burdamode.com Weblog's     Bitte wählen Sie einen Weblog aus der Liste aus  
   
 |  Login

Sunday, January 25. 2009

A childhood dream come true

My SO‘s father enjoys working with wood – primarily with a coping saw (or maybe a fretsaw or scrollsaw....I have to admit that I don‘t know what the differences between these saws are). He cuts out intricate wooden shapes to make toys, wall decorations, and other small items. I have a beautiful wooden letter opener, a wooden coat rack / growth chart for the grandkids, a sheep pull-toy, an egg holder (Germans like soft-boiled eggs for breakfast), and more – all received as gifts from him.

 

 

He started this hobby when he was a boy, growing up in pre-war and war-ridden Germany (he just turned 80 last year). When he was a boy he had the plans and instructions for making a wooden model post coach and always dreamt of making such a model himself – but the plans got lost somewhere along the way.

 

A couple of years ago, he mentioned that he had always wanted to make the model coach.

So we started searching the Internet – good old Google! We discovered all sorts of interesting things – model coaches for sale, books about post coaches, even old post coach timetables – but it wasn‘t until it ocurred to us that a post coach is very similar to a western stage coach and I remembered that my mother had made a wooden model stage coach to use as a Christmas decoration (loaded with presents and with one of Santa‘s elves as the driver, I believe) that we finally found what we were looking for.

 

A company called Windy Hill Woods, located someplace in the US (which I am afraid is since out of business – their website seems to no longer exist), made wagons and wooden models of wagons, wooden wheels, etc. and also published a whole series of little books on how to make such models and wheels yourself. One of the books is “Model Stage Coach: Patterns, templates and step by step instructions for building a wooden model stage coach.“ BINGO!

 

 

We ordered the book and were very excited when it arrived. It is very thorough, with photos illustrating the steps of the instructions. There were a few problems though. First of all, the book was (of course) in English and SO‘s father doesn‘t speak English – but he has me as a translator, so not really a problem. A more serious problem is that all the measurements (of the thorough, detailed plans) are in inches – and Germany uses the metric system. But, once again, inches can be converted to centimeters, so that problem can also be solved. One problem that we didn‘t anticipate was that pages seemed to be missing from the book – but a few e-mails and faxes back and forth between Germany and Windy Hill Woods (fortunately still in existence then) solved that problem also.

 

Then work could begin. He worked on his model bit by bit, whenever he found the time, and whenever we visited we could always admire the lastest developments. During the course of the work, he really made it his model – adding details or changing them to suit his materials and his ideas of what a post coach should be like. Some times small difficulties with the next step lead to group brain-storming and problem solving so that, in that respect also, it was a group project.

 

He spent a lot of time getting the details just right, like these brakes...

 

 

 

When the coach itself was finished, then came the horses – a real challenge!

My SO drew some sketches and his father carved the horses. Of course, he

wanted them to look like they were pulling the coach and the harnesses had

to be realistic also...

 

 

 

The coach and horses are finished –

 

 

 

now all that's missing is the coachman.

Last time I visited, I could admire the figure for the coachman, but there was

still some discussion as to what he should be wearing.... 

Written by Mary at 12:27 in Everything else
Comments (0)

Saturday, January 3. 2009

Starting the new year off right... or at least trying

After being seriously behind on my blog entries for some time now, I‘ve decided to use the beginning of a new year as the push that I seem to need to get started again. So happy new year to anyone who might be reading this.

 

 

My SO is an artist, so he‘s very creative. He‘s also very skilled at working with all kinds of materials – wood, metal, etc.. He‘s built shelves and cupboards for me, made me a raddle for my loom, helped me renovate – you get the idea. And he hates to throw anything away which could potentially serve as art or building materials (I won‘t go into details on the resulting storage and retrieval problems). This is background information for the following story.

 

Years ago, I “rescued” a treadle sewing machine (Phoenix brand) that the neighbors were going to throw away. I have no idea where they got it, but it had obviously not been used for sewing for a long time. The table was lovely wood with inlaid decorations and an inlay measuring “tape”, but the wood was scratched, someone had parked a can of paint on it which had left a ring, etc.. And the sewing machine didn‘t work. A mechanically-minded friend spent a whole day trying to coax it into action, but it just wouldn‘t work. For a while I used it to wind bobbins, then it got relegated to a decorative function – as a table in my entry. 

