Whats on your Worktable Wednesday: Fabric!

Whatever Inspires acquired a beautiful older sewing machine from my mom (thanks mom!) and we have been busy coming up with all the different ways we can use it.  We recently hit on something that puts both of us to work, Erik doing a lot of the original designing, me sewing and adding details, and both of us picking out fabrics!   So this week, we have lots and lots of fabric on our worktable:

If you know us, you can probably tell which ones I picked and which ones Erik picked, although we only bought ones we both agreed on.  My favorite though is the left most fabric in the bottom picture.  It reminds me of the book "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak (my favorite children's book ever!), which is good, because what we are making is stuffed monsters:

I haven't sewn in a really long time (probably since I was in high school school).  My mom loves to sew - we always had the best halloween costumes, and she often made us clothes, bags, stuffed animals, etc, but she was really great at was quilting - and she was always trying to teach us.  I learned the basics, but I just wasn't that into it.  I would rather help my dad build our swing set or fix the toilet, I was just that kind of girl!  But I always helped mom when she was making stuff for us, that was kind of the unwritten rule - if you asked for something, you had to help.  So, I did a lot of turning things right side out, stuffing things, hand sewing and the all important watching.  I learned a lot more from mom that I ever thought I did, because even though I have never made a stuffed animal before the little guy above was my practice one, and I only called her a couple of times during the process.  So far, we have finished one monster, he was a gift to the cutest little "monster" I know, and of course I forgot to photograph him before I gave him away, so they're not the best pictures, but check out how cute he came out!

I just love this fabric and I just love his little wings in the back.  We stitched everything down completely because I didn't want it getting pulled off by little hands, but I think it actually made him better instead of being a compromise.  I'll probably end up making myself one of these, because he's so darn cute! We have a bunch of designs ready to go, so hopefully in the near future we will have a bunch more monsters to add to our collection! They are really fun to see come together.  

What's on your worktable this week, and which fabric do you want to see us make a monster out of next? 

.....And we're back!

Hey everyone!  Whatever Inspires went away for a little while (ok, a long while) but we're back and we're better than ever!

Whatever Inspires is evolving.  It turns out that maintaining a blog was harder than I expected, and I gave up pretty quickly.  Lame, I know, but it's the truth.  Around the same time, my hubby also had a blog that went by the wayside, and we have been passing around the idea of selling some of our creations online.  We decided that rather than try to run 2 small side businesses, we would combine forces and Whatever Inspires was the perfect umbrella to run literally whatever inspired us.   There may be photography posts, and jewelry posts, and I am hoping to reinstate "What's on your Worktable Wednesdays" as we both write about what we are inspired by.   So, without further ado, I would like to introduce you to my hubby, and fellow blogger Erik.

Ok, he's not usually that ferocious.  He's a photographer, and fellow architectural designer.  We went to college together (graduating in 2003 & 2004), and have been pretty much inseperable ever since, except the year he spent in London getting a masters degree.  Finally got ourselves married in 2009, and have been enjoying our own little adventure since then - and looking forward to many years to come.  Ok, lets try this picture thing again...

That's better, well, he would like this one better anyway.  This is when the giant (340 ton) rock "sculpture" was moved from a quarry in Riverside 105 miles across Los Angeles to LACMA, and my darling hubby humored me to go see it one night when it was near our house.  VERY cool!  Anyway, he's a good husband and a GREAT photographer and designer, and I'm super excited to be sharing this blog with him! I'm looking forward to the other fun changes that might come our way, and continuing this journey with him.   Welcome to the blog, Erik, let's make Whatever Inspires shine!

tiniest of seashells

I found this website a couple of weeks ago, and I thought the images that Dr Gary Greenberg creates are so beautiful!  From his website: 

"During the 1990's he invented and developed high-definition, three-dimensional 

light microscopes, for which he was issued eighteen US patents.  

Since 2001, Dr. Greenberg focuses hi microscopes on common objects, such as grains of sand, 

flowers, and food.  These everyday objects take on a new reality when magnified 

hundreds of times, revealing hidden and unexpected aspects of nature.  

Dr. Greenberg's images of sand make us realize that as we walk along a beach 

we are strolling upon thousands of years of biological and geological history" 

  

Those images are magnified grains of sand, and I love how they look like teeny, tiny seashells.  It makes you think that the sand you're walking on could have been a seashell that one of the very first humans picked up at some point thousands of years ago.  It also reminds me how beautiful the design of our planet is, and how wondrous it is that something that seems so average to our naked eye actually has such a beautiful, purposeful design when you look closer at it.  It makes me want to celebrate the creation of this beautiful planet!  

Enjoy your weekend everyone, and remember to celebrate the beauty in the everyday objects you see around you!