and it took me until end of March to weave the ends in. 🙈 I feel bad that it’s ready just in time for it to get warmer soon, but at least he’ll be able to wear it for chilly weather in years to come.

The yarn is YOTH’s Father worsted-weight yarn, and it looks like Concord Grape was probably the color I used, though it’s a navy blue. 🤔

Sketchbooking—it’s grrrreat!

Didn’t do much sketchbooking at all the past 3 months, though I did draw little spot illustrations in my daily-ish journal. In the last week of March I was finally able to make it to a monthly craft night I hadn’t been to in the past couple months. At the time I was between fiber crafts, so I decided to just play around with my fancy crayons (Neocolor IIs):

I wanted to draw a vintage teapot and stumbled upon the BEST one: a teapot themed after Tony the Tiger, an American cereal mascot. From there I just filled in a bunch of geometric shapes in a gridded layout. I work right to left in my sketchbook because I’m left-handed and it reduces smudging. Can you believe I have a BFA and no one ever told me that might be a good idea?

In any case, whenever I go to this craft night, I’m always floored by how much more fun it is to make things in the company of others. I generally identify as an introvert, but there’s a social aspect to making that can’t be beat. It also helps my sense of safety in socializing that the craft night I go to still requires proof of COVID vaccination and mask-wearing.

More making stuff in Q2!

Now that all the marrying is done and our main obligations at the moment are to enjoy the life we’ve built together, I’m looking forward to a spring spent making things, tending to our plants, and starting a vegetable garden.

Sketchbook pouch

2022-11-18T00:00:00.000Z

I wanted a protective cover for my sketchbook when oot and aboot. At first I cut some materials for the Creative Maker Case, then got way too intimidated by all the moving parts. I decided to simplify (lol, sort of) by making a quilted zip pouch!

This pouch fits an A5 notebook in comfort and style. It’s a little too risky to jam my sketchbook and Hobonichi in there at the same time, so if I want to bring both along on travel, I may want to make another.

I knew I wanted to go with super bright colors inspired by my Posca paint markers, so I sketched out a couple iterations of the geometric patchwork area.

All my colors cut out! It only took, um, a few more months to get everything together.

I did some bad math regarding the black frame around the main patchwork area, so ended up having to recut those pieces to make sure the A5 sketchbook would definitely fit inside.

I was honestly a little intimidated by installing the zipper, but actually it wasn’t too bad! The worst part of this was that my sandwich was WAY too thick when I had two outer pieces and the edge of the zipper piece sandwiched together. My machine absolutely refused to go through that. I ended up having to do some pretty sketchy hand sewing for those bits. It’s a minor miracle I did not accidentally injure myself.

All sketchiness aside, MADE Everyday’s zipper pouch tutorial on YouTube made installing the zipper so much easier for me! Her directions are super clear, with the right amount of detail. I might poke around to find other fun tutorials on that channel.

This was also the first project in which I used half-square triangles in my patchwork. I wasn’t sure how well they’d turn out but they ended up being my favorite part! Not too shabby!

All in all, I’m pretty proud of myself for finishing this project, and excited to use my pouch. There’s plenty of mistakes and wonkiness, but that actually makes me more proud of myself—for being proud of myself despite imperfection! That’s a win for me!

Enamel pin wall hanging

2022-07-28T00:00:00.000Z

I had a decent amount of enamel pins rattling around in a wooden box that weren’t really seeing the light of day. I want to be able to look at the cute pins I’ve collected instead of hoarding them, so I decided to make a wall hanging!

The wall hanging is done up in solid quilting cottons from Joann’s, quilted with some batting. I added another layer of backing fabric in the salmon pink, in order to self-bind the wall hanging. With 4 layers including batting, the banner is fairly thick. It took some work to get the pins through, and I thought for a second there this might get repurposed as a table mat.

I considered adding corners on the back or straps on the top in order to hang the banner from a dowel, but remembered I had some cute colorful binder clips. So, this is now hanging from two contrasting yellow clips.

The wall hanging is the first thing on my office wall; I’m hoping to make some vibrant mini quilts to collage on the wall.

