Hamburg Park Graffiti.

Every city has a story to tell. We can read the story in history books, hear it from the residents or see it on the streets. Hamburg is no different. I enjoy looking about me as I walk along and I often notice interesting details.

Graffiti is something that continually interests me. I'm not really into the big tags and scribbly stuff, but there is a type of graffiti that draws me in. Last year I got pulled into a 'secret code' in the centre of the Hamburg. Last week I was walking through my nearest park and I saw this 'craft/art' graffiti!

Leaf stenciled graffiti!

I'm not sure if the Hamburg park authorities will appreciate this graffiti, it will probably be a pain to clean up. But I like it. Especially the colour choice! I'm going to go back and see if they are still there later this week.

Spray painted leaf

PS. Are you into buying handmade? Yes? Then you should check out the amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Classic Cars in Hamburg: BMV Isetta

My favourite classic car of the moment: The BMW Isetta

I saw this going down the road ahead of me not so long ago near Klein Flottbeck and I was thinking 'oh please stop, please stop'. I had never seen anything like it ever before and was eager for a picture!

It is the BMW Isetta. It was mass-produced in the 50's in Germany and made the car accessible to those who had not even imagined they could afford one, let alone a BMW. Based on the designs of an Italian car company, Iso, with a few modifications this car became really popular.

The front opening BMW Isetta (next to a 'small' modern Fiat 500 for scale!).

After mentioning this to a friend, he wanted to see my pictures. It turned out that he had owned this car! He told me that it opened at the front. I couldn't believe it, but when I looked again more closely, I could see how it worked. Wow!

Hurrah to micro bubble cars. It reminds me of when we had a Smart car. But that's another story...

Check out the video for more info on this fabulous little car! I think it's eclipsing my love for the original Fiat 500. Oh uh!





This is part of my photography project: Classic Cars. I now carry my camera wherever I go and I will collect pictures of vintage cars that I see while out and about. They just make me happy.

1. Mini Cooper in Hamburg
2. V.W. Beetle in Hamburg
3. V.W. Beetle with vintage skis in Hamburg
4. Mini Cooper in Hamburg
5. Vintage cars in the UK Winter 2012  
6. Renault 5 in Hamburg
7. Classic cars in Sylt in Germany Spring 2012 
8. Classic American in Hamburg
9. Fiat 500 in Liguria in Italy Summer 2012
10. VW Beetle Convertible in Lausanne in Switzerland Summer 2012 
11. Mini Cooper in the Hafen City in Hamburg 
12. Mystery Blue in Hamburg

LOVE classic cars!

PS. Like to buy handmade? Check out amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Late Summer Hedgerows in Hamburg.

It's so nice to walk along the road where we live and see pretty hedgerows outside people's little gardens.

I sometimes like to imagine our corner of Hamburg is the countryside (it's rather suburban, but a short drive does get us to fields and forests...) I suppose it depends on what you focus on. I've been looking up at the sky and down at the flowers and acorns a lot recently...


PS. Do you sell your creations on Etsy? Then you must check out the Etsy Stock Take. You can share your items and I tweet and pin my favourites. If you like to buy handmade please go and have a look at what my readers are up to!

Afternoon Tea at The George Hotel Hamburg.

Me and Mimi had a lovely posh spontaneous afternoon tea at The George Hotel in Hamburg a couple of weeks ago. It was GREAT. So much so that I decided it deserves a little spot on the blog. I don't wanna forget...

The George is a funky modern boutique (design) hotel and the bar is cosy, quite dark, with leather sofas and Moroccan details. There is a cool British 'living room' that you can use if it's open too, full of high back arm chairs and quirky details. Oh and an open fire :)

If you are in Hamburg and want a treat, it's worth a look...

Cheers Mimi *Big smile and a hug*



PS. Are you into buying handmade? Yes? Then you should check out the amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Classic Cars in Hamburg - Mystery Blue.

*Update* Leslie's man told her it's an 1954 Oldsmobile. On further research (googling and looking at images!) it looks like he is right. And there is an interesting controversy surrounding this model. It was supposed to be released in 1955, but was mysteriously brought forward... Mystery blue indeed!

Not sure what this pretty thing is... but it is ADORABLE! The white-rimmed tyres are so cool! I saw it near Osdorf in Hamburg.

While doing some online research to (unsuccessfully) identify this car, I found a fun Flickr group where people have pooled images of classic cars. Worth a butchers*. 

This is part of my photography project: Classic Cars. I now carry my camera wherever I go and I will collect pictures of vintage cars that I see while out and about. They just make me happy.

1. Mini Cooper in Hamburg
2. V.W. Beetle  in Hamburg
3. V.W. Beetle with vintage skis in Hamburg
4. Mini Cooper in Hamburg
5. Vintage cars in the UK Winter 2012  
6. Renault 5 in Hamburg
7. Classic cars in Sylt in Germany Spring 2012 
8. Classic American in Hamburg
9. Fiat 500 in Liguria in Italy Summer 2012
10. VW Beetle Convertible in Lausanne in Switzerland Summer 2012 
11. Mini Cooper in the Hafen City in Hamburg

LOVE classic cars!

*London Cockey rhyming slang: Worth a butcher's hook = worth a look ;)

PS. Like to buy handmade? Check out amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Beach Button Sewing.

Marmee's waistcoat's got buttons! We sat on the Wittenbergen Beach in Rissen just outside Hamburg yesterday in the sunshine and while mum embroidered I sewed the buttons on. It was the first time we had been to this beach on the river Elbe and there was real sand :)

These are temporary pearly buttons that we bought at Mylys last week. The real buttons are going to be leaf shaped and are being custom made by a lovely Etsy artist.

More details on this project can be found on Ravelry.

Officially that means it's finished, but I'm going to put the ta-dah photo's in their own post later... Oh and if you've ever wondered why and how to block your knitted piece that'll be up soon too.


PS. Are you into buying handmade? Yes? Then you should check out the amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Granny Square Blanket.

Yum!

Oh yummy yum!

Sprial baby!

Solid, 3 round granny squares

 

I'm giving granny squaring another chance! This is a stash-busting exercise that should leave me with a sweet little blanket.

The wool is from my favourite LYS in Hamburg, MYLYS (you also get a great hot chocolate there. Marmee and me spent a couple of hours knitting, chatting and eating cake there yesterday!). It was meant for other projects: grey for a waistcoat and purple for a baby blanket, but I had leftovers, 3 balls of each colour.

I've gone with a solid granny square pattern, just doing 3 rounds. When I get sick of granny squaring, I'll sew in the ends and do some blocking and then when I'm sick of that I'll go back to granny squaring. So far I've made about 30 squares.

The squares are dinky and I love them. My hubby suggested sewing them together in a spiral which I think goes quite nicely with their simple colours and pattern... Watch this space for blanket updates :)




PS. Are you into buying handmade? Yes? Then you should check out the amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Dahlias in Hamburg

Last week we went walking in the Volkspark in the west of Hamburg and visited the Dahlias currently on display. There were so many different varieties all with different colours and shapes. They were stunning and brightened up a drizzly morning!


PS. Like to buy handmade? Check out amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Classic Cars in Hamburg: Mini Cooper in Hafen City

A couple of months ago I had to go to the Hafen City Zoll (Customs Office) to collect a parcel (an Etsy purchase!). On the way back to the station I walked past this little chesnut. I loved the building it was parked next to too.

Looking at this photo is like a glimpse of a moment from another era. The Hafen City is an area of Hamburg's working harbour that is undergoing intense redevelopment, with impressive modern buildings