Liz Denys

While on a short road trip and then recovering from surgery, I hand quilted and hand embroidered a linen lily pad quilt.

And yes, I did make this little quilt for my Frinos plush from Hades II to have a nice place to rest.

As a fan of both Animal Crossing New Horizons and the LEGO Botanical series, I figured I'd make the ACNH in-game LEGO Plum Blossom item with real LEGO pieces:

The real LEGO brick one even has a similar scale compared to LEGO Fauna as the in-game item compared to Fauna!

Part list and instructions

22 LEGO pieces are needed:

• 2 Tile, Round 2 x 2 with Open Stud (18674) in Blue Violet
• 1 Tile, Round 2 x 2 with Open Stud (18674) in Reddish Brown
• 1 Plate, Round 2 x 2 with Axle Hole (4032) in Pearl Gold
• 1 Plant Flower Stem with Bar Holder, Bar, and 3 Stems (24855) in Reddish Brown
• 3 Plant Flower Stem with Bar and 3 Stems Short (68211) in Reddish Brown
• 2 Plant Flower with Bar and Small Pin Hole (32606) in Red
• 2 Plant Flower Tulip with Bar and Small Pin Hole (5903) in Dark Pink
• 1 Bar 1L with Angled Hollow Stud (65578) in Dark Red
• 6 Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Open Stud (85861) in Reddish Brown
• 2 Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Flower Edge (5 Petals) (24866) in Dark Red
• 1 Minifigure, Utensil Ring 1 x 1 (11010) in Chrome Gold

I've created a parts list you can use with Bricklink as well: download here (.xml).

I also made instructions in Studio, which can be downloaded here (.pdf).

Some notes on the discrepancies between my miniature LEGO Plum Blossom and the ACNH in-game item

• Tile, Round 2 x 2 with Open Stud (18674) hasn't been made in Sand Blue (or any similar enough piece that could be modified), which is the color used in the full size, real life Lego Plum Blossom set's pot and appears to be the color used in the ACNH in-game item. I chose Blue Violet instead. I also considered Light Aqua, Medium Azure, and Lavender as each of them also felt close to the "true" Sand Blue color in their own way, but I ended up settling on Blue Violet since I didn't want something very pastel or very saturated.
• It appears that none of the stacked 2x2 tiles making up the pot have studs on top in the ACNH in-game item, but since I couldn't find a gold-toned Tile, Round 2 x 2 with Open Stud (18674), I settled for using Plate, Round 2 x 2 with Axle Hole (4032) in Pearl Gold. It's a very small discrepancy, but figured I'd note it! Using 18674 for the other pieces still allowed for the 45 degree rotational shift in the pot base.
• The ACNH in-game item has a seemingly matte gold Minifigure, Utensil Ring 1 x 1 (11010) at the top of the pot, but only comes in Chrome Gold, which is much shinier.
• The branches in the full size, real life LEGO Plum Blossom set are primarily Dark Brown, and the ACNH in-game item also appears to have Dark Brown branches. However, the corresponding pieces for the ACNH in-game item - Plant Flower Stem with Bar Holder, Bar, and 3 Stems (24855), Plant Flower Stem with Bar and 3 Stems Short (68211), Bar 1L with Angled Hollow Stud (65578), Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Flower Edge (5 Petals) (24866), and Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Open Stud (85861) - are not actually available in Dark Brown. I chose to use Reddish Brown as the primary color for the pieces that are available in that color, and I chose Dark Red for the remainder. Piece 65578 is used in similar, but smaller, ways in Dark Red in the full size, real life LEGO Plum Blossom branches, and this was the closest available color for piece 24866. While using Reddish Brown and Dark Red in the branches isn't faithful to the ACNH in-game item, the variation in color feels more accurate to the vibes of the full size, real life LEGO Plum Blossom branches.

Thank you to my friend Chris Post for helping me think through possible pieces to use!

P.S. You, too, can make a LEGO minifig version of the villager Erik with various LEGO parts and Posca paint markers.

I've worked out of a handful of different community studios at this point, so I figured I'd share a (probably incomplete) list of you might want to consider when picking a community ceramics studio for your practice.

