love: Japanese craft books

Happiness is sitting at Kinukuniya Bookstore one whole afternoon thumbing through pages of Japanese craft books or better yet buying as many as you can afford to add to your collection. I bought a couple of these books late last year to get some inspirations on making my own bags, but of course not much sewing happened.

These books are so fun to look at, although they are mostly written in Japanese, the instructions with the diagrams are very easy to follow.

These photos are my favorites. The totes are so cute!!

I managed to make one just like this which turned out pretty good, I think.

I used dark brown corduroy for the handles. For the bag I used brown wool and some lace for the details.