Say hello to my first ever quilting project!

When I watched Big Hero 6 over Thanksgiving in 2014, I fell in love. It was a movie about design and engineering and robots and siblings, and there was great representation for Asians in Gogo Tamago - what was there not to love? The movie so clearly (to me) referenced MIT and the Media Lab, and all the total nerds that worked and studied there were so reminiscent to all of my nerd friends, except obviously we don't have crazy professors.

Well, that's actually pretty debatable.

We don't have any murderous professors set out to destroy fraudulent corporate businessmen, at least.

Plus, all the feels. I sobbed in the theater so many times when I watched it, and I sobbed again the second time I watched it at home. All the sobbing. All the feelings about Tadashi and Baymax and Hiro and my heart still can't handle it.

I've been pretty set on making a Big Hero 6 inspired something for a while now, but I never got around to it. I had it all imagined in my head - a Baymax onesie that was huge and cozy and warm.

The Baymax onesie never happened, and I kind of forgot about the project as I got caught up in the craziness of MIT and stress and work and life... until I came across Angela Clayton's videos on Youtube.

She's amazing and I'm constantly astounded at what she's able to make. I love watching her videos and her explanations of her creations, and she's got a really nice and soothing voice which makes her videos great for unwinding. A few months ago she made a How to Train Your Dragon inspired pyjama set - an elaborate hoodie complete with the spikes and patterns of Toothless, and a pair of shorts to go with it. It was one of her simpler projects - no boning and corsetry involved - and when I watched her vlogs about it, I remembered how I wanted to make a Baymax inspired project a while ago.

So, using her videos and blog posts as a sort of guide for how the pattern pieces should look like and a hoodie that I long-term borrowed (read: stole) from a friend, I drafted up a quick pattern for the base of the hoodie. I used a pair of Forever 21 shorts to draft the pattern for the pyjama shorts, leaving ample space around the sides so the shorts could be loose instead of form fitting.

This is a quick sketch of what the pattern pieces looked like. The hoodie itself is a raglan sleeve, so when the body and sleeve pieces were attached and the side seams hadn't been sewn up yet, it looked like a big cross with a hole in it for the neck!

I cut the pattern pieces out of white fleece that I had picked up at my nearby fabric store earlier this week. The seams were really simple to do up - the four seams to attach the arm pieces to the body pieces, the two seams to sew up the sides, the hems, and the hood attachment.

Unfortunately, since I eyeballed everything and didn't think to measure anything out - I know, I'm so smart - the hood doesn't actually match up to the neckline, so I improv-fixed it by taking in the seams around the neckline and, after attaching the hood, hemmed the rest of the open neckline. I thought it would bother me that it's not like a real hoodie where the ends of the hood meet at the center neckline, but I actually think I like it better - regular hoodies tend to be a bit constricting on my neck, and leaving the neckline open like this counteracts that problem.

So I guess my mishap ended up working in my favor?

The shorts were also really simple. I sewed up the pieces and inserted an elastic into the waistband, and that was that.

For Baymax's actual features, I cut the pieces out of black and gray felt that I had on hand. His face was two black circles and a rectangle for the mouth, and his crest (memory card inserting thing) was a gray circle that I cut apart. I was going to sew the appliques on with my machine, but I didn't have any corresponding bobbin colors and I didn't trust my minimal sewing machine abilities to be able to sew along all the pieces in perfect lines.

I hand stitched all of appliques on. It didn't take as long as I thought, or it didn't feel really long because I was also marathoning Pirates of the Caribbean at the same time. Jack Sparrow can get you through anything.

The shorts were going to stay white, but I decided last minute to cut out Baymax's helmet design out of some red felt and attach it to the corner of the shorts. The pop of red looks really cute, and I had some red thread to hand stitch it on.

Here's the final ensemble! The face is so cute and I'm really happy with the helmet applique on the shorts - they turned out a lot better than I expected they would!

Since the project is made out of fleece, the entire ensemble is ridiculously soft and warm. All in all, I think it was a pretty successful project!

Here's a selfie of me wearing it! I look so tired because it's past midnight, but I feel like I'm wearing a cloud. It's great.

Have you ever tried to make a character hoodie? I've had a love affair with hoodies for pretty much forever even though I barely wear them, and now I think I want to make more. If I do, which character should I try next?

Anyone who knows me knows that I am practically obsessive in my organization. I am that person that writes copious to-do lists, will block out everything - including break time - in my google calendar (to the point where it gives my roommate anxiety, oops), and has had a long standing love for anything paper.