 

I took out the machine itself, filled the resulting hole with a piece of (not matching) wood, and covered the surface with a runner. It has a nice little drawer which was a good place to  keep my keys close by the front door. I was ok....but it wasn‘t really beautiful.

 

Last year, my SO removed the original wooden table and replaced it with a nicer wooden surface to make what is a much more attractive, interesting side table for my living room.

 

 

 

And he kept the original wooden table top (remember, he hates to throw things away).

 

As a quilter, I have several cutting mats (the “self-healing” type that are used together with rotary cutters). I know that they should be kept lying level (not leaning against the wall) and out of direct sunlight (they warp), but one day I put a warm tea-kettle on the largest mat (don‘t ask – I can‘t remember why I was so negligent) which made it warp in a kettle-sized circular area and, of course, made it a very poor surface for accurately cutting fabric on. If justice is its own reward, then stupidity (or scatterbrainedness) is certainly its own punishment! Oh well, I had been using it for a long time, the surface was pretty well scarred, maybe it was time for a new one anyway. Did my SO want the warped one? Of course. He wasn‘t sure what he would do with it, but something was sure to come up.

 

And something did. I‘m not sure when and how things clicked, but the old sewing machine table and the warped cutting mat were combined to make a really lovely card table. 

 

First he sawed out the whole center section of the table (with the hole for the sewing machine)...

 

 

 

 

He filled the resulting hole with some scrap wood.... 

 

 

leaving an indented area large enough to hold a piece of the cutting mat which he cut to fit.

 

 

 

 

He turned the cutting mat piece upside down (no cuts and no grid lines) and – voila! a card table – the only one of its kind in the whole world – and the very satisfying feeling of not having wasted good materials.

 

 

And look how lovely the inlay work looks now!

 

 

 

Written by Mary at 17:31 in Everything else
Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 14. 2008

Fabric, string...and wind

It‘s autumn here in Germany. Days are getting cooler (and nights colder), leaves are turning...and falling. Actually, a lovely time of the year...if only it didn‘t mean that winter is on its way – and where I live that means mostly cold, gray, drizzly days will soon be here. 

 

Oh well....but now it‘s autumn and Sunday was just beautiful. The morning fog (also a standard autumn feature) burned off by noon, the sun came out and it was warm and lovely. Perfect weather for an outing...but where should we go? Then we remembered, that it was the weekend of the local kite festival. Sounded like a good idea – and it was! The weather was perfect for kite flying – just enough wind (and we were lucky with our timing, later the wind more or less disappeared as I have been told).

 

The festival is held on open fields on a high slope above a neighboring village. There must have been a thousand people there when we arrived – families with kids, kite enthusiasts of all ages, kite-flying clubs from the area and also from further away (Holland, Luxembourg) – all flying kites of various shapes, sizes, colors, degrees of complication, etc. (I might mention that our decision to go was so spontaneous that we forgot our kite...duh!)

 

Here is a selection of some of my favorite kites:

 

 

Like a quilt in the sky.

 

 

Many of the kites were so imaginative, like these

"insects" or "wind sprites" or... whatever they might be.

It's a funny thing about kites – as soon as they are flying

and moving, they really seem to be alive. These two

were literally dancing on the wind.

 

 

 

This one looked like it had been painted (maybe silk painting?).

The tail was of some kind of sheer fabric that shimmered

when the wind played with it.

 

 

 

Most kites these days are made of ripstop nylon and fiberglass or graphite

poles, which make lightweight, sturdy kites. This kite was made of muslin

and bamboo which was beautiful, but which was probably much heavier –

and which was why it was just sitting on the ground...not enough wind. 

 

 

 

 

This isn't actually a kite – it's more like a flying sculpture which is suspended from the

kite string of another kite. There were several such figures – seahorses,

penguins, an owl – and some were so large that they made large "bales" of

fabric when they were rolled up. The pull of the carrier kite much be quite

strong to not sag under the weight of such a huge amount of fabric.

