February Favorites 🫘

It’s unbelievably overcast. I keep questioning why we live in a valley. But the birds are singing again and everything in me wants to focus on spring.

Here’s what I’ve been turning over in my head this month:

✹ Homes for Tools

I really want to create beautiful homes for my tools & art supplies. Especially if the original containers are bent, broken, or full to the brim. I have my supplies organized for the most part already, but it would be nice to pare down my supplies to be the type and quality that a studio deserves, including the ways I storage them.

I’m perfectly fine with working with what I have, but I want to think more intentionally about the mise en place in my workspace and home in general. If Marie Kondo taught me anything, it’s that we deserve to give the things that bring us joy a spacious, lovely home that we can come back to, time and time again.

✹ Thread-Wrapped Buttons

The artist Gina-B Silkworks teaches a whole range of historic sewing techniques, particularly around button making. And I’m really obsessed with the idea of making some oversized, colorful thread-wrapped buttons for statement coats and outerwear in my closet. [See: Studio to Closet— Behind the Make of My Wardrobe Project 🌱]

From trying to research button examples, it seems like this craft spiked in online popularity in 2016? The only good references I can find online are a few Japanese craft blogs from that era + Gina-B who sells books and button-making materials from the UK.

✹ Custom Bookplates

Embossing, linocut, stamping— I’m incredibly drawn to the idea of mark making via relief printing right now. [See: Trying Linocut at the Arts Fest 🫘] One of the ways this has manifested in my brain is: custom bookplates for myself (& as gifts for others).

I had this idea of making yearly or seasonal bookplates for my library as a kind of passport for reading. If I read more, I might think of doing this pretty seasonally but I also like a year-to-year approach. Maybe even decades. If I’m already annotating my books, I might as well mark when I read them & return to them. It’s like another form of memory keeping.

✹ Embroidered Fabric Weights

Ever since I got a sewing machine (beginning of 2025), I’ve been wanting to make little ornate embroidered fabric weights. I found a bunch of images of an embroidery style that I like, but I can’t figure out what it’s called exactly. It’s like a cross between: Chicken Scratch embroidery, Sashiko stitches, and Jacobean lattice embroidery. That’s the best way I can describe it right now.

✹ Cork Board Project Management

This is something I’ve been meaning to write more about! I’ve been using a tactile project management system specifically for my art/craft projects for over two years now. After Marie Kondo-ing my home, I was in this state of organizing everything, including my brain.

This wasn’t an idea from her book, but it was born from this period of time when I read it. It’s been so helpful to have project ideas out in the open where I can see them and decide what I’m actually going to focus working on. I’ve definitely been able to complete more projects this way. I’m hoping to write out a more thought out mini-essay on my experience doing this.

✹ Cut & Pierced Lamp Shades

These winter days have been so dim and gray in my work area. And I didn’t notice until recently how little light was reaching me when I sit down to work, so I’ve decided to work on a paper lamp accessory for the studio. But not just any paper lamp, I really want to make a cut & pierced lamp shade!

Cut & pierced lamps are a dying folk art, once popular in the 70s and 80s. Delicate shade details— usually floral— are cut & pierced from the inside before assembling the shade. The cut edges of petals and leaves are curled slightly inward to create a soft, gradient effect from the outside. For a great set of examples, see artist Barbara Gail on Etsy.

I can’t find the complete origin story for this craft, but it clearly draws from a collection of inspiration found in punched tin lanterns, lacemaking, and paper cutting folk traditions from across the world. My idea is to create a shade that’s heavily inspired by Wycinanki (Polish paper cutting) and lace patterns. [See: Cutwork Lace Adventure Part 1: Learning Richelieu Embroidery 🌱] 🤎

✹ Abstract Quilting

Quilting has been on my mind for the past few years. Probably because it’s been trending on my social media feeds. My first sewing project since getting my machine was a quilted apple pillow. Then, a quilted book cover. [See: December Favorites 🫘] And now, I’m ready for something a little bit bigger.

Current rabbit hole: I found this quilter artist kaylee jo likes to sew, she led me to discover Heidi Parkes, from there my Pinterest algorithm brought me numerous kavand quilts made by the Siddi, and examples of big stitch quilting from artist Victoria Gertenbach.

All of these folks are inspiring me to use what I have to create a free-form, abstract, make-as-you-go type of quilt. Part 1 is up here: Abstract Quilt Exploration 🌱

That’s all I’ve got. Have a lovely rest of this tiny month!