Treasure Hunt Outfit – Me

I don’t want to hold my own outfit back from you either. As it was a treasure hunt and I’ve got a little revival of my love for headscarves at the moment AND as my birthday is Talk Like a Pirate Day I decided to go for something aaargh!.

Both of the skirts are made by me, the upper one is my Lolita basic skirt (but not absolutely finished yet).

Bambi and Me, duelling each other at Canne de Combat.

The last one is definitely my favourite when it comes to the pictures of me from this Saturday. I even had it printed and now am searching for a nice place for it to decorate my walls. ^^

(And yes, that’s a compass at my right wrist.)

Treasure Hunt Outfit – Jules

Yes, again a post about the weekend Jules spent here.

But the outfits and the photos we took of them were too great to keep them back from you. I’ll do one for Jules and one for me each for the sake of clarity.

Jules wore a dandy outfit featuring self-made trousers with suspenders, a military-safari-inspired shirt, an old fashioned cravat, a lace jabot and glittery flower-print trainers. Oh, and loads of decor.

Doesn't he look dashing? ^^

The following pictures were taken during the picnic and the following Canne de Combat training (you remember that we took Jules along? He liked it enough to continue after lunch).

... I'm responsible for this haircut... :)

Jules and the Scoundrel... just imagine they're taking a walk in the park of a huge country house.

As if he just jumped out of a Jane Austen novel...

Intermezzo: Curious Tuesday I

Curious Tuesday is something made up by Gala of galadarling.com. It’s like a weekly meme on several questions ranging from random to emotional and I have to admit that I find them quite interesting to answer.

1. Who is your favourite musician, NOT in terms of talent or aptitude, but based on pure sex appeal?

Bastille, butler and singer of the German heavy wood band Coppelius. There’s nothing to think about at this answer, it was pretty obvious, after all. I’m really looking forward to see him again at Castle Veldenstein.

2. What were some quirks of your past lovers that drove you crazy?

He always did things for me that I could have done easily and even wanted to do by myself and then blamed me for him making such sacrifices for me.

3. If there was a movie made about your life, what song would you absolutely INSIST be on the soundtrack?

Something by Loreena McKennitt, I guess. Maybe The Mummer’s Dance or All Soul’s Night or Between the Shadows or something similar.

4. What is your favourite quote right now?

Dance, as if no one’s watching.
Sing, as if no one’s listening.
Live, as if there’s no tomorrow.

Treasure Chest

I promised to show you Jules’ present today and so I will do.

I had pondered over it a while and finally came up with an idea suiting a treasure hunt: a chest! And as Jules is complaining about the lack of good male hand bags most of the time I decided to sew one, and this is the result:

An old key works as the fastener

I love the rocailles that I used for the raspberry embroidery, the colour is called "scarab"

I think Sir Ludwig likes the treasure chest, too (and the colours match, anyway ^^).

We also found this really big (about the length of my hand in diameter!) and beautiful flower in the garden while taking the photos and didn’t quite know what it was. I’m going to ask my grandmother when I go and visit her at the weekend, but maybe you can help me, too?

The crafting details are as follows:

• Making time: About 5-7 hours, I guess, including shopping for material, sewing, embroidery and tantrums ^^
• Material: Very thick crafting felt, embroidery floss in six colours (ochre, dark pink, raspberry pink, light pink, very light green, light green), rocailles in scarab (but only the red toned ones) and gold, glitter thread, velvet ribbon, crochet lace, an old key, white crochet cotton
• Success: Perfect, Jules was absolutely stunned. :)

Final Close-Up

Treasure Hunt at Weekends

Yesterday evening I walked Jules to the station after a really great (but a little bit exhausting as I feel quite ill since Saturday) weekend. He arrived at Friday afternoon and we took him to Early’s, a small-but-nice bistro near the Institute for Physical Exercise. We continued the evening with watching Elisabeth (the musical) while I took the last stitches on his final birthday present.

Saturday began with Canne de Combat free training. First, Jules was not to eager to participate but grew to like it quite much when our trainer made him take part. After the showers we went to an optician as Bambi’s glasses were broken (and I still need a new pair of them – but I think I spotted some really nice frames there). After that Bambi disappeared and I started to give a birthday present to Jules – a small card, burnt edges, writing on one, a small drawing on the other side.

The first card led him to the old graveyard where he found a pair of spools of silk thread.

The second one showed a hint to head a fountain where he found a moon of his own, just like the princess in the fairy tale. ^^

Station 3 was settled at the market place and had a little unicorn as a gift as Jules adores Charlie the Unicorn, for what reason ever.

It’s a small soft plastic toy, pierced with a hot needle on a thread that was spun by me from embroidery floss and sparkling metallic thread, both in raspberry pink.
I’m sorry that I don’t have a picture of the next present to show but all the photographs turned out to be blurry… Well, it was a mint-and-chocolate scented soap from Italy that matched Jules’ love for After Eight perfectly. I think I can say that his eyes were gleaming when he smelled it… ^^

As a little break and to compensate the really, really sunny, warm weather we had some ice cream, double chocolate and nougat for me and After Eight, strawberry and marzipan for Jules. After that I successfully lured him to the Religious Studies building where on the archway the next gift waited for him: A small bottle of gold.