It's no wonder I chose to study architecture. What other discipline would allow me to utilize my organizational skills in order to accomplish everything that's needed to be accomplished - building overly-complex models (my professor once said that I was a masochist because I would plan out the most complicated and intricately beautiful models even though they were way too time consuming), creating beautiful and minimalistic and informative drawings - and still, somehow, succeeding to sleep more than most of my classmates? And most importantly, I got to play with nice paper and nice pens all the time.

One of the things I've regretted the most about my past few years here at MIT is that I never took the time to document my experiences here. Sure, I still have my memories, but memories are fleeting and easily forgotten. Writing things down on paper or drawing them out or blogging about it on here makes it all so much more memorable and tangible. For example, most of what I remember of the past few semesters is all of the struggles and long nights in studios and arguing with studio professors trying to explain to them why I thought my ideas were valid and good. But I'm sure those semesters weren't all awful - I was probably spending time with friends, watching TV to relieve anxiety, learning to dance - but I don't remember because often the miserable memories outlive the happy ones.

I've been making a push towards documenting everything this past semester in a forgotten sketchbook that I have - making it kind of a planner-journal hybrid, where I've been drawing weekly spreads, making to do lists every day, and journaling a little bit of what I did and how I felt that day. It's really helped me notice trends in when my anxiety flares up but also it's helped me remember all the little things that I do to make myself happier. The sketchbook is really fun to flip through - the other day when I did so I realized that I had totally forgotten that I had gone to the New England Aquarium with my class and I found how nice it was to be able to bring back that memory.

I've been slowly coming to the end of the sketchbook - it most likely will only last until the end of the semester - and so I have been looking at replacement notebooks. As a child, I hoarded notebooks and would write in them a little bit before abandoning it for a newer, prettier, better notebook, and now that I know I actually will use up this first sketchbook I'm letting child me come out to pick out the newer, prettier, and better notebook. I happened upon these Midori Traveler's Notebooks the other day and child me (and grown up me!) fell in love.

here's an example of a Midori Traveler's Notebook from the blog True Life on Earth

I love the flexibility that these notebooks offer and all the different types of inserts that you can purchase to go inside, and the mission statement is something that really speaks to me. These notebooks seem so nice and sophisticated and timeless, which really aligns with my aesthetic as someone who prefers minimalism, like many other architecture students who have been immersed in architecture for so long. It's been taking a lot of effort for me to not immediately go out and buy one, but I promised myself I had to use up my sketchbook first. Grown up me can't succumb to all my childhood whims, and I definitely don't have the space to be hoarding more notebooks.

I have, however, promised myself that if I don't finish my current sketchbook by the end of the semester, I'm allowed to buy this Midori notebook for myself for Christmas and also to document my Christmas vacation in its own separate little notebook. Especially since, if I'm not wrong, I might be crossing off another continent on my list.

What have you guys been into recently? Do you also think it's important to document your memories?

Last year, I bought red and gold fabric and red and gold face paint because I wanted to dress up as Iron Man for Halloween. Last Halloween. I've always liked Iron Man - someone who was more or less a normal human being-turned superhero. I suppose I'm also biased, considering Tony Stark went to MIT, and a product I helped design ended up being shown in Iron Man 3. (I will always show off about this. A product I designed is in a movie. A superhero movie. A movie about an engineer from MIT who becomes a superhero.)

I HAVE PROOF. The tablet the kid uses to charge up the suit is called the Vinci Tablet. I designed the handle. I'm cool. :P

That never happened. I got busy and never ended up making a dress in time... so I made it over the summer. I self-drafted and patterned a dress inspired by Iron Man's armor - so here's some pictures of the process.

I first came up with a sketch for the dress. I wanted it to be mostly red with some gold elements and, after looking at some inspiration on google, I decided to add pleats to mirror the armor plates on the actual armor. I kept the skirt simple mostly because I knew I was going to spend forever on the bodice.

This was the first sketch I made and worked off of! The skirt actually ended up not being a circle skirt - it was a rectangle that I box pleated at a few points.

I had to self-draft a pattern out of tissue paper because I didn't have any patterns premade to fit my body (and also because I'm too cheap to pay for patterns). I gave myself a lot of allowances on the sides because I know from prior experience that I have a tendency to make things too small.

And so, the fabric manipulating commenced.

I spent literally years pleating. Well, not literally, but like, at least a couple hours.

Here I have laid out some of my (janky made out of wrapping paper) pattern pieces onto my pleated fabric.

I totally forgot to photograph some steps, but here's the front of the bodice coming together!

And a close up of the side pleats.

The dress came together in a few nights, although I had some trouble with the zipper (I hate zippers but I hate buttons more, so I opted for a zipper) and because the pattern wasn't perfect, I had some weird fabric bunching around my sides. I decided it wasn't a huge deal to me - The dress was only going to be worn for Halloween anyway. The one thing that was a little sad for me was that the pleats, when pressed down, aren't super visible - I don't know if it would've worked out better if I had made them deeper.

