baking bread

well... watching the farmer's wife baking bread would be more precise.

during our holiday we went over to the neighbours who bake bread and other goodies. in charge of the baking profess is the old famer's wife, the old farmer himself and their daughter-in-law.

the farmer's wife has been baking bread since she was a little girl. she had learned from her mother who had learned from her mother who had learned from her mother and so on. and she is teaching her daughter-in-law and granddaughter now.

it was reassuring watching them bake together. everybody knowing what the other was doing and knowing exactly when it was his/her turn to do his/her piece of job. every movement sleek and smooth. i joy for the watching eye...

the door to the old bakehouse


hands which have kneeded dough for a life long

fire made by the old farmer in the huge oven

breadbaskets waiting to be filled with dough

dough ready for the oven and a little fly taking a rest

the old farmer moving the remaining glow to the side of the oven

bread baskets waiting

ohh bliss


and off they go...

the breadbaskets waiting patiently for baking day the following week

the bread is finished!

so yummy!

the best crust ever

i love bread. especially their bread. t:t

country holiday

oh my. we had a wonderful holiday.

not really relaxing but definitely taking our minds of everydays sorrows and tasks which seemed far far away suddenly. being with children (nieces and nephews) is fulfilling (but you knew that). although we live quite far away we try to be a part of their life and upbringing and enjoy their company when ever we can.

i'll leave you with some impressions of our holiday:

enjoying the beauty of nature...

taking (naked) swims in the morning at the lake. really(!!!) cold water....

swimming with the max...

getting to know our new family member sugar...

having picknicks at the river...

visiting castles from long ago times...

and having great fun.

hope you had or will still have a great holiday. take care t:t

ps: we also went to see an old farming lady making bread and i took a lot of pics and asked a lot of questions. i'll show it to you some time this week.

cushion love

i have been wanting to make cushion covers for a long time. Our living room is just to dark for summer times and i have been playing with the idea to paint one of the living room walls white again. The same wall i painted dark red in winter now has to be white again. boyfriend doesn't fancy this idea and is boycotting the procedure so far. so to keep peace at home i have decided to sew new cushion covers to compensate for the dark red.

i so want the living room to be a light scandinavian airy living room. *sigh*

photo: you can hardly see the beautiful white lace i bought at the fleamarket a couple of weeks ago

we have enough sun in the room and it would be soo nice... ah well.... back to the cushions...

i have decided to go for white and blue :-) scandinavian style here we come.

i also did some embroidy on one cushion.

i was to lazzy to go and buy zippers and i really liked the idea of Manda at tree fall design

in the end i fogot all about the scandinavian style and just had to match these two fabrics. a bought the printed one online and in the photo it didn't look that brownish at the time. but i think the combination is sweet and i enjoy how nicely the corners meet.

i think it is the first time that i reached such a precise result.

i'm still thinking of how i can persuade boyfriend. any ideas?

take care t:t

baby sewing

i was supprised when my oldest friend told me that she and her boyfriend were having a baby. (they must have been just as surprised.) i have known her for over 30 years. her parents and my parents (actually even my grandmother and her grandfather) are/were great friends and we met just after i was born. we have been seeing eachother not a lot but every time we meet it is just as if we have never been apart.

so i'm really into baby sewing now. they don't know if it will be a boy or a girl and this has a great influence on the colours. i have finally settled on green, yellow, and lilac.

photo: the white fabric has scenes of rabbits (i think beatrix potter) on it

the little on will recieve a baby blanket. i'm think i'll tie the quilt at regular intervals and will sip the machine quilting. that will give it a more fluffy finishing.

photo: elefant softy from this book

i am also thinking about little bibs, a little flannel baby blanket, a softy (see photo above), and some other things that will keep my mind spinning.

