Brightening my week

Many little things have happened this week that have just made me feel quite happy. First, Rob sent me an email asking me to make him a pen case. Now, when we were in Japan, land of thousands of pen cases, I kept asked Rob if he needed one. He kept saying no. Now that we're in the land of very few pen cases, he needs one! I was annoyed at first, but then I was excited to try to come up with something with my box or scraps. And this is what I made.


It's brown linen from my dress on the last post, along with various scraps from different projects. I really like it! I did the same pattern on both sides and used bias tape to bind up the inside seams, Japanese style. Rob liked it too, which made me happy.

I've been needed a case for my glasses for quite a while. Flush with my pen case success, I decided to make a felt zipper case, cobbled together from two patterns from this book.


I'm happy that my embroidery has improved.


Rob suggested I put on a little loop on the end. I stamped it with a stamp I got in Japan quite a few years ago - Mari is a common name in Japan and it makes me happy whenever I see products with my name. :)


And.... I finished a knitting project!

Yarn - Piece of Beauty Sock yarn, Red Bark
Pattern - My own

This was one of my Japan trip projects. I have to say, this is one of my favorite sock yarns ever to knit with. So soft, easy to knit with, great colors. Kirsty dyes her yarn with short color changes so pooling is minimized.

I think this yarn would be great for a pattern like Pomatomus or Monkey socks from Knitty.

Now, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but recently two people said nice things about my crafting that just was the icing on my week. Yesterday, my mom forwarded me an email from her boss, who took a look at our trip entries. Not only did she enjoy seeing our trip, but she said very nice things about my crafting. So sweet!

This morning I was wandering around the Linnet website and found Mayumi Maeda's blog. She wrote a little something about my visit to her store here - she said my bird monk's bag was so nicely designed she thought I was a product designer! Wow!

And last, but definitely not least, thank you all so much for your wonderful comments. Every time I see the comments it makes me incredibly happy. I've said it before, I'm a glass-half-empty kind of gal. I look at my work and I see the flaws. But blogging takes me out of my negative brain space and makes me proud of my work. So, thank you my blogging friends!!!! You make everyday so much sunnier!