 

 

Also not kites, but people who like kites also seem to like

other things for the wind to play with – and they probably

have lots of scraps of bright-colored kite fabric. The fabric

triangles are attached to rings (graphite?) and the points

of the triangles on the bottom ring are attached to one

another. They spin beautifully on the breeze.

 

 

 

When we were kids, we bought paper kites for a nickle (5 cents)

and had lots of fun flying them. When they were well established

in the sky, we cut (or tore) a slit in a piece of paper, hung the

paper on the kite string, and the paper slid magically up the

string to meet the kite. This man let 60 (I counted them) miniature

kits ride up the string of his kite.

 

 

 

We started with patchwork in the sky and now here's

weaving in the sky. In this case, I think maybe painted

on clear plastic.

 

Of course, this is just a small selection of all the imaginative,

colorful, intriguing kites that were being flown at the

festival. The next day we read in the paper that there

had been kites at night the evening before – definitely

something to look forward to for next year! 

 
Written by Mary at 11:14 in Everything else
Comments (0)

Tuesday, September 9. 2008

Trains in the rain

It has been a long, busy summer, with visitors and visiting, short trips and longer – and all the while still making an effort to get jobs done by the deadlines (nothing was late....except some of the nights before the deadlines!). One thing that suffered was this blog. But now I‘m back from the last trip (for a while at least), have caught up with all my work, and can start thinking about the blog again.

 

One of the (many) things I like about living in Europe are the trains here. They are my favorite means of transportation. When I go to my friend‘s fabric shop (see my report on the appliqué class) I can either drive the car or take the train. When I drive, it takes about 45 minutes and all that I can do with that time is....well, drive the car – and if I get behind a tractor or a slow truck it takes longer, as it does if it‘s rainy or foggy or icy. When I take the train, it takes about 45 minutes and I can use the time to read, knit, sew, look out the window and dream, etc. And, of course, the train is much more environmentally friendly. Of course, I must admit that the train is occasionally late or has some other little problem, but all in all I much prefer the train to the car.

 

Unfortunately, not all of the people who make the decisions here in Germany seem to share my enthusiasm for the train. In the course of the last few decades, the side lines have been being closed, one by one. Which is a shame....but (as the saying goes) nothing is so bad that not some small good comes from it. The good that comes from the train lines being reduced, is that in our part of Germany several of the old train lines have been (or are being) turned into cycling paths.

 

One of these is very close to where I live. It‘s the train line from Ruwer (at the confluence of the Ruwer and Mosel rivers) to Hermeskeil – roughly 50 km. The ride from Ruwer to Hermeskeil is uphill, but at such a slight grade (it couldn‘t be too steep or the trains wouldn‘t have made it) that it‘s only minimally more work than riding on level ground – I think that it‘s about 1%. And riding back down even this slight grade means that you can roll without pedalling a large part of the way – the reward for riding uphill at the beginning.

 

For anyone who is interested, there‘s a good website.

Work has been progressing on the bike path for the last several years – levelling and asphalting the path, putting railings on bridges, and making it generally safe and bikable. A little like the railroad in the US, work was started on both ends and should meet somewhere in the middle (theoretically this year).

This last weekend, SO and I decided to see how close to being finished the cycling path is. One day we started close to Ruwer and rode (uphill) as far as we could before the pavement ran out – turned out to be about 18 kilometers. The plan for Sunday, was to put the bikes on the back of the car and drive to the other end and start our bike ride from there. The weather report had promised a dry day with some clouds and sun. What we got was a cloudy day with some rain ....and a tiny (very tiny) bit of sun. It was raining when we got to the head of the cycling path, so we decided to wait a little to see if the weather would clear up.