Also, the skirt on the dress differs from the original sketch because I ended up opting for a box pleated skirt - I thought the pleats on the skirt would look more cohesive with the pleats on the bodice.

I also painted on the Iron Man crest on my chest. It's a little higher than where it's supposed to be (canonically), but whatever. It gets the point across.

I was originally planning to also paint my arm to look like the armor, but I decided it was going to be too hazardous since I was working in the library (hence the books behind me). I didn't want to chance getting red face paint everywhere. I opted for wearing my brass rat (which I wear all the time anyway) because Tony wears his.

All in all, it was a super fun project and it was my first time trying to pleat anything or self-draft something that was more complex than like, a t-shirt dress!

What do you think? Do you think I got the idea across? Also, did you dress up for halloween?

So, confession time: I'm an organization freak. I am the kind of person that likes to block out times on my gcal for everything in my day when I start getting really busy, to the point where my roommate mentioned that looking at my calendar gave her anxiety. I like to make to-do lists for everything and I like checking them off and feeling ridiculously accomplished. When I had a paper planner in high school (because they gave us planners), I would run out of space to write all the things I wanted to do (apparently I was a very busy high-schooler).

I also am a hoarder when it comes to pens and notebooks. I'm pretty sure my grandparent's home in China houses the majority of my notebook collection - all these cheap, pretty, Chinese notebooks in which I wrote maybe two or three pages and then promptly abandoned for another pretty notebook. I used these notebooks for everything: writing stories, journaling, making lists, doodling...

Over the summer I became ridiculously addicted to these "plan with me" videos on youtube. These are girls who have these ridiculously expensive planners and who decorate them with stickers to the extent that the planners are really actually scrapbooks. While things like that are not my cup of tea - the main aim of having a planner for me remains being organized - the videos themselves were somehow really entertaining to me.

Now mind you, ever since I began MIT I switched to digital planning. I have a huge reliance on Google calendar, but I never really liked how Google Tasks was set up (basically, it's ugly). I remembered how obsessed with my paper planner I was back in high school, and I became a little bit obsessed with trying to find a paper planner for the coming school year.

During my search for a cheap, pretty planner, I came across the concept of a "Bullet Journal" on Tumblr. It's a system designed by this guy named Ryder Carroll, and essentially it's a giant running to do list that you make every day. It's very customizable, because it's basically all DIY - you can use any notebook you have on hand and make it a system that works for you. And, since it's in an unstructured notebook, you can insert anything you want other than to do lists - journaling, doodles - and you will never run out of space.

I mean, until you use up the notebook.

Have I mentioned I have a thing for to do lists? And journaling? And doodling?

It was a match made in heaven.

The one issue that came up with the original bullet journaling system is that there isn't really any space for future planning. If you're making to-do lists every day for the day, it's kind of hard to see what you're going to do in a few week's time. Ryder Carroll has a way to combat that, but it's in a list format (of course) and it's only for the month.

To fix that issue, I decided to make weekly spreads instead of daily spreads - that way, I could at least plan out an entire week at once. For spans over a week, I continue to utilize my Google Calendar. I preferred it anyway, for writing out my class schedule, so I wouldn't have to write the repetitive events in my bullet journal / DIY planner every week.

Without further ado, here are the spreads I have since I started this whole bullet journaling adventure:

The notebook I used is actually a sketchbook I bought eons ago (remember I mentioned I hoard stationary?) and I drew a couple sketches of my family (mostly Hera) just so it can make me happy when I open the book

I started trying out this bullet journal thing over the summer and ended up doing more doodling/journaling which I really liked!

This was when I was still trying out future planning with only a paper planner

again, future planning with a DIY paper planner. this got abandoned fairly quickly.

I drew in a calendar for the month and with things I wanted to do but I never went back to reference it, which is how I realized this particular part of the system wasn't going to work for me

and the listing commences! This is my first spread, the week before school started

School starts! I had a couple stickers that I added in and also some washi tape. This was when I started also fake-scrapbooking and adding in ticket stubs and things like that

This is an example of me being able to use parts of the planner for, well, not planning. I took notes for my Designing Interactions class and also decided to start (late) the Lister's Gotta List challenge that I found!

My first Lister's Gotta List spread - I doodled out all the lists but I gave up doing this as I got busier

Still trying out this spread layout, but I became curious to try out a few different ones. The most exciting part of this week was going to the Boston Museum of Science's Pixar Exhibit for a class project!

More notes and Lister's Gotta List

I tried out a different type of weekly layout spread! I liked how the horizontal layout gave me more space to doodle, even though technically area-wise its the same amount of space

Moooore Lister's gotta List. You can tell I got really lazy.

