howdy newsletter readers! happy new year/valentines day/st. patricks day. life has been very different these last few months - i moved from my hometown in northern michigan to across the lake in chicago! the change has been a lot at times, but i’m really enjoying living in a place with much more to do. even if it’s not as easy to find quiet woodsy areas here, the grocery store options here are well worth the distance from nature. before i moved, i took the time to shoot these film photos in my favorite areas around the city i grew up in. i think they turned out really well, and i’m eager to do some more photography in my new neighborhood once i get my hands on either a digital cam or more film!
to avoid spending too much money on yarn while i am #unemployed, i challenged myself to work on projects only using the yarn i already had at least for a few months. using only my stash (a lot of which i’d been carrying with me for several years), i’ve made a pillow cover, a stripey vest, a wacky ribbed sweater, convertible mittens, a couple beanies, handwarmers for my friends, a bikini top, and a linen-stitch scarf (which isn’t finished yet)! i still have a good amount of scrap yarn to work through, but now the bulk of it is in very small quantities or i have plans for it already. now i feel better about buying new yarn occasionally :-) since i had varied amounts and weights of yarn, and many patterns cost money, i had to fiddle with measurements myself in order to get what i was imagining. most of the things i’ve made this year, including the striped vest below, were self-drafted. i’m quite proud of how my self-drafted things turned out, yay for getting better at my hobbies!
still haven’t found an occasion to wear this before the weather warms up…
i unravelled the quilt cardigan i made a couple years ago and repurposed the yarn for this vest
current WIPs - a pair of stripey pink and purple socks, and the beginnings of a fuzzy hot pink sweater! i really want to make more socks now that i’m getting better at it
the new yarn i treated myself to last week
my 2026 craft aspirations are as follows
learn sewing basics and make a couple simple projects
incorporate metal o-rings and beads into my knitting
redesign my etsy business card
draw for fun like 15% more than last year, and get a hold of a scanner for my sketchbook again
gussy up clothes i already have with bleach painting/buttons/embroidery!
when and if i do these things, you will know about it here ❤ i really do have to redesign my business card soon though bc i’ve only got like 30 of the outdated QR code ones left! i am a little unconcerned with my active-ness in regards to art content recently, but that will happen this month… probably. hopefully. i’m trying to turn this newsletter into a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein i say i’m going to do various creative things, and then i do them so i have something to share here, and so on and so on. between knitting and collage journaling, all my creative hobbies right now are kind of inherently un-marketable and i find it hard to write about the things i do purely for fun. thanks for reading this if you made it this far into my disorganized art chatter! and on the topic of marketableness… i accept money in exchange for stickers on my etsy page. my inventory is dwindling and i’m not planning to restock anything that sells out in the near future, so if you want something and you have at least a few dollars, get it soon! it may not be available next time you look.
good things i’ve enjoyed these past few months: “Limerence” EP by Jessica Winter, snap peas, hot pink, going to dance clubs for the first time, thomaswc.com/2025.html, the original Muppet Show, having two sets of bedding, Phantom of the Paradise, antibiotics, buttons, medical dramas, multicolored pencils, and thai iced tea.
thats all for now! i’ll see you here again in summertime :-)
-august