Learnings

I’ve never self-bound a quilted item before, and basically just YOLO’d it. I wish I had cut my backing fabric just a bit wider, maybe 1/4” or 1/2” in each direction. That would’ve helped account for the height of the “sandwich”. Where the binding looks especially wiggly or the corners silly (i.e. folded over instead of mitered) is where I really didn’t have enough room to do it right. I am, of course, too lazy to seam rip the darn thing and cut a new piece.

From these instructions on self-binding a quilt, I’ll also try folding down the corners first (instead of folding them down after the first lateral fold), and hit the corner with a gluestick.

Enamel Pin Sources

I unfortunately don’t remember all of my sources; some are from Short Run Comics Fest, ECCC, or purchased elsewhere online. You can get some of these pins from:

Andrea Bell
Corgi Things
Hannako Lambert
Japanese Breakfast merch store
Love to Sew
Mis0 Happy
Netlify store (well, in my new employee pack!)
Pretty Useful
The Yetee

Clearly, I have room for more pins…

Another Quilted Pillow

2022-01-05T00:00:00.000Z

Happy one year to this blog, apparently! 🥳

Just a short one to mark the occasion. A few months back I posted about a pillow and pouf that I made for my reading chair:

I ended up (over the last few months…) making another quilted pillowcase with the remainders from that project, plus a few monochromatic fat quarters I was holding onto:

This one came right in under the wire in 2021; I was off work for NYE and had a remote “Sew Day” with my mom, where I ended up finishing this pillow. That entailed doing the quilting, and attaching the “envelope” pieces in the back to the quilted pillow top.

About Sew Day: my mom and one of my aunts (her sister) get together on Fridays to sew over FaceTime, when their work schedule is a little more flexible. It’s such a nice idea and I’d like to dip in more often on my lunch breaks. I had crashed their party big-time in September while on staycation between jobs. Wish I could stay the whole session every week!

In any case, this is just a self-drafted pattern where I once again cut my fabric into strips in a pseudo-random arrangement and sewed ’em together. There are some things I would change about the design; “randomness” is always an interesting visual challenge. How to make things feel organic but balanced?

This will serve as a throw pillow (though I am leaning against it now whilst couch-blogging), so, feets for scale.

Have a cozy and excellent New Year!

The Poofiest Rug Mug ☕

2021-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

Today I present to you the poofiest mug rug in all the land:

I’ve woven coasters before, but always kept the backs of these fairly raw, in that you might be able to see where I wove in lose ends or tied things off, were you to look at the back. I thought I’d try making a mug rug with a fabric backing. So I wove the top, sewed the right side to some natural-color linen, turned it inside out and: poof.

I’m not super happy with how this turned out. What I didn’t have in mind to start is that by sewing things up this way, I’m effectively doubling up the height of the woven “fabric”. Hiding the seams by turning things inside out works nicely with woven items that have dimension (like a pillowcase), but not so much with something that needs to lie flat…unless perhaps I was using a lighter weight of yarn. It also places stress on the areas that are color-blocked; you can see little gaps between the yellow/blue and cream in the photo. I lazily omit sewing these little gaps together, and it tends not to matter much when the weaving displayed flat, like a tapestry. But here it’s a nope.

So, the next time I make a coaster or mug rug and want a backing fabric, I’ll just sew the fabric to the wrong side of the weaving and let the coaster have a visible seam. Learning: that’s why I’m here.

Here’s some process images of this mug rug:

This half circle actually turned out much better than usual! I made a template with some thick paper and marked the circle onto the warp strings using Sharpie. Before I’ve either winged it (nope) or used a "cartoon", which is a piece of paper with your design drawn on it, that you attach to the loom so it sits behind the warp strings. It was harder doing the half circle that’s facing the other direction—small rounded arc down—but I’m pretty pleased with this!

Let me tell you more about catastrophy. I had left my loom leaning against a wall at some point, and our Roomba came around and tried to eat the dangling ends of yarn. It pulled them REALLY TIGHT, and while I was able to ease up most of the tension, you can still tell from my wobbly selvedge edge where the Roomba tried to have a go at this weaving.

Sewing the fabrics together…

But the first time around, I sewed the fabric the WRONG side of the weaving and had to seam rip the whole darn thing. Much more annoying with a weaving than quilting cotton, ugh.

