Reiko’s Pen Case

When our first Japanese exchange student, Reiko, came to visit Brandon and me in Okinawa in April, she enjoyed looking at my craft room.  Before she returned to Tokyo, she picked out fabric for me to make her a pen case. 

I used my go-to tutorial for zippered pouches, but I also wanted to add a bit of personalization for Reiko’s pen case, so after much consideration, I went with embroidering her name on the front.  Last time I embroidered anything like this was a pair of jeans that had stains from my work at Pitt-Titusville’s Chem Camp…I was still in high school for that, so you can imagine it was a few years ago.  (And those jeans became my Lord of the Rings pants thanks to the vines and jewels I embroidered.) 

This time, I didn’t have the luxury of drawing directly onto the fabric, so I experimented with making a pattern out of wax paper using a comment from this tutorial.  I’m happy to say, it worked really well!

I love that Reiko chose green!  I was excited thinking about Christmastime the entire time I stitched!  (Brandon would be quick to correct me – according to him, I started talking about Christmas on June 15 [day after my birthday] and became really excited about Christmas June 18 [day after his birthday].  And you know, I’ll start being excited about my birthday “coming up” a few days after the Christmas thank you cards get mailed out.  hehehe  I enjoy having something to look forward to and be excited about all year round!)

So now that I’m in a festive sort of mood, back to my craft room for me!  I’ve got plenty of Christmas crafts waiting for me!  I may even have to break out a Christmas CD or too, we’ll see…  hehehe  Hope you all have a happy rest of your weekend!