Cost, location, value:

• I'm not going to comment too much on this as costs vary highly depend on what city/metro area/etc. you're in and you best understand what value you'll get and what you can afford.
• That said, if you live somewhere walkable and are planning on making at home, you might want somewhere you can walk to or get to with fewer transfers or shorter walking to make transporting fragile greenware simpler.
• Regardless of your budget, it's good to know all the costs up front: class tuition, membership fees, open studio time fees, firing fees, materials costs, etc.
• Also, if you live somewhere with a high demand for community ceramics studio access, you may not get to be that picky if you want to start sooner!

Equipment and space:

• What equipment is provided? What condition is it in?
• How many wheels? How many wheels per member? How many wheels per student?
• Is there a slab roller? What size? Do they have dedicated canvases or mats for different color clay bodies? Which do you use if you use a non-studio claybody (if you're allowed).
• Is there an extruder? Which extruder dies does the studio have? Can you use your own if you buy more or make custom dies?
• What are the policies for who gets to use what equipment and training? Stricter policies usually means equipment will be in good condition, but only if it's enforced. Ask about how often equipment has needed repair and how to report issues, even if they have good policies.
• What do the workspaces look like? How much space is generally available per person?
• What kinds of chairs and stools are provided? Are stools at wheels adjustable? Are there bricks or similar available for resting feet on if that helps your wheel positioning? Are handbuilding and glaze area seats comfortable for you? What height are those work areas/chairs? This may not seem very important, but standing height tables can be much less comfortable if you're primarily going to sit.
• What does your storage space look like? Are shelves shared or do you get dedicated space? How much capacity and weight work on the shelves and how does that fit into your practice? Remember you may be storing tools and clay/reclaim as well as works in progress. There can be lots of politics around shelves - ideal ones are neither too high nor too low, all else equal, and can be very competitive to get. Highest shelves may also be highly coveted since you may be able to stack things very high and store more!
• How easy is it to move around the studio? How easy is it to get your pieces from the storage space to the working areas to the places where you set them to fire?
• Are there separate spaces for members and students? Even if there are dedicated student classrooms, do additional classes spill over into other areas or shared areas? How frequently? Is this information easy to find out before you get to the studio?
• Does the studio provide bats and wareboards? Remember, even if bats and wareboards are provided, you may want to bring your own that you can keep in better condition or have different properties.
• Are there shared studio tools? What condition are they in?
• Is there communal newspaper? Communal plastic for slowing down drying? Newspaper is easy to get yourself, but dry cleaning bags are hard to buy in individual-use quantities.

Materials:

• What are the studio claybodies? Do they fit well in your practice? Are they smooth or groggy enough? Which colors of claybodies are available? How durable and food safe are they? Will they reach vitrification and achieve low absorption rates if you're making dinnerware or other vessels intended to hold water?
• Is clay communal or do you purchase your own? If so, does the studio reclaim for you or is it communal practice? What is done to ensure reclaim isn't short?
• If clay is not provided, can you buy it at the studio? 25 pound blocks of clay are heavy and annoying to transport if you walk, bike, and take transit everywhere like I do, so this can be a big deal!
• Can you do agateware/neriage/nerikomi? (Make sure you're doing this with compatible clays, of course.) This question is especially relevant if clay is communal as you cannot simply throw blended clay blocks into reclaim bins for a single clay as this would create a new claybody unexpectedly. Maybe you are required to reclaim yourself, maybe there's a miscellaneous reclaim, or maybe they accept a small amount of loss (remember you can minimize this by ensuring you use all your blocks up - the end can usually be wedged up into a new claybody and made into a little pinch cup or bowl worst case).
• Can you use outside claybodies? If yes, what's the approval process? Even if you are not personally interested in using outside claybodies, it's good to ask as free-for-alls can result in low fire clays melting all over shelves and ruin other people's work at hotter temperatures.
• Does the studio provide decorating slips and underglaze? If they don't provide, can you bring your own in? What's the approval process?
• Can you make your own decorating slips or colored claybodies with Mason stains or oxides? What's the approval process?
• What are the studio glazes? Are they clearly labeled as food safe vs. not? If multiple claybodies are common in the studio, how many glazes fit each and is this clearly labeled?
• Are there test tiles for every studio glaze on each studio claybody? Are there any test tiles for glaze combinations? Reminder that test tiles aren't a replacement for doing your own testing - different surface slopes, your dips may be longer or shorter - but they help give you a sense of what's compatible with which clay bodies and which are runny vs. stable.
• How and how often are studio glazes tested? Are new batches tested before they're put out for use?
• Are studio glazes typically kept in consistent conditions? Large buckets of glaze can change consistency over time. Is specific gravity monitored periodically so water can be added as needed?
• Are glazes flocculated well/kept well in suspension or are they often hard-panned?
• Can you use non-studio glazes? Typically, this means commercial glazes as homemade opens a gigantic can of worms. What's the approval process? Reminder that low fire materials used in higher temperature firings can mess up more work than just where they're used, so even if you're not planning on ever using non-studio glazes, it's good to know what checks are in place to avoid this issue.
• Does the studio provide wax? Wax brushes? What condition is it in?
• Does the studio provide oxide washes? Are you allowed to make your own if it doesn't? What's the approval process?