 

The head of the cycling path is at the old train station in Hermeskeil, which has partly been turned into a train museum. We had heard about the museum, but didn‘t really know anything about it. Sitting in the car, eating our picknick, we decided we‘d look into the musuem. The first thing we discovered is that the museum is only opened from April to September and then only the first weekend of each month. Unbelievably it was the first weekend in September – the museum was open! So we went in, and were certainly glad we did! It‘s amazing! About 50 old steam locomotives – some of them outdoors and some in an old round house (or round house section...there‘s probably a better official term). The rain had stopped, so we wandered around the grounds a little and discovered that rainy days are perfect for photographing old steam engines – it makes them shine and brings out the details. Outdoors the engines are rusting and being reclaimed by nature – a young birch tree growing in a tender, moss on wooden parts – which is a shame, but it also has its own poetry. The 6 or so steam engines indoors are of course in better shape and each has a hand-written sheet of information attached to its side. The round house smells like metal and oil. The engines themselves are huge! I climbed up into the cab of one. It must have been quite a feeling for the engineer to be in charge of such a gigantic piece of machinery – it‘s easy to understand the fascination that the old engines held and hold.

 

By the time we had finished looking at the trains, the weather had cleared marginally and we did ride our bikes a little (although not to the end of the asphalt from the upper end) before it started raining again – but the serendipitous discovery of the day was without a doubt the train museum!

 

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of the museum

 We parked looking at this sign....which reminded that the museum was there.

 

 

 Big engines....

 

 ...and smaller ones (this one looks like "Emma" the engine in "Jim Knopf und

Lukas der Lokomotivführer" (Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver), a popular

German children's book by Michael Ende.

 

 At any rate, there were lots of them!

 

 This might be a piece of modern art.

 

 At the throttle....

Written by Mary at 12:26 in Everything else
Comments (0)

Thursday, June 19. 2008

Flags, Fans, and Fiakers

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word Vienna? Maybe waltzes or the Blue Danube; the opera or the movie, “The Third Man” depending on your inclination; possibly coffee and Sachertorte or Apfelstrudel. But most likely, not football (soccer in the US)....unless, that is, you are in Vienna sometime between June 7 and 29 this year and then it might be your main association. During that time, Austria and Switzerland are co-hosting the European Football Championship, “Euro 2008”, and everything in Austria‘s capital seems to have been taken over by the fans (enthusiasts, not things that you waft cool air to yourself with) and the colors and symbols of Europe‘s most popular game.

 

I just happened to be in Vienna for a week (last week). My trip didn‘t have anything to do with football, the timing was purely accidental, but it was almost impossible to not get caught up by football fever.

 

Everything in Vienna seemed to tip its hat to the championships. Flags were flown everywhere – along the streets, from cars and streetcars, and even occasionally from one of the Fiakers – Vienna‘s traditional horse-drawn carriages. Street cars and busses were re-routed to avoid the fan zone. Public gardens close to the fan zone were fenced off “in the interest of preserving the historic monuments and nature” (according to the signs). Most shop windows were decorated with a football theme. Most restaurants, bars, cafes, etc. had signs advertising live showings of the televised games every evening. A huge percent of the tourists had on some kind of fan attire – scarves, shirts, funny hats – and/or were waving flags or pennants....all in the colors of their country or favorite team. And a large percent of them were red and white – the colors of the Austrian team, but also the colors of the Swiss, Turkish, Polish, and Croatian teams (and maybe a few more that I‘m not aware of). 

 

Vienna is an exciting place to be under normal circumstances, but under the reign of “king football” it has it‘s own special charm. I took a few photos to share Vienna in the throws of football fever with you! 

 

 

 

A Fiaker flying the Austrian colors – note that the horse is wearing a fan scarf!

 

 

 

Giant football shoes representing each participating country, outside the MuseumsQuartier.

 

 

 

Even the famous ferris wheel (which played a supporting role in The Third Man) in the Prater amusement park got a new outfit for the championships.

 

 

 

A red and white window display in a tiny shop selling ties, gloves, umbrellas, and suspenders (braces for you from the UK). 

 

 

 

Even the fabric stores got in the mood.

 

 

 

My favorite shop window – for obvious reasons!

 

 

 

And again... 

 

 

 

Despite all the hubbub, it was still possible to find a nice quiet little place to have a cup of good coffee and yummy baked goods (this is Bäckerei Grimm in the Kurrentgasse).

 

Written by Mary at 19:06 in Everything else
Comments (2)