And yet, I persisted. And we now have a rug mug! There is room for two mugs, so Rahul and I can be adorable and use this together while having coffee/tea and reading on the weekends.

I STILL have leftover yarn after this weaving, so I think I will just make a pom-pom garland. Now to dig up that pom-pom maker I have yet to use…

Making Plans: Fall/Winter 2021

2021-10-29T00:00:00.000Z

Well, October is nearly over (HOW), but no time like the present to document my fiber craft goals for Fall and Winter!

Lingering projects

Firstly, I have a couple small housewares projects to finish up:

A 24" throw pillow that will match the pillow and pouf I made for my reading chair.
A mug rug I’ve woven from leftover worsted-weight yarn. The woven bit is done, just need to cut a rectangle of the backing linen and attach it to the front.

Knitting

I took a long break from knitting in the warm months, so there’s a couple different knitting projects on my list:

Purl Soho’s Seedbed scarf, in a navy yarn. I was previously working on a Ravenclaw scarf, but then JKR revealed herself as an unapologetic TERF, which means that project was promptly frogged. I hope someday the creator of a beloved series about the power of friendship, kindness, and acceptance looks back on her transphobia with embarrassment and regret, but I shan’t hold my breath. Nor will I wear anything from the fandom, lest that send signals that I don’t wish to send. Anyway, I have a few skeins of navy yarn that needed a project, and the Seedbed scarf is a nice simple one. I’m planning to gift it to my S.O. when finished.
Also from Purl Soho, the “Classic Cuffed Hat” pattern. Possibly with leftover yarn from the scarf. I’ve attempted this beanie before and didn’t get too far with my rudimentary skills. So yeah, let’s try this again!
Socks. Socks socks socks. I really want to try making them. They’re small, useful, and you can do some nice funky things with surface patterns and colors. Summer Lee has some great sock knitting patterns, so I’ll start with the I’m So Basic Socks. Now inviting any sock knitting words of wisdom!

Other projects

I bought a rug loom forever ago, then warped it a little less forever ago, and it’s been sitting in a corner of the living room. Intimidating me. So I am going to forge on ahead with Balfour & Co’s rug weaving course.
Not too many sewing projects on the horizon, but I do want to make some Carolyn pajamas bottoms with some fabric I bought years ago from Mood Fabrics.

What are you aiming to make in fall / winter of this year?

On a tool roll

2021-09-09T00:00:00.000Z

I’ve been aiming to get more into Urban Sketching, i.e. sketching cool sights on location. Something that became obvious to me right away is that I need a better on-the-go setup for my colored pencils. Awhile ago, I had bought a little plastic sheath box to store the pencils in, which is nicely compact. However, it rattles pretty loudly, and the tips of the pencils get dirty as they all hit the same end of the box. Instead, I wanted something that would keep the colored pencils a little more separate, so that they wouldn’t cross-contaminate each other, so to speak.

Enter the Bookhou tool roll!

For this one I used some black-and-white fat quarters that I’ve had for years, supplemented with plain black canvas for the exterior. I chose a plain, heavy material in case this takes some abuse in backpacks.

I also sewed on a patch that I’ve had probably since 2014; it reads “tired hands, quiet minds”. I can’t remember for the life of me where this particular patch came from, but I *think* it might be from a conference I attended that year. In any case, good excuse to finally use one of the patches I have around.

The interior of the tool roll has a row of slots sewn in for the colored pencils, and a perpendicular pocket that can house pencil sharpeners, erasers, and assorted whatnot.

To space the pencils, I slipped one pencil into this tool area, and put my finger down where it had enough space to comfortly but snugly fit. This ended up being ~5/8"—terribly convenient given that this is a standard marking on sewing machines.

I sewed 5/8" slots all the way down the row; it fits 16 pencils.

As I had feared, the worst part about this project was putting in the grommet. I kid you not when I say I sweated bullets placing the grommet into the final piece. Perhaps due to nerves, one of the test grommets I did on scrap fabric ended up looking better than the final result! C’est la vie.