i'll keep you updated on the progress, take care t:t

little signs of help

it has been really quiet around here and i have been thinking a lot about talking here about it or not. in the first place i had wanted this to be a creative blog. a place were i can take a break from regular life. a place i can dream. a place were i can breath. a place were things are reassuring. but it turns out that this has been keeping me from posting and so today i will make an exception:

photo: fairy guarding Beethovens grave at the Old Central Cemetary Vienna

today i will talk about my everyday life and fears as a self-employed woman. boyfriend and i are building up our own business and i don't want to go into details on this. i just wanted to tell you that it is NOT EASY. and i have really felt crap the last couple of weeks. especially the last two weeks. throughout we are doing ok and considering that this is our third year we're doing not bad at all (so far). the problems are the every day ups and downs. it really kills me. and it prevents me from sleeping and being creative. i ask myself: am i really doing enough? should i try harder? are we holding on to something that is long dead (these are the really bad times)? we should be further in life: starting a family, building a house, etc. it goes on and on....

photo: murial at the Old Central Cemetary Vienna

and you know what? everytime when we (mostly i) are just about to give up something really nice happens: a customer calls and thanks us. it stops raining and there is a rainbow across the sky. a friend gives us a jar of brownies. a business partner tells us that he enjoys working with us. blooming orchidaceous on my window sill (they have been looking so lousy over winter). boyfriend comes back from the market with raspberries (he is so good in all this. such great support and always soooo positive). and at these moments you just hug yourself roll up your sleeves and continue. and feel VERY blessed.

photo: the empty cookie jar

photo: the blooming orchidaceous

i have become much more aware of these little signs of help. and i love them. i wouldn't be here without them. i just had to say this and now i will go and take a couple of pics from the things a have been up to lately.

i hope you will also find the little signs of help, take care t:t

in love with mathilda

i just wanted to show you what i have finally been up to with my new love mathilda...

i have just finished the prototype of a nappy bag i'm designing for all the friends out there having their firstborns this year. and i'm talking about two of my oldest friends, i former work colleague, and the girlfriend of a friend. i'm starting to put together what they will receive. choosing fabric and daydreaming on the topic...

i loved making the strap. in the first place it was supposed to be a belt but than things changed....

i took the bag to the marekt. just testing (obviously!). ohh i REALLY love the bag. but no this time it is REALLY for a friend! by chance i talked to a mother of two boys at the market. i showed her my bag and said what it was for and how difficult it is for me to give it away (i know you shouldn't feel bad about giving things away that were planned as a present anyway, but still...). she looked at the bag and said: it's way too small for a nappy bag. now. really. how NICE can a person be... it has become my grab-and-run-handbag... :-). i'll try and get a nice picture on the weekend to show you.

Then i made a soft case for my glasses. nobody ever sees me in glasses thanks to contact lenses. but its's nice to have them along. just in case. if only to have a purpose for the little new case...

a case for my sunglases. normally puched up in my hair. but you never know...

and a little camera bag for when i just want to slip the camera into my handbag...

and one for a dear friend who's birthday was this week...

i sooo much love the combination of those fabrics. one is from Laura Ashley and i bought it 14 years ago. it always seemed to special for any projects. so finally i'm using it bit by bit.

hope seeing you soon, t:t

ps: have i allready said how much i'm in love with my sewing machine. i have finally named her mathilda. if anybody is wondering: mathilda is my new Janome sewing machine

I'm in love - really in love

I'm truely and deeply in love. the real thing! we met yesterday at the sewing machine store. we were introduced by the owner of the shop Mr. Heller and we looked at eachother and had butterflies in our stomach (well at least i had). she is the most beautiful sewing machine and i really love her. she is a janome dc 3050 with lots of benefits...

seeing the bobbin everytime you adjust the sewing foot. i normally turn up at the end of the seam noticing that the thread has run out just after i started. causing me to say awful words and be frustrated. i'm an impatient gemini. the real impatient sort.

there also is a button for speeding things up (i said i was really impatient)

and there is a little display making handling very easy. and i mean really easy! i didn't even need more than 20 minutes to grasp all the possibilities. well i might have been blinded by love but surely only a little :-)

and look at all those stitches...

i've allready tried some out...

i brought her home and immediately started on the work i was forced to interrupt a couple of days ago (when the other machine broke down and the loaned one wasn't working the way i wanted). and i just finished the project...

1 tea cosy - 6 egg cosies - 6 serviettes - 1 big serviette for the bread basket
what a pitty that we are leaving for an extended trip of the weekend. I will not be able to set the breakfast table on the weekend with my new beauties.

see you after the weekend, t:t