Then we headed for the castle, for the garden, to be exact where Bambi waited for us with a strawberry tart and Lewis Carroll’s poem of the matter, wearing a silly hat that quite suited him.

After all, we went down to the Botanical Garden again where the Scoundrel waited for us with a picnic and where Jules got his final present, but I think I’d rather tell you about that tomorrow.

A Last Teaser

I’m nearly done with Jules’ birthday present. There’s a few stitches lacking, a little glitter to add…

Just half an hour ago I planned Saturday together with Bambi as there is an additional Canne de Combat training scheduled where we will take Jules along to.

So this is the last teaser. except the earrings, those are mine. Seriously I’ve been searching for years for some decent, small “ethno style” hoops… and now I’ve got even two pairs (the pictured one is the little larger with about 1.5 cm in diameter, the smaller ones have got black segments and are about 1 cm in diameter).

As for the present, I fear that I’m not sensible enough to keep some of the work for tomorrow morning…

Tonight’s soundtrack by the way is Dream a Little Dream, the Glee version. I loved the whole Dream On episode, as it featured Aerosmith, Les Misérables (still my favourite musical, I think. One day I’ll explain why this play is special to me the way it is.) and step dancing.

I started writing this post about an hour ago and managed to perforate my fingers at the same time, so I think it’s time to end the evening.

Good night!

Of Plants and Martial Arts

Judo uniforms are really difficult to darn. The story is that Kajal (one of Bambi’s rabbits, just for the case I did not mention her before) nibbled on his jacket, an action that ended with a quite big hole right between the scapulae. I offered him to mend it and so I spent a good part of my mid day break repairing that thick, heavy cotton fabric. Also, darning gets trickier with the size of the hole you’ve got to patch…

I am planning a patch featuring a stag’s head embroidery (little bit pagan, maybe) for Bambi’s uniform to cover the darning. Thank goth the trainer is not too strict about their uniforms…

To stick with the martial arts I may proudly tell you that I successfully passed my first Canne de Combat lesson yesterday, too. French cane fencing is a pretty workout for the thighs, I dare say, and once you’ve mastered the first steps it can be very dynamic and elegant, too.

Also, Teli is going to visit me in the garden again to be given some of the pots I don’t need anymore. Well, she’s got a garden of her own now that seems to grow quite well! I for myself have to go to the market this weekend to look for some pumpkin plants and nasturtium for the lookout point on the city walls.

So much for this moment, but now I’ve got to go. Bye then.

Present Growing

Top o’ the morning to you!

Remember that I mentioned to post a teaser about Jules’ birthday present sometimes? Well, as he is coming to visit us this weekend, here it is.

I dare say I like the way the picture came out.

Plus, I hope that I’ll get it ready until Friday! My to-do list is enormous like always but I’d be rather confused and helpless if I had nothing to do on the contrary.

Thanks to Lilibeth I’m pretty much hooked up on this Anne of Green Gables video. I love the song and the video every time reminds me of the fact that my darling pen pal is going to visit me, too, at the beginning of June! I’m really looking forward to that.

But now I’ve got to go and check off some of the to-do points.

Bye then!

Beswitched

No typo but a book title. I found it while inspecting the English children’s books corner of one of the upper town book shops and simply had to buy it. I say, boarding schools, magic, the early 1930s (no WW II yet, thank you very much), cute characters and good critiques from Philip Ardagh – what could a book have more for me to read it?

Flora Fox, being forced to go to a boarding school, somehow switches her place with a girl of the same name – but back in 1935. Without her laptop and popular attitude clothing she seems to be lost in time. But even at St. Winifred’s with all the weird indefinable food, French at breakfasts, severe Latin teachers, bloomers and the desperate wish to go back to her own time she makes wonderful friends and has, well… the time of someone else’s life.

I think of the girls – excluding Flora as the leading lady of the story – I liked Dulcie best. Not only her name (from Latin dulcis, sweet) that matched her “cherub-like” looks but also her amiable personality were too cute.

Well, so if you’re one to love children’s stories without the haughtiness of a grown-up and even one to like the quirkiness of vintage British schools then I can truly say that you could take pleasure in this book. I especially liked the lessons about true friendship between girls so different and even between the ages.

And anyway, time travel rocks.

Intermezzo: Cute Games II

Scarygirl by Nathan Jurevicius is definitely one of the most catching jump’n run adventures at the aethernet.

The graphics are quite cute but I think the music (don’t get me wrong, I really like it!) can be a little bit scary if you play too long or during the night and maybe annoying, sometimes. Somehow, several moments in the game even reminded me of my beloved Secret of Kells.