I think what was challenging for me was getting the bottom half of the pliers lined up with the eyelet just so. It seems like if you apply uneven pressure, or are just a little off with the tool, bad things happen. Being just a bit off is easy, as you’re working with a couple slippery pieces and having to hold everything steady on two sides of the fabric. It’s maybe hard to tell from the photos, but the grommet looks like absolute butt. Luckily, the knot in the cording covers up the worst of my sins, i.e. the back side of the eyelet/washer combo (which isn’t really flush to the fabric, and is sort of jaggedy). I imagine this must get easier over time, but I also have a mind to remove any jackets with interesting hardware from my sewing wishlist. 😉

Since I left the outside of the tool roll a solid color, I think this will be an opportunity to embroider some custom patches and swap them out on the front of tool roll from time to time—great excuse to finally use some of the embroidery floss that’s been lying around!

A cozier reading chair

2021-08-16T00:00:00.000Z

Last year, I finally got around to purchasing a reading chair, and was absolutely astonished by how expensive ottomans are. I suppose an ottoman might be considered a nice-to-have. Clearly, mainstream furniture brands assume that if you’re in the market for one, you must be willing and able to drop anywhere between $100–$450!

The great thing about having (or growing) sewing skills is that you can make your own. 😈

So, over the past several months, I’ve been working away at a pouf ottoman and new pillow for my reading chair! The pouf I actually finished way back in February; everything takes me forever, and I wanted to prioritize the ergonomics of being able to put our feet up when we read.

For the pouf, I followed this pattern from The Happy Housie. I was worried that sewing together the edges into a cube would be a bit fiddly, but actually, things seem to fall into place quite naturally.

The larger drama actually was polyfil’ing this thing. I had ordered pillow inserts (for pillows), and polyfil (for the pouf) online. The package with my polyfil was stolen or lost or something—whole long saga—so I ended up in short term pulling the polyfil out of the pillow inserts and using it in the pouf. Once some polyfil finally showed up, I put that in the pillow insert. Hence the pillow looks a little lumpy, because I am not a factory machine.

For the coordinating pillowcase, I ended up sketching my own simple design. I had purchased 24" pillowcases, thinking that they were measured corner-to-corner, like a monitor screen. They are not. I ended up cutting down one insert to 20" and sewed that back up again. For the other insert, I’ll keep it 24" and use it as a floor pillow.

First time quilting anything or using a walking foot! Speaking of expensive items…at least this is a one-time purchase.

The completed pillow! It’s a little wrinkly because I could not help but use it immediately.

The linen fabric is not hand-stamped/painted (though that would be fun!). Rather, I purchased it from Stitches in Seattle.

While I can spot all the imperfections that come with trying something new, I’m really pleased with and proud of my pillow-and-pouf combo! It’s so satisfying to make something useful for your own home…and a nice bonus to save some money doing so.

All the small things

2021-02-26T00:00:00.000Z

Over the past couple months I’ve been working on a bunch of small items, using up stray fabric here and there.

Probably the most fun sewing project of this batch was a drawstring bag with lining (pattern from The Spruce Crafts). I made this small bag as a replacement for the not-very-cute mesh bag that came with my reusable makeup remover pads, and used roughly the dimensions of that mesh bag to guide this project. I think it looks maybe 2 inches too long, but it works for the job at hand. I bought the fabric a few years ago in Nippori, Tokyo’s fabric district, and am fiiiinally getting around to using it.

I think what made this project so fun was working on the drawstring casing and lining. When you’re in the midst of it, the layers don’t seem like much. All of a sudden things sort of magically fall into place, as fabric is turned out the right way.

The last time I made a drawstring bag was in middle school home ec class, when everyone had to make a rather large drawstring bag: think of the type of large sack you might take on a sleepover. Those had much chunkier drawstrings! And no lining to speak of.

This fabric also made an appearance in a batch of masks:

The grey illustrated-house fabric is also from a small cut of fabric purchased in Nippori. And I swear, this is the last batch of masks I’m making in this pandemic—I’m sick of them!

Also due to the pandemic, 2020 was the first year I have not gone home to my parents’ for Christmas. Which also means it’s the first year I bothered to get my own tree! We bought a small but real pine tree from the grocery store, and I thought it might be nice to make some pine sachets with the dried-out needles.

