Well! January was fun, and I’m sure I did a better job with the Inner Child Crochet birthday celebration than I did last year. Next year, I hope, will be better yet! February has been good to us so far.
My husband is back! Yay! As a result I haven’t been spending as much time on crochet as I have over the last few months, but as it happens I have something else to show:
It’s a mug! (It’s a huge mug.) I painted this a few weeks ago at the Arts and Crafts store, but it sat around until they had a full load to stick in the kiln so I only picked it up last Saturday. It’s adorable.
Adorable, and cheerful, and awesome. I’m so pleased with how it turned out. It was my first time glazing anything, and in case you didn’t know, glazes are not the same color before they are fired as they are after. In this case, the blue was a wet-cement gray, the white was dirty, and the green was muddy chartreuse. Nice. Fortunately the shop had a book with the colors the paints would become, and so I was able to make a good guess as to which to use, but it was an act of faith. (I’m not even going to go into the thick triple layer of mint green I had to put over my careful painting…) Anyway, it was fun, and now I have a mug the size of a cereal bowl: just what I’ve always wanted. 
I’d like to point out that this month we celebrate our first full year in Japan, so over the next few weeks I hope to show a little bit more of the country and culture than I have yet.
Wow- Grandma Jean will be impressed! Nice to branch out into something entirely different isn’t it?!
Cute mug. Painting is so much fun. I did a plate when I was on my honeymoon. It’s packed up somewhere because of all the moving, I want to go find it now.