Firings:

• What temperatures does the studio fire to? How does this match their claybodies? A lot of claybodies, especially commercial claybodies, claim to support a range of firing temperatures, but they're not fully vitrified at all of those temperatures, especially at the lower end of their ranges. If a studio fires to both cone 6 and cone 10 and you plan on working primarily with cone 6 glazes, either studio or commercial, and make food-safe pieces, is there an appropriate claybody that will reach vitrification or are they secretly really all meant for cone 10? If you're only interested in making non-functional work, this may not matter to you as much as someone making mugs or vases.
• Are there special firings, e.g. luster firings? If there are luster firings, make sure to inquire about their safety protocols around luster firings - even if you plan on never using luster, poor safety policies around luster can endanger the health of everyone in the studio.
• How quickly is work turned around? Faster isn't necessarily very important once you've settled in as you want to be in a flow that has work at all stages at all times so you always have something to do, but it can be helpful to plan your rhythm.
• What is being done to ensure quality materials and firings? Are cones used in every firing? Is work that is too wet or egregiously overglazed set aside or fired alongside everything else - causing frequent explosions and glaze mishaps that affect other people's work?

Cleanliness and safety:

• How clean is the studio? If you can visit on a few different days, that might help.
• Do people generally clean up after themselves well? Don't forget to check glazing areas and the undersides of tables and such - lots of clay dust can hide there!
• Are people taught safe practices (wet cleanup, no dry sanding, etc.)? How often do they actually follow them?
• What supplemental cleaning does the studio staff do? How frequently?
• Are there air filters? What quality of cleaning do they provide and are they appropriately matched for the size of the studio?
• Are there air quality monitors? Note: this doesn't seem very common to find at community studios in my area, but it would be a good sign if the studio did!

Access and security:

• Are there signups for specific space to use or is it a free for all? Signups can be frustrating, but you're guaranteed specific space at a specific time. I've noticed people are better at sticking to an appropriate amount of space for their work that's mindful of those around them when it's a space they have to sign up for, but the flexibility of being able to drop in whenever can be great, too!
• If studio time is signup-based, are new slots released at clear, consistent times that work for you or will you always be getting picks long after most others do?
• Do students and members have 24/7 access to the space or do they only access to the studio when it's staffed or it's their class or for times they've signed up for? When is the studio open? It can be especially helpful to check in on drying and potentially spray a piece with a little water if it's getting too dry before you're able to do work, even if it's not a time you can do work. It's also great for getting a sense of how quickly pieces dry at the beginning of new seasons/studio temperature and humidity conditions.
• Who's allowed in the studio?
• Are there video cameras? Staff on site?

Studio flow:

• Getting a sense of a studio's flow is easiest by seeing and trying out the studio! Take a tour, attend a workshop, take a class! If you're interested in membership, it may still make sense to take a multiple-week class first, and at least in Brooklyn, a lot of studios require you to take a class at their studio before getting a membership to learn how their studio operates day to day.
• If you're interested in membership, note that membership flows and class flows might be different - different spaces, different open studio policies, different storage situations for work and tools, etc. for example, a studio I loved to work out of as a member was a terrible experience during a handbuilding class because it tried to cramp too many people in too small of a space, but members weren't in the member handbuilding areas as much all at once, so I could finally enjoy the studio. Also, students often share a communal shelf in my area, while members have more dedicated storage space, allowing for more projects at once and storing more tools and other items used in their practice.

