some of summer

Dear S.,

back in summery Antwerp! It is good that we're all back now.. for a tiny while.

Here's another thing I love about summer in Antwerp: my fruit and vegetable dealers.

All these lovely things (including a kilo of delicious figs!) for about 7 euro. Try that in a supermarket. I am working on some translations while sipping wonderfully fresh mint tea with a squeeze of lemon. Dinner: yellow and green bean and potatoe soup with dill, parsley and sour cream. This is something really weird about my family: they do not really enjoy vegetables, fruit to some extent. So now I'm happy to be back with other veggie lovers :p

Here is some more stuff I crafted when I was at home: a blue shopping bag out of two old shirts and a retro-ish pencil case in brown tones for my brother. The other pencil case is one a made some time ago for myself.

Later on I'll go watch- or, rather, experience- L'Orfeo, this year's youth opera project of Muziektheater Transparant. After pre-viewing it yesterday, I am very curious how it will work with a full audience.

By for now, see you in a while :)

M.

I'm a barbie girl

Dear S.,

I am most proud to tell you that the supermodel of all the supermodels in this whole wide world agreed to work together with me for presenting my latest pieces... BARBIE!

check it out!

Barbie checking out the setting in her beautiful ensemble from her girlfriend's collection Outdyked. That's the real girl!

There was no time to lose, though, her schedule is packed!

completely relaxed, Barbie posed in the first outfit: back leggings and a super comfortable strapless jeans dress with beautiful pink ornaments. you could also wear the dress as a skirt!

next on: a lilac bandeau top with a handstitched heart application, which perfectly accompanies the airy athmosphere of the swinging light blue jeans skirt.

Lastly, Barbie presents another pair of colourful trousers with the jeans top:

This is the perfect outfit for a cycling trip: comfy but smart! Barbie got a little excited during this last shot, but doesn't she always just look beautiful?

....

So, I was invited at my cousin's yesterday, who has three little children. Of course they insisted on me playing with them. When I was fed up with playing Duplo farm, I went over to the barbie-house... and was a little shocked. 1: My little cousin has almost no clothes (I mean, that really is one of the most fun things about barbies, no?) and 2: the clothes she had were f*ing slutty. So, when I got home, I thought.... hmmmm

And this is the result. I really like it. I wanted the clothes to be things, my 3-years old cousin would wear herself. and I would SO love to have the 60's jeans skirt.... if only it were that easy for bigger people. I even discovered a skirt I must have made myself when I was a kid.. a pretty ok white pecil skirt with ruffles and pearls and a bit of stretching band.. all handstitched :) this passion is lingering inside me since forever, I guess.

Now I need to go sleep; tomorrow at 8:45 am I have to be at the dentist's, for the third time in a week. One of my teeth was hurting a lot, so now it is getting electroshock and antibiotic-paste therapy. tomorrow it will (hopefully! fingers crossed) be sealed forever. Actually I planned to spend most of this night outside as there are a huge many falling stars this night... but it is raining, cats and dogs. So I posted this instead. :)

Till very soon!

M.

Pretty little things

Dear S.,

my life here is pretty slow. Sometimes I am enjoying it, sometimes everything about it annoys me. It is sometimes pretty hard to live between the ubiquitous Spießigkeit/smugness (new word) and the sweet feeling of being at home in all the small things.

Austrian people love to eat sweet. And they love to cook with curd cheese/ Topfen/ kwark.

Today I tried a family recipe for the first time, and I can only recommend it: "Apfelschlangen"

Dough:

250g butter

250g curd cheese

250g flour

that's it. knead the ingredients until they are thorougly mingled. Now let the dough rest at least an hour in the fridge. This is very important, as the dough needs to be as cool as possible to work.

Filling:

Peel and thinly slice sourish apples (you'll need about 750g/1000g or so). Add some sugar and cinnamon.

Then divide the dough into two piece and thinly roll each of them out on a bed of flour. Place half of the apples in the middle third of the dough; fold the left and right side over to cover the apples. Press together the ends of the Schlange/snake (it's supposed to be quite long and thin :). Repeat all for the second part of the dough- Into the oven (175 °C) for half an hour...

and then enjoy.

This fast and easy variation on the austian classic "Apfelstrudel" is love-ly when it's still warm but also delicious when cold.

A few days ago, may grandma gace me some of her treasures, just look:

A beautiful pill box, an old ring, white gloves with pearl-buttons.

I love all these little things that carry so many stories within them.

- Yesterday I booked tickets back to Antwerp.. It is such a good feeling to know they're in my pocket! And I will probably even see you then. great!

That's all for now, my dear!

M.

new recycled bag // very austrian marriage

Dear S.,

my week was filled with grandma's, green beans, household, books and tv.
so, I'll post a thing I made a few weeks ago for a good friend, who gave me a bag of old clothes to craft.

So, I used striped boxershorts as a part of the lining and inside bags, a beige shirt as the main lining and several details of old jeans. I really am happy with this bag; I think it fits my friend perfectly (and I hope he actually uses it, do you?)

For the rest: I was at the traditional wedding of my cousin today and I have to tell you, it was gorgeous. Bride and groom were so radiant with joy and all the guests formed such a colourful background for them. I am deliberately posting this blurry picture to keep a bit of privacy.. but you do get a bit of an image. Here is some austrian music for you to get into the right mood :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBOQ0wR51PQ

It's funny that you also have this kind of city-spectacle going on right now; so do we! And it is horrible! I really hate these crowds of drunkards and carousels and brass orchestras and overly made-up teens.. :s

Nevertheless my friends convinced me to go there with them. And we surely did have fun: as no one else really danced, we started doing our best right in front of one of the 4 stages. hihi, I really felt that we were like a group of exotic birds; so utterly different from the average visitor there, doing extreme-dancing :)

but then a half-naked guy stole our thunder, when he started to play the air-guitar and pole-danced to "Highway to Hell". His act certainly made up for the 5 euro entrance fee.

I have some more things to tell you, but I'll keep them for a next time; I'm still really tired from the nice wedding-food :)

Love,

M.

some pics, the story will be added later on

dear m.,
as i said, the story comes...
back at my parents, after a week of searching without finding. still without a nest, I really become unpatient. I want to start mindgames of how I will arange furniture and how my life will feel in the new place.
first thing I did here was baking, who wonders. To comfort my family and as well myself.
the pictures are aout Kirmes , some village traditional parade. I 'll tell about all the rituals around it later.

than some twin and siames twin plums.

and of course "ahoi brause", some candy -powder wich tickels on your tongue if you like it from your hand palms or you can add water and it's limonade... loads of different tastes. my favorite is waldmeister. and i always have to think about the scene in the movie"die Blechtrommel" , in which the main character puts the powder into the bellybutton of his maid, spits in it, so it becomes all bubbely and sparcling and than liks it of... a while later she' s pregnant...
ok these was already alot more than i wanted to write. Now i have to help mum to make pizza, big family dinner tonight, everyone will show holliday fotos .
I sent you a truckload of kisses
s.