Favourite Words in August ’11

1. Saint – I always thought Ermengarde’s (from A Little Princess) last name – St. John – the prettiest surname ever. Also, a (yet unrevealed) project of the Imp (and a bit mine, too) has a Saint name, too.
2. Effervescence – I didn’t know this one until I read it in the subtitles of a horribly squeaky shojo anime. But I think it sounds just like the sputtering and bubbling that it means, preferably in a very colourful and sweet lemonade.
3. Tea – More the meaning than the pure word, but still pretty.
4. Cherubim – Hebrew plural of Cherub. Mostly because I saw Sister Act this month and Salve Regina is my favourite song from the movie.
5. Canary – Like in canary crème, St. Canary and canary pudding.

Matching Monday: Delivery Witch

Yesterday was the first Porcelain Sunday of what I hope to become a series of Sundays devoted to Studio Ghibli pictures. But no more speeches, this is what the Kiki’s Delivery Service inspired outfit is made of:

1. Dress and Blouse: In the movie Kiki complains more than once about her plain, black dress. Something more plain than this favourite JSK of mine by Metamorphose would do as well, if not better. Kiki’s dress also has very wide sleeves, so I chose long puff sleeves to have something that could flutter during a broomstick ride. The sheer fabric makes the combination a little more mature, but is pretty much optional.
2. Headdress: Kiki wears something that looks suspiciously much like a head-eating bow. This bow also settles her second colour as it is bright red. I decided to go for dark red velvet Alice bow rather than something from fire engine-coloured cotton as the outfit is supposed to be inspired, not a cosplay. For a sweeter look a lighter red would be more appropriate, but I wanted something more classic, as the movie is set in a vintage Europe around the early 1960s. A simple ribbon would even be more alike the model, by the way, but Alice bows are easier to wear.
3. Shoes: During the first half of the movie, Kiki spots a pair of ruby-red party shoes in a shop window but has not the money to buy them. Her own shoes seem to be something like rather sturdy ballerinas. I wanted to keep the down-to-earth tone but liked the thought to bring in the red again that was in the head bow. The beauties from the set are by Victorian Maiden, the red colour way of those I already used for Hufflepuff with the Harry Potter themed Monday.
4. Jewelery: I wanted Jiji, Kiki’s black cat familiar, to be somewhere in the picture. Cat themed jewelery isn’t too hard to find, but I think self-made cat silhouette pendants or the like could be cute as well. The pocket watch is useful to keep an eye on time, something essential when you’ve got deliveries to make.
5. Bag: Kiki herself has a bindle as her luggage when she leaves home. Of course this was too much as a handbag, so I reduced it to a Pompadour bag. This one is from Manufactum (originally to store jewelery) and made from black velvet which I see as a great addition to the headband again.
6. Socks and Others: The socks were difficult, as Kiki doesn’t wear any in the movie. I think she does in the illustrations of the children’s book (which the move was made after), but I wanted to emphasize the film, anyway. I finally decided to use BtSsb diamond socks as striped ones were just not right for this witch, even though they are very common with this kind of people, usually. Black socks would also do, but I liked them better with a pattern. The teacup is an allusion to the mug Kiki buys for Jiji’s sake at her first visit at the grocery store (there’s a cat painted on the mug that looks like him. A.k.a. “is black”). The Jiji cushion is there for mere fun.

I would have loved to incorporate the delivery service logo somewhere, but I couldn’t find the right place.
This is by the way the right soundtrack for this outfit, my favourite song is no. 21.

Porcelain Sunday: Kiki’s Delivery Service

All pictures in this post belong to Studio Ghibli

Thanks to my work (with the best boss ever) I’ve been watching several Ghibli pictures during the last two weeks. While Kiki’s Delivery Service is not my favourite it’s perhaps the one I’d most likely call a shoujo anime.

The story revolves around 13-year-old Kiki, who in old witch tradition is supposed to spend a year away from home. Accompanied by her black cat Jiji she finally finds a town to settle down and even gets a part-time job in a bakery in exchange for a place to stay (including breakfast). As she has no other notable magic abilities than to fly on her broomstick she decides to open up the eponymous delivery service.
Although things go well on this matter, Kiki’s emotions go awry pretty soon, mostly concerning her slowly starting friendship with aviation fanboy Tombo as well as the encounter of a receiver of a package.

Kiki was one of the first (accurately the 4th) movies of the “real” Studio Ghibli. It came to the silver screen in 1989, which means it’s just as old as I am.

Ghibli is very renowned for what I call “scenery porn”, the elaborate backgrounds and detailed settings are something that is hard to find in other anime. In the case of Kiki, the scene is set in a somewhat european-looking town by the sea, stuffed with old buildings (the movie takes place in an alternate universe where the world wars did not happen) and well-dresses citizens.

Leaving out the small coming-of-age part, this film consists merely of episodes built around certain deliveries. It’s more funny and cute than really meaningful and deep, but I’m really okay with that. Kiki is a movie one can watch while doing some artisan crafts or needlework. I for example had a great progress with my rag rug during this piece of art.

The inspiration, wonderful artwork cast aside, are the ways Kiki and some others of the characters show us to outgrow all things that hold you back. A wonderful lesson to be learned, if you ask me.

Sartorial Saturday: Challenge Test Run

When Jules and I met before I went on my vacation, we both noticed that somewhere, sometime, something must have gone really, really wrong.
We both wore simple trousers and t-shirts and trainers, not much of accessoires and a somewhat puzzled countenance about all this, in short: Our clothing habits had become utterly boring.

