Inspiration and the Abundance of Talent
I am constantly on the lookout design inspiration. Not just for handbag designs, but for home interiors, cooking and kid crafts. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a great book or magazine to jump start the creative juices. MOST of the time though I hunt for handbag inspiration and consistently find myself on websites where I rely on Google Translate to help me navigate.
The books you see above I finally got unpacked and put on my shelf. I sure did miss my books!! If you don’t own any of these books, you should try them out. Wonderful projects and ideas. Two of the soft cover books are Japanese handbag books. They are hands down my favorite and I would buy them all if they weren’t so darn expensive. Etsy is a great place to find them if you are interested in trying them out.
What’s great about Japanese handbag books (and a few Chinese & Malaysian books) I own is that even though the language barrier is there, the step-by-step pictures are fabulous and if you have sewing experience you find you really do not need the wording. If you have an abundance of time and a computer with language changing capabilities you can get a bit of wording sorted out.
If you want to check out some foreign sites I frequent, check these out. First, you will need Google Translate:
http://translate.google.com/
First, copy/paste site address to Google Translate in the language desired. Then off you go. Some warning though is some foreign sites are not as Google friendly, so surf at your own risk! You’ll find that once you are on the site, you can click on someones blog link or store for more inspiration. Isn’t technology grand?!?!?
Sites I visit daily:
Patchwork Wikipedia – Powered by HDWiki!
Enjoy the sites and have a wonderful weekend! I was able to tune and clean my Juki this week and complete an adorable tote that I will share with you soon. I’m still having problems with my Consew industrial tension 🙁 So I think that will be my #1 on my list this weekend. Have a good one. Cindy
Hi Cindy, glad to see someone else has as many books as me. Looking at you book pile is looking at mine we seem to have exactly the same books and a few more besides.. I enjoy the Chinese books as well and have a few. Now I am missing the One Yard Wondering,………………maybe I should check out the bookstore this weekend. 🙂
They just released a second version of One Yard Wonders too which is nice. It is not a total bag-making book, but has lots of cute ideas. Cindy 🙂