Hand Stitched Felt Eyeglasses Case, or Be Open to Inspiration

 Felt hand stitched eyeglass case

Look what I made yesterday!

It was my day off of work, and after going through my blog and my face book page and my etsy shop (I am doing some revisioning of my internet "empire" and trying to figure out where I want to go with it and how to do that) I decided I wanted to make something with my own two hands instead of just clicking on a keyboard. I love felt and sitting there embroidering or appliqueing or just plain old stitching. It's meditative, almost. And I love the pretty colors and the feel of nice felt.

I was inspired by my pinterest boards and this photo of a hand stitched glasses case and decided to make my own. It didn't take very much time. I cut out a squarish shape with the flap on it, then added the flowers.

 It's pretty easy stitching. I probably should have stitched around the outside edges of the flowers, but I kind of like the looseness. You do have to add the detail before you stitch up the glasses case, though, or you'll make a headache for yourself.  I cut out the flowers and placed them on the felt to create a composition to my liking. I like odd numbers for this, and I like asymmetry, so I put them off center and left a lot of back ground. Chose contrasting yellow thread for a bit of springtimey feel, particularly since I chose the dark red for a background. I feel like the pink and green of the flowers is an unusual choice with the autumney red, but it pleases me.

Then I folded it up, rounded off the edges for a pleasing look and blanket stitched in brown all the way up around it too the edge. I took a few reinforcement stitched up at the top where the two sides meet. I also blanket stitched around the single layer of felt on the flap and openings, just because I didn't want the felt to stretch or pull too much. Then I added a button and cut the button hole. Super easy, it took perhaps an hour to do, and then I felt my happy little feeling of accomplishment all day long. This morning, too. I'm feeling quite pleased with myself.

So here's my lesson from this. It's good to have goals for your day. It's good to have vision and to lay out your plans and to follow things according to your plans... but it's also good to leave some room for spontaneous living. You never know what can pop up and inspire you... especially when you're already in the mindset of getting things done and being productive.