I cut and sewed enough of this plaid flannel fabric to make 6 sachets, but it ended up taking forever to get needles off the tree. So the remaining four sachets became a set of holiday coasters instead:

And that’s it for this batch of tiny projects!

Leftovers upon leftovers

2021-02-21T00:00:00.000Z

Many moons ago I wove an eggy tapestry and ended up with a bunch of leftover navy and white cotton yarn. I’ve done a couple small projects with the leftovers and now I have…much smaller balls of leftover yarn.

First up, I wove a set of nautical-esque coasters:

Like all the objects I weave, this design followed my own pattern. The intent was to make 2 coasters for each WFH desk in this household: dark coasters to go under coffee mugs, and light ones for water glasses.

This one is kind of funny because if you squint, you might be able to see a color gradation in the navy yarn. The reason for that is that I hit pause for awhile on this first coaster, and just kind of left it out in my apartment in the sun. Apparently these yarns are not very color-fast!

I still had plenty of yarn left to burn when I finally finished these, so I knitted up a fast washcloth (good application for this, given that it’s cotton yarn):

This one is fairly free-styled, too. There’s a 5-stitch-wide seed stitch pattern around the edges, and the center of the washcloth is your basic stockinette stitch.

Need to work on my tension when switching colors, happily taking any advice there.

Now what to do with those tiny leftover balls of yarn…?

Hello (fiber crafts) world

2021-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

Welcome to my new fiber crafts blog! I suppose I should start with an introduction…

I'm Melanie Richards, a Seattleite who has worked on the web in various and sundry roles (design, web development, platform program management). Like a lot of information workers, I spend a lot of time staring at screens and producing intangible outcomes. And like many others, I find it important to balance screen time with hobbies in the physical world. Part of this involves hiking along many of our local trails…

…and a big part of it is making things with my hands.

I actually picked up weaving a few years ago when I was feeling stressed about work and needed something to keep my hands busy. I watched a couple YouTube videos, made a hideous-looking tapestry, and later took a workshop with Natalie Novak (who very graciously answered my peppered questions). My favorite item I've woven is probably this eggy tapestry:

My first entry into knitting came from a gift card for 1:1 instruction at (now retired) Bad Woman Yarn. I learned English-style knitting from the owner, so I've mostly made larger/smaller rectangles, very slowly. My favorite rectangle is a blanket I made as a wedding present for my sister and brother-in-law:

As for sewing, I grew up in a hobbyist quilter's home, surrounded by homemade things. I haven't actually sewn too many things (this was a once-in-a-blue-moon hobby), but having a sewing machine really came in handy early in the pandemic when the demand for masks outstripped supply.

Goals for my fiber hobbies

For each of these 3 hobbies I'd like to level up in some way:

Weaving: I'd like to do large-format projects! I have a rug loom from Balfour & Co. and plan to take their rug-weaving course.
Knitting: I want to sew something other than rectangles (though I did knit a coffee cozy in the round before…it turned out ok). Specifically I'd like to try making a hat, socks, and *gulp* even a sweater. I am so intimidated by the idea of knitted items that really need to fit. Just have to do the gauge properly I suppose…
Sewing: I'd really like to step up my sewing game! I upgraded my machine a few months ago from an old, bottom-of-the-line machine that wasn't really serving me anymore. There's a lot of things I'd like to do here: quilt, make some practical goods for around the house/my other hobbies, and especially some clothes. It would neat if most of my wardrobe is handmade someday, but miles to go between here and there.

Goals for this blog

Primarily I'd like to document my progress all in one place for my own reference. I wouldn't call myself the most prolific crafter, but looking back on my earliest makes, I can already see the progress. I think it would be neat to capture that all in one place, in finer detail.

There's a really great and joyous community around these crafts, so I'd also like to participate in that culture of open learning. The community tends to be pretty heavily centered around Instagram today, so I'll post there as well. However, it's important to me to own my content, so that no matter where the community moves—e.g. if people finally get fed up with Instagram's demanding algorithm—I'll have that throughline. And honestly, I hope indie blogging does make a significant comeback.

That's me in a nutshell, looking forward to sharing what I make here! ✌