I did another horizontal spread layout! This was the week where I really started adding in more doodles and writing in how I felt during the day, etc.

I emailed a bunch of places where I dropped my resume at during the MIT Career Fair and then was like, what do I do with all my pamphlets? Obviously, cut them up and tape them artfully in my bullet journal. I also added notes about the companies and their contact information.

This is this week's layout! I'm trying out a new layout where I have more space for the weekend so I can add in more memorabilia and stuff - I'm going to DC this weekend so I'm probably going to tape in my plane tickets, among other things. The notepad paper has all the specific homework I have for French.

I also decided to start trying out this habit tracker thing, mostly so I could stop writing "Feed Arlong" on every day of the week. It was getting kind of tedious.

So far, this whole bullet journal venture has been really fun! It doesn't take a lot of time to set up weekly, and drawing in or writing in how I feel or things that happened during the day really helps me wind down at night. It's been really good for destressing, and I get to fuel my hoarding into something kind of productive. I don't know if it's making me particularly more organized, but I do know it's already really fun to look back on and see what happened in the past month! Eventually, I'm hoping this will become a really cool log of my senior year.

Well, part of my senior year. I've already used up around 1/3 of my sketchbook and we're not even 1/3 of the way through the semester. I already have plans for what I'm getting to replace this, when it's used up!

How do you feel about paper planning versus digital planning? Do you journal, or doodle? How do you like to keep memories? Let me know!

The other day I stumbled upon this beautiful bag DIY by Persia Lou and I decided I needed it. My friend had just given me two massive spools of cotton yarn that she was trying to get rid of, and I decided that this bag would be the perfect project to start chipping away at that yarn!

I made a few changes to the pattern for my own version: For me, the number and length of tassels were a little too much, so I only made a few short tassels for the bag flap. I also used a gold braided belt that I've had for a long time because I didn't really want to purchase a leather strip and all the supplies to go with it. I lined it with some gray fabric that I had purchased two years ago for a Doctor Who weeping angels project that I never ended up doing (maybe someday it will happen, but for now I've finally used up most of that fabric!).

 For the belt / strap, I ended up being super cheap and lazy - I didn't even bother sewing it! I attached two D-rings (I would've preferred round rings but I couldn't for the life of me find them at Michael's) to the sides of the bag. I then belted the belt, cut it near the buckle (I did this because I wanted the buckle to be intact on the strap), and used E6000 (my trusty all-purpose industrial glue) to wrap the belt around the flat part of the D ring. I then used some extra yarn and wrapped it around the "joints" to secure it further, just in case!

The finished bag! I'm super happy with it :) I added a snap clasp at the front for extra security but I don't actually use it that much, oops.

close up! I like how you can kind of glimpse the gray under the white yarn - I think they pair super nicely together!

A close up of the belt and how I joined it to the bag

And here's me looking like a dork with the bag! I also made the dress I'm wearing - look out for that post soon!

If you like the bag, you should definitely try out the DIY! It was a super easy, super short project - took me about two nights after work, so maybe around 7 hours tops. It's the perfect summer bag, plus now I don't have to go choose between the ridiculous number of semi-identical crochet bags on the market now! This one's homemade and much cheaper ;)

I've worn it a grand total of zero times.

In my defense (does this really need defending? Everyone has stuff they've bought and not worn... right?) it was an XXL which means it basically swallows me when I put it on. The plan when I bought it was that I was going to chop the bottom off... but then I never went to the beach afterwards and so never had the opportunity.

Oops.

So when I "rediscovered" the dress, I couldn't really justify getting rid of it - there was an excess of material, I had never worn it, blah blah blah... and stripes. I swear, stripes will be my downfall.

lol so big and so wide and so long

Time to chop it up!

I decided I wanted to make it a crop top and skirt combo (I've been really into that kind of thing recently, even though it is infinitely too cold right now to be wearing skirts and baring midriffs) so I cut it at a crop-top length, hemmed it, cut the shoulder straps to make it shorter (this part is super sketch looking actually because I was too lazy to properly figure out how to make the strap width match up soooo....) and decided I liked it oversized.

The skirt I cut shorter, hemmed, folded over the top, and threaded a wide elastic through it (this part was a pain in the butt because I HAVE NO SAFETY PINS. WHY CECILE. WHY HAVE YOU NOT INVESTED IN SAFETY PINS).

Super simple, super easy, and now I have two new pieces and more extra fabric that will probably eventually turn into another crop top!

yay for clothes that don't swallow me! you can see the extra fabric in the background.. I'm super good at cleaning up before taking photos for this blog

Have any of you ever tried "refashioning" or "upcycling" your clothes?

Also, let me know if any of you want an OOTD/OOTW post at some point! I'll try bullying my roommates into taking photos for me ;)