Community vibe:

• Is it more social? More get down to business?
• Loud? Quiet as a mouse?
• How do you vibe with the community?
• Does the studio have a code of conduct? Is it a good code of conduct?
• Does wearing headphones generally mean "don't bother me" or do people interrupt everyone frequently?
• How do the owners and staff interact with staff? How do owners and staff interact with students and members? What are their expectations of members? I've been at studios where the owners and staff really don't want to ever interact with you, but I also once worked out of a studio where the owner would roll in and interrupt whatever was going on to use whoever was at studio as their personal therapist... even though it was time those members and students were paying her to use the studio. While the latter is a pretty extreme example, I've heard from ceramist friends in many areas that it's sadly not that uncommon to encounter overbearing owners that sour the experience.

Miscellaneous:

• Are you allowed to sell work you make there?
• Are there community shows/sales?
• Are there official or unofficial limits on the volume of work? Some studios only want potters who aren't making very small quantities of work or only small to medium sized pieces because they don't actually have the capacity for high throughput or larger work... but not all of them will have clear policies on this. If there's a limit but it's only an unofficial policy, it will likely be applied unevenly.

Finally, while it's unlikely that every community studio, or perhaps even any community studio, will be a completely perfect fit for any given potter, I've personally found my practice to be enjoyable at every community studio I've been at with a good community vibe. The goal of this list isn't to find a reason to avoid any particular studio as much as knowing how a studio's choices or limitations might affect your practice so you know what to expect and how to adapt!

My partner and I played a lot of Outer Wilds during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's probably no surprise that I fell in love with its charming characters and expansive universe. I decided to celebrate the game by embroidering its solar system.

Since Outer Wilds fans are especially touchy about spoilers, I should note that this project has them everywhere, I should probably note that you should read no further if you don't want any hints of what may come later in the game if you haven't already completed it and its DLC!

I based my Outer Wilds solar system design on where the planets are at about 9 minutes and 48 seconds into the loop, but everything is re-scaled - while maintaining the vibes of the original proportions - so the planets and background supernovas in the dying universe aren't tiny. I realize now that I have a pattern of adding hundreds of additional (and arguably unnecessary) French knots to my embroidery projects - I am non-sarcastically shocked that I made this choice right after doing thousands upon thousands of French knots for the Milky Way in my Northern Sky & Southern Sky quilts.

Since the Eye of the Universe and the Owlk's home both aren't in Hatchling's solar system, I did each in a separate hoop, too. I chose to represent the Eye with a blend of the symbols used by the Nomai and the Stranger's inhabitants, and I opted to represent the Owlk's home moon and the planet it orbits before they raided it to build the Stranger.

Each of the planets has a slightly different feel due to the stitches I chose. Here are some detail shots of the main hoop:

I've hung the three hoops together on a wall near my desk:

All in all, I ended up using 97 different linen threads in this project, including a handful of vintage ones and a highly variegated space-dyed thread that gave me access to 5 different colors and blends between them.

...and just in case that wasn't enough, I actually made this whole project twice, so I could give a copy to the friend who introduced me and my partner to this phenomenal game!

P.S. Since this is fan art, I don't feel comfortable publishing my design - sorry!

I wanted a small embroidery project after spending months on my Northern Sky & Southern Sky quilts, and since I was in the middle of planning a complicated original design that would use a many, many colors, I wanted something that used just a single embroidery thread.

A tiny little embroidered Happy Home Academy pennant would fit that bill and help me use up some of the scrap linen from the Northern & Southern Sky quilts:

I'm not really sure why this felt like the right tiny thing to make in 2025 - years since I've actually played this game - but I'm excited for the surpise update that's dropping in January!

Materials

• Gold embroidery thread - I used Soie Perlée Silk Thread in Burnished Gold #677 and needed just under three 16-meter spools between the embroidery, fringe, hanging cord, tassels, and edge wrapping. I was very efficient in reusing scraps in the fringe and tassels and had about 2 meters leftover afterwards, so you may need a fourth spool.
• Dark blue fabric - I used a scrap of the Inky blue "Newton 260" linen from Merchant & Mills leftover from my Northern Sky & Southern Sky quilts
• Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy Stabilizer - I printed my basic design on this and affixed it to the fabric to embroider.
• Dark blue sewing thread to match the fabric - This is technically optional, as the stitches just under the rod could be omitted and you could sew it together just with gold embroidery thread instead of basting with thin, matching thread first. I used the linen's matching Gütermann thread.
• Wood dowel - I used a dark toned, 4mm thick dowel. FYI that some dark toned dowels are unstained inside - when I cut mine down, I had to recolor the end. I used extra wood stain I had around, but a marker would work well enough, too, in my opinion.

