yarnfish

Hello there! I'm Cora, and this is my personal site to share my love for crochet, pixel art, and the indie web!

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Current Projects

Week of 2026.01.25

Crochet

I'm starting this year with a doily study.

I think that doilies are a largely underrated art form. Generations ago, they were used for both decoration and protection of furniture. Nowadays, with the prevalence of cheap furniture that hardly warrants long-term preservation, doilies have lost their primary purpose and are now often referred to as mandalas, which are treated more as meditative pieces rather than functional ones. But I prefer the term "doily" because, for me, making one is more about celebrating and preserving the craft than about personal or spiritual reflection.

Doilies are detailed, complex, geometric designs, and they're not easy to make. Even as an advanced crocheter, some rounds of the Auryn doily, pictured here, took me over an hour to complete. This is a modern pattern, but vintage doilies are no less complicated. (You can see a gallery of them here: Free Vintage Crochet: Doilies.) I once searched how I could design my own doily, hoping to find a guide, video tutorial, or instructional book. But my findings ultimately boiled down to this: "There is no formula. You design through experience, skill, experimentation, and LOTS of trial and error."

So that's the plan for this study. Make a lot of doilies, use modern and vintage patterns, learn their construction, learn the math involved, build my skills, define my style, mess up, and redo again and again and again.

Latest Pixels

pixel art pink mailbox

Valentines Mailbox. Made this cute, little mailbox for a Colors TCG challenge.

Latest Garden Update

open garden in a new tab

Latest Craft

teal crochet doily

"Philippa" by Grace Fearon. Click image for more details.

Miniblog

2026.01.28

Last week, my country's government murdered another innocent person in the street. Another victim in a growing list of shootings of citizens and non-citizens. Meanwhile, many more victims, adults and children alike, are hidden behind concentration camp walls, cold, sick, hungry, abused, and isolated.

I've done what I can. I voted against this in national and local elections. I called my representatives. I participated in nationally organized protests twice last year. I boycotted Google, Amazon, Target, Spotify, and other major corporations that are complicit in these atrocities. I subscribed to public media, PBS and NPR, when the government stopped funding them. I followed national and local organizations for news, citizen reporting, legal advice, medical advice, and safety advice in case I am the target of or witness to state-sanctioned violence. And it doesn't feel like enough.

A few weeks ago, I cried. I STILL cry. But now, that sadness is accompanied by determination and rage. I won't let grief paralyze me into inaction, and I'm letting my anger drive me forward. Because what is anger, really, but a response to injustice? There's still so much more to do, and I'm not giving up.

Pic Log

No photo this week. Just a song I've been singing lately.

Media Log

Reading: Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed History of America New

February is Black History Month, and this book appeared at the top of a list of recommended readings for 2026.

I had no idea what I was getting into with this book, but this has been an absolute delight so far. Harriot is a masterful storyteller, who seamlessly weaves in personal anecdotes with blunt delivery of harsh historical truths and outrageous examples of utter "caucasity."

I'm considering buying this book again as an audiobook!

Reading: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Vol. 2

This is the next reading for my book club and, again, it's my second read of it! I read this series when I first got into the danmei genre, and it ended up in my DNF pile. But, in hindsight, I think I wasn't ready to read this one at the time. The series is a satire that pokes fun of danmei tropes as well as webnovel culture. When I read this the first time, I didn't have the prerequisite knowledge needed to understand or even recognize what was a joke. Years later, I've read a lot more fiction in this genre, both good and bad, so I'm looking forward to reading this one again. Hopefully now the jokes will land!

Playing: My Time at Sandrock

Nowadays, if I'm gaming, I'm playing Overwatch 2. But I do love a good cozy, life sim game every now and then.

I've been picking at My Time at Sandrock as a way to wind down on stressful days when I just want to turn my brain off, and I'm really enjoying it. It belongs to one of my favorite sci-fi sub-genres, post-apocalyptic solarpunk... but cozy! It's refreshing to imagine to fresh start to civilization that learns from its past mistakes. This game so far is mostly cute and casual, but it has its sobering, serious moments, which I appreciate.

Site Updates

  • 2026.02.09: Updated Garden and Media Log. Added contact form to Exit page.
  • 2026.01.28: Updated Index and Crafts pages.
  • 2026.01.24: Added Garden iframe to index, added randomizer JS script to exit links
  • 2026.01.22: Migrated Garden to Notion/Super site. Updated About, Toybox, and OW2 shrine pages with new buttons and pixels.
  • 2026.01.19: Updated Index

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