What a Little Monkey Coin Purse Taught Me

Every handmade piece has a story, and this little monkey coin purse almost became the one I never finished.

To make the clasp more durable, I tried sewing the monkey's ears completely onto the frame. It seemed like the practical choice, but once I finished, something felt wrong. The ears lost their playful shape, and the monkey no longer looked like the cheerful little character I had imagined.

I stared at it for a long time and thought, "Maybe this design just isn't meant to be. Maybe I should give up on this one."

When I mentioned it to my husband, he smiled and said something that stayed with me:

"You always tell your daughters to find a solution when they run into a problem. Why is it different when it's your own?"

He was right.

Instead of giving up, I looked at the purse again from a different perspective. I tried another approach, combining careful stitching with a small amount of adhesive where extra support was needed. After several rounds of adjustments, the little monkey finally became the version you see today.

Is it perfect?

Probably not.

But it's something I'm proud to share.

Handmade crochet has taught me that improvement doesn't always come from starting over. Sometimes it comes from patiently refining what we already have.

Life is much the same.

We can't go back and begin again, but we can make small changes from where we are today. Little by little, those changes can lead us somewhere better than we ever expected.

Perhaps that's the real gift of handmade craft—not just creating something with yarn, but learning how to keep creating a better version of ourselves.