Sewing

Face Masks

In the summer of 2020, I sewed 50 face masks and donated them to a birth center in Western North Carolina. I had never sewn face masks before, but during the beginning of the pandemic, demand for face masks was high. I also wanted to inspire joy in a tough time like the pandemic, so I chose bright, colorful fabrics for the face masks. I found it incredibly fulfilling to know that my sewing skills have helped strangers, and I have continued looking for other ways to use this passion to help others.

Tote Bags

One of the most recent sewing projects I completed was a cream and pink tote bag, shown below. I saw this super cute pattern on TikTok and I decided to try to make it. TikTok is also where I have seen the tote bag trend exploding, and I think they're so cute. I used canvas fabric for this bag, so it's very sturdy and big enough to carry everything I need. It also has a pocket on the front, which gave me the opportunity to use my machine to make my first buttonhole.

After my success with this cream and pink color-blocked tote bag, I decided to create DARC SIDE inspired tote bags as my parting gift to my robotics mentor and my co-captain. As a reminder, DARC SIDE is the name of my high school's robotics team. You can read more about it on the robotics page! Anyways, I used a very similar technique on these tote bags as my first tote bag, but I had to learn how to sew circular blocks. In the future, I hope to use this technique to make circular patterns on quilts!

Quilts

My absolute favorite type of sewing project is quilting. Quilts take much more time than any other sewing project on this page, and they are so incredibly rewarding. The pictures I included below show the process of one of my quilts, which I made as part of an English project last year. The quilt is about how the sewing machine simultaneously reduced women's work load to make clothes for their family, but also emphasized their domestic familial role. The symbols I show in this quilt are the Venus symbol, the globe, an old sewing machine, a new sewing machine, and a factory along the bottom. The factory and the globe represent how today, the labor of sewing clothing is outsourced to third world countries. This makes the price of clothing incredibly cheap, encouraging consumers to buy and subsequently waste more clothing. This process of harmful to our world because the workers do not earn living wages and because rising clothing production and waste have horrible implications for our climate.

Tooth Pillows

It may seem random, but another set of meaningful sewing projects I have completed are tooth pillows. Each tooth pillow has a front pocket where the recipient can store their teeth that have fallen out for the tooth fairy to collect. I made my first tooth pillow for a cousin after he lost his first tooth, but I don't have a picture of it. Then, when that cousin's younger brother lost his first tooth, I made a tooth pillow for him too. Then, when a family friend's son was born, my grandmother requested that I sew one of my famous tooth pillows for him. As you can see, he's a long way off from losing his first tooth, but he will be more than prepared when he does.

Stuffed Animals

In all my time sewing, the project type I have done the most is stuffed animals. They're easy, cute, and make great gifts. But they start to pile up after a while, and there are a ton of home-made stuffed animals sitting in our storage closet. Here are of my favorites. The one on the left is a turtle, and the one on the right is an owl. I especially love the dome technique for creating the turtle. Another great thing about these stuffed animals is that they do not need to look realistic at all, so I always use bright patterns and colors to make them more fun.