Tools

• Appropriately sized chenille needles - I used both size 22 and size 24 needles. Size 24 is a better fit for the thread size, but a little extra heft was helpful in dense areas so I wouldn't break the needle.
• Thimble - I prefer a leather one, and it's not strictly necessary, but it was occasionally helpful in areas where there was a high density of stitches.
• Fabric scissor - I used pinking shears to help prevent the linen from fraying.
• Embroidery scissor - I suppose this is optional, but I don't like keeping large scissors out by my embroidery projects.
• Iron and ironing board - Honestly, this project was so small that I used a hair flatiron most of the time because it was less to pull out and put away... even as someone who never bothers to use it on my hair anymore.
• Small cardboard piece - This is for making the tassels around.

Notes

• I did this project in little bits so I don't know how long it took me, but likely it was under 12 hours total (including trial and error and making decisions you wouldn't need to make if you follow all my notes on this project). Making the fringe by hand took a big chunk of that time, and you could buy premade fringe or forgo it instead to save time and avoid a really tedious task.
• I embroidered the main design - house, laurels, stars, and the word "Academy" in script - before cutting out the mini-pennant.
• I used satin stitch radiating out from the door handle for the home icon, stem stitch for the laurel branches and the word "Academy," closed fly stitch for the laurel leaves, and a very tight ray stitch for each of the five segments of each star from the center of the star to the point. I embroidered with the gold silk thread as a single thread.

• I made a rough template for my design on Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy Stabilizer and washed it off before wrapping the edges or attaching the rod, fringe, or hanging cord. Sorry, but since it's fan art and not my design, I don't feel comfortable sharing it. To be honest, if I wasn't otherwise interested in improving my proficiency with the Photoshop pen tool, I would have just printed a screenshot of the game item to scale on Fabri-Solvy.
• Since I was using linen, I gave myself a 1/2-inch seam allowance and cut out the shape with pinking shears. If you don't cut it evenly enough and think about how to fold over the seam allowance so that it doesn't lie flat before wrapping the edges, it will show even more after wrapping the edges.

• I made fringe by doing macrame square knots with lark's heads added on one side (the same side) of every knot like one could add a bead on the side (every knot meaning 2 per repeat) with the hitch facing the same direction every time. To attach it to the pennant, I stitched through the loops on the other side where I didn't add lark's heads. There are probably better ways to make fringe - I just decided to try something I thought would work with skills I already knew, and it did!
• I did not tie or cut off the ends of my fringe before I attached it. I made this choice deliberately so that I could undo knots or add more length as needed, and this turned out to be very wise as I needed much more length than I expected because I ended up able to stitch it more closely together than I guessed.
• I left my fringe untrimmed until I was otherwise completely done with the project so that I could iron it one more time in its final form before trimming to get the straightest possible edge.
• I held the gold embroidery thread double when attaching the fringe and wrapping the edges of the pennant. I hid excess threads from the base of the macrame square knots under the edge wrapping.

• I braided the hanging cord out of three single strands of the gold silk thread to make it more substantial. I notched the dowel with a scissor before tying the braid on so it wouldn't slip, and I also ended up stitching the square knots I secured in those notches into the wrapped border so they'd stay on the back of the pennant. (One side actually had a third knot on top of the square so the ends both were on the bottom).

• I made simple tassels, like so, to hang at the bottom of the hanging cord. I used a long piece of thread for the knot to draw the tassel top together. I ran one side of that piece of thread through the braided hanging cord's end where I wanted the tassel to begin, knotted it, and incorporated the leftovers into the tassel. I tied another small piece of thread around the tassel about a third of the way down to gather it together.

• To match the original pennant's design, I used my dark blue sewing thread in a running stitch just under the dowel.
• I'm overall extremely happy with the result, but if I were to make it again (I will not), I would sandwich a layer of very thin batting between the pennant sides so that the knots hidden inside aren't visible at all as subtle lumps from the back. That said, the lumps are very subtle, and this is at most 0.0005% unhappiness with the project as they won't even be seen when it's hanging on a wall - it just feels a little bad to have finished the back slightly imperfectly!

Here's my favorite villager next to the finished mini-pennant: