Morgan Makes

Imagine, if you will, going to the relatively new household of someone you know. Some people want to watch TV, so your friend or relative pulls out a couple remotes. With one, they turn on an old TV and ensure its input is on a specific HDMI option. With the second remote, which is wider than you would expect it to be but still looks like a remote, they control what's going on on the screen, navigating to a file system or streaming service. But they have to search for a specific file or show or something. You recall this as the most frustrating part of watching something on TV: pressing the arrow buttons or something to follow whatever on-screen keyboard the service uses. To your surprise, though, this isn't what the person does. Instead, they simply flip over their weird remote, unfold it into a keyboard, and start typing. Perhaps later you want to watch something advertised in their shelf of watchable media. You select what looks to be a DVD case, only to find a couple SD car...

I've been aware that there's something not quite right with my laptop since maybe 6 months after I got it. At least a year ago I decided to try and install Linux on it, in the hopes that that would fix some of my problems--the problems involving firmware made to break, at least. At some point last semester I came to the realization that there was also something wrong with my graphics card: The laptop was usually in one of two states. Either all of my GPU-requiring apps worked just fine but I had a constant risk of blue-screening over and over again, or it worked somewhat stably but apps such as Minecraft and OBS Studio wouldn't start, citing that I didn't have the right graphics cards. Neither updating my drivers nor reverting to the first ones I had fixed this problem, so I figured it was actually a hardware problem.  I still held out hope though that somehow installing Linux might actually fix it (giving it about a 5% chance, but it was my most doable option and that...

Saturday night last week was the last showing of The SpongeBob Musical. You may have noticed I haven't done much posting of writing, art, etc in a while, and the show was why. I think being in a musical was both really healthy for me, physically and socially, and really helpful in regaining my voice after getting covid last winter, but it unfortunately takes a lot of time and energy. Even when the performances started and our almost-full-workweek of long rehearsals was cut down to 3 3-hour-or-so performances and one pickup rehearsal a week, I was spending my entire 3 days off recuperating and didn't have much energy for art--certainly not enough at a time that I could post it. I've also been distracted because of how little energy I have, so even when I had the motivation to do stuff related to art (basically just plotting out a play I'm writing) I haven't had the memory to post it or write about it. Hopefully this will change now that the show is over, although th...

(This post was written on the 18th, and edited and posted on Patreon on the 20th. On the 19th, I was busy getting married!) Needless to say, the power outages messed up my sewing timeline. What messed it up even more, though, is my choice of fabric for my bodysuit. It was advertised as "lace," but it's not. It's mesh with some designs on it. Perhaps they figured "lace" was a better term for it than "embroidered mesh," since the sequins and glitter and tiny beads were neither embroidered nor even sewn on. The entirety of this fabric is either really loose mesh, or a pile of glue. I sewed a couple of samples to make sure it would even sew on my machine, and to adjust the settings properly for it. The samples went well with a somewhat short stitch length and medium tension. I tested to make sure my machine could sew through two layers, I tested to make sure it could sew through this fabric and the more dense stretch mesh I'm using to back it up to...

This is gonna be a long one, so TL;DR: I've screwed up a bunch while making the dress, but I'm incredibly lucky so it's turning out well anyway! Note: this post was published after it was written. It was written on March 8th, posted on Patreon on March 9th, and posted publicly on Blogger on March 12th. I will generally be posting about a post a week (until my general posting frequency goes down) on Patreon with one week of early access, but the ones in quick series such as this one may be faster just to avoid public readers getting weeks behind what I'm doing on a particular project. On Monday, I was working on my fiance's wedding dress for most of the day, and I got very little done. Everything was cut and I was ready to sew once I switched the thread in my machine to white (I had been using black for the test pieces, just because it was already in the machine and I knew I would need a lot of white thread in the upcoming days). Fortunately, as I was about to start ...

I mentioned in part one that I was anxious about how long it might take for the fabrics to get here. Both packages got here within a week! So, including today (in which I got no actual sewing in on either of our actual outfits, but did work on one and sew a test for the other), that's two whole weeks to sew! I actually got a lot done today because I was so excited that the fabrics had arrived. First, I pre-washed the suiting (and only the suiting--the lace used for my bodice is dry-clean only, and there's not really a point in pre-washing the other fabric for a garment that can't be washed). I did this not only because it's good practice, but because the lace I ordered from the same company has glitter on it, and they put the two in the same bag with nothing between them, so it was covered in glitter. While that was in the wash, I used muslin and some of the stretch mesh I got to sew a test piece of my bodysuit. I used the same mesh I got for the final product for two r...

I realized I would have to sew my own wedding attire when I envisioned what I would wear: a wedding gown top with white suit pants and a cropped white suit jacket on top. I had originally wanted the pants and gown top to be connected as a jumpsuit, but I'm kind of scared of my boobs bursting out of the top as it is, so I figure I should put as little extra weight on it as possible. My inspiration comes partially from the quinceañera suit in the modern One Day at a Time, and partially from a dream I had a few years ago, shortly before realizing I'm nonbinary. I was identifying as a man at the time (and single if I remember correctly), and I dreamt that I was getting married wearing a blazer atop a wedding gown. I decided lately I didn't particularly like the specific look I had in the dream, but I wanted something with the same genderfuck vibe. Then I remembered the quinceañera suit and realized I could wear an entire suit and not deal with the hassle of a big floofy skirt b...

My name is Morgan, and I'm a knitter, sewer, designer, visual artist, singer/songwriter, occasional writer, and visual effects nerd. I've been making for a while, but it's always been in random bursts and in different ways. I'll knit for a month, then I won't do anything for a while, then I start sewing. What I want to change this year is my consistency and what I show the outside world. This blog is to create a kind of amalgamation of the things I create. While they can also be seen on my Patreon or my art Mastodon , I figured it would be nice to do some writings about what I do. I may even post some patterns and tutorials--it'll depend on how much material I have for Patreon. Therefore, my New Years' resolutions are as follows: Knit and otherwise create when I can , rather than just when I have to. Blog about all of the creative things I do. Stock up my store with handmade items over the course of the year, so next holiday season I have stuff to sell with...