/archive
Old posts from the index go here. Newer posts are on the top!
Current Projects
Week of 2026.02.15
Crochet
I long for community. I have friends and family, yes, but I often wish I belonged to a larger network of people beyond those inner circles. Anyone who knows me IRL knows that I often talk about starting a local club or Meetup group to make that dream happen, but the burden of that task is so overwhelming. So I'm doing what I can to break it down into smaller steps.
The first step? Find something to be the center point that draws people together. For me, the obvious thing is crochet.
A while ago, I was looking for volunteer opportunities in my area and discovered a local organization that teaches knitting to folks and their loved ones at retirement communities and hospitals. It's a way to provide a therapeutic hobby as well as connection and community with others. I love the idea, and it inspired me to learn how to teach crochet.
I figure: if I could teach crochet, then I could offer lessons to my neighbors. And if my neighbors can crochet, we can meet and crochet together. Community!
So if the first step was finding a center point, then the second step is learning. I signed up for an online crochet instructor course via the American Crochet Association, and I've already worked through about a quarter of the lessons. It's been so helpful to relearn the craft through a beginner's lens. I've already got ideas for my teaching "script."
We'll see where this all goes ultimately, but I'm optimistic. 
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.
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.
Miniblog
2026.01.18
I'll admit, I had several drafts of this post before writing this one. I'd start something, then delete it because it was too gloomy or bleak. "Lighten up, Cora," I'd think to myself, "Be perky, be happy!" But it's really hard to pretend that everything's okay when it IS gloomy and bleak in the world right now. I don't even think I need to name specifics. You already know all the things I'm talking about.
It's been a hard to go about my normal routine and normal hobbies when it always feels like something is about to be taken away from you, or your neighbor, or the world. Last Friday, I had to let myself cry about it. I thought I might burst if I didn't.
But there's a Toni Morrison quote I've kept on the front page of my personal journal since the start of 2025. I see it every day, and it keeps me going:
"This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art."
So I'm still here on draft who-knows-what because I'm determined to not let bad news stop me from living my life, creating things, or connecting with others. This is how we heal.
Current Projects
Week of 2026.01.11
Crochet
Between managing personal responsibilities and staying informed of national events, my attention has been very divided lately. It's been hard to quiet my mind to focus on detailed crochet projects. Every time I picked up a WIP, I felt overwhelmed or disinterested by it. And as much as I tried to push through those feelings, I kept hitting a wall. Something needed to change.
So I stopped pushing and started playing instead. I set aside my WIPs and opened up my drawer of yarn scraps. I started making without any goal to create anything specific, beautiful, or useful. Just making for the sake of making.
I dug out my Clover Wonder Knitter, which is a children's toy that's essentially a handheld knitting machine, and I made cords, or as I like to call them: knoodles (knit + noodles). And I made a scrappy moss stitch block with mismatched colors just to see how they would clash. Didn't bother with weaving in the ends because... it's all just play! It doesn't need to last forever.
I have no idea what I'll do with any of these, but they were fun to make. And you know what? It helped! I'm creating again. 
Miniblog
2026.01.08
Happy New Year! I have one resolution this year, and that's to create more than I consume. With the world being what it is right now, I often find myself lying on the couch after work, endlessly doomscrolling. Sometimes I do this to immerse myself in the global dumpster fire or to distract myself from it. While I think it's good to stay up-to-date on the news as well as take a break from it, either thing in excess can really weaken or break your spirit.
But I've found there are two things that reliably pull me out of a doomspiral.
One: "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire. It's fun, catchy, and you can't not dance to it. It's good for the soul.
And two: making something tangible with my own hands. This could be making food, working on a craft, or repairing something broken. There's just something about transferring my creative energy to something outside of me, to something that I can touch and hold. I feel grounded when I create something. It reminds me that I'm part of this world and that I can contribute to and change it.
I'm grateful to have pushed through 2025, but I have a feeling that my endurance will be tested again in 2026. So, this year, I'm going to keep on making.
Current Projects
Week of 2026.01.04
Webdev
I've got a new layout! I've learned a lot of about web design since I started this site in September of last year. I knew with the start of the new year I was going to refresh my layout to better reflect my personal aesthetic and preferred workflow. Some of the design choices I made:
- I stopped using a 11ty, a static site generator. I used it previously because I wanted a blog with tags and an archive for my site. However, I found that writing long-form blogs was taking time and attention from the things I really wanted work on: pixel art and my crochet digital garden. I also found 11ty to be unwieldy, not because it's bad or hard to use, but that it was more power than I really needed for this little online portfolio.
- I took a minimal approach. While I still love my old layout, to me it felt "heavy" to look at. So many big elements, headers, and boxes smothered the images of my pixel art and crochet. (I also hated having to switch between the light and dark modes, according to the time of the day/my mood.) This time around, I opted for something closer to mid-tone in color and with fewer boxes and borders. Now it feels like my content can really breathe!
- I added more content to my index page. The index is the first impression. While there might be plenty of fun, interesting things to find behind the doors of other pages, a visitor won't look for them if the front entrance doesn't inspire curiosity. So, now, I've added everything I think is important to the index page! And to me it looks more like a magazine spread. Lots to look at, read, and explore.
That said, this layout is still a work in progress. I've got more art to make and features to add. I've also been learning Javascript in my free time, and it's been fun to tinker with web functionality. I've been using my Colors TCG Card Post as my Javascript playground, so check that out if you wanna see my (very, very novice) work!
Pixel Art
I bought the Pixsquare app for my iPad, and it's been a game changer. Until recently, I've been using Aseprite exclusively for pixel art work. I love it, but it took me long time to make pixels because I was using a mouse and keyboard to draw. With Pixsquare, I can use a stylus to create pixel-perfect lines and make art without needing to import a hand-drawn sketch beforehand. Pixels that took me about three hours to make, now just take one!
I've got so many ideas for future work, including icons, shrines, and old school pixel art dolls and bases! 
Crochet
Honestly, crochet has been on sidelines recently as most of my creative energy has gone into working on the new layout. But now that the foundation is laid, I can get back into it! I've been working on a challenging doily pattern called Auryn, and it's been quite a learning process. I've been jotting down notes along the way, and I'll have more to share about it when I'm done!