This was, of course, an affair we could neither take lightly nor leave on its own. We needed something or someone to kick our rufflebutts to make us wear more interesting coords again, something that matched our personalities better than always jeans and t-shirt (there’s nothing wrong with jeans and t-shirt, don’t get me wrong, but it’s rather dull to wear them all the time, at least for me).

And thus we decided to add a weekly challenge to our lives: The SARTORIAL SATURDAY!

The idea behind it is to wear at least one interesting, well-planned and maybe even flamboyant outfit per week and to present this outfit on the next possible Saturday. Simple. The post is composed of a full body outfit shot, a rundown, an accessoire shot and additional other details, another rundown, and a posing or ambience shot. It’s my way to keep record of outfits, nothing unicersally valid.

Of course you’re cordially invited to join our Sartorial Saturday! If you do so, leave a link in the comments!

Jules isn’t able to post this week, so this is some kind of a test run. And now: My outfit!

It’s somewhere between Mori, Dolly and Gothic… I felt a little bit like a ghost wearing it.

Outfit Rundown:
- Dress: Xanaka, but altered by me
- Blouse: Promod
- Socks: H&M
- Shoes: Undercover combat boots, cut down

Accessory Rundown:
- Fork bracelet: artisan fair
- Shoelace ribbons: Rebella
- Key necklace: my basement
- Rocking horse pendant: I am
- Club stud/ silverbells earring: Bijou Brigitte/ selfmade
- Bag: thrifted
- Shoe charm (not in the picture): selfmade

That’s it for Sartorial Saturday, Episode 0. Comments are welcome! :)

10 Adorables in August

It’s time for a new name again, and so the 10 Pleasures that morphed into 10 Things I love changed into 10 Adorables. J’adore.

• Stacking off fabric. As in sewing treat holders and other small things. But I hope that bigger projects will follow.
• The progress of my rag rug. It’s more than half finished now!
• Teefury.com. The greatest very-rare-print-t-shirt site ever.
• My new trousers. They are made of a mix of cotton and linen, light grey with white pinstripes.
• Gala Darling’s 100 Ways to be a Love Letter to the Universe.
• Buttermilk. There are few better things on a hot day.
  
• The Lion rubber stamp I just bought.
• The Reason for a topless Fencing duel. Via WOA.
• Old Clock Card Machines. I think I’d love one for our next Steampunk con.
• Inks. I’ve got several now, violet blue and black and sea green and sepia and white… looks like I need some red, too.

My Summer Holiday: Wild

My Summer Holiday: Tame

My Summer Holiday: Inside

There were two worlds for me during my journey into the Bavarian Forest. The first one, this one, was inside the hotel borders, completely with three pools, four-star-cuisine and a beautiful lush park outside.

The automatic doors in our hotel were beautifully decorated. Come in!

My first sweet treat.

A part of the restaurant. The last table in the row is ours.

Food. And it was always magnificent.

... especially the spiced spaghetti with giant shrimps.

Another restaurant part, close to the lounge. The chandelier was lovely, just as if it had grown out of some fairy's ballroom.

I spent hours here in the lounge, reading.

Switching pools from indoor to outdoor and reverse was awesome.

I really took a liking in this pavillion.

Another pavillion, hidden between the birch trees.

Reception room for the spa part of our hotel.

The lights look like sparkling stars to me...

Whirlpool footbaths. What a great invention.

A fantastic spigot, I wish I had something like this here at home!

Salt crystal wall of one of the several saunas. My favourite was the herbal sauna, as it wasn't just as hot as the others.

My beloved swimming pool. I called it the "Sisi Pool" as the wall painting reminded me of the Austrian empress. The ceiling is designed to look like a summer's sky, too.

Beautiful old-fashioned couches.

My last dessert.

Sadly I didn’t take any pictures of the candle light dinner from our fist evening. I’d love to go there again…

My Summer Holiday: First Impressions

As I mentioned before, I’m back from vacation. And you all know what this means. Photographs.

When I first went through the pictures I took I sorted them into two categories, Inside and Outside. The ones that fitted in neither of these folders and so were neither from the small world of its own of our hotel nor from the impressive deep forest we explored are those that I’ll show you first.

Trainstation and circumjacent gardens.

Magnificent carved birds.

Prettiest tourist information ever.

Beautiful buildings.

Into the woods…

Steampunk is everywhere,you just have to know where to look (in this case a distillery).

Or in jeeps, disguised as old locomotives. And yes, we rode that thing.

What a strange Summer it is

I’m back from my trip to the very south of Germany (at least for me it’s the very south). It rained when we left, and it also rained when I arrived in Marburg again.

Last year, the only chance to get some cool air and to keep my room sufferable during the day was to have the window open all night (wich is very unnerving when you live in a district with several clubs and bars and pubs, especially on weekends and during the holidays) and keep hanging wet fabrics all over the chamber and even into the windows.

This year, it’s different. We had the hot part in April and some of May already, but now… we’ve got a lot of rain. Usually this occurs in autumn, but there were no hot days in weeks, and even nearly no sunshine.

The bad thing about this kind of summer is that I can’t just go down to the river to swim, that my freckles won’t increase and that I don’t really have an opportunity to wear my new shorts (but I wore them for a hiking trip with my mother).

The good thing is that there is less sweating, more wearing layers, more drinking hot tea and more curling up in my armchair, all things I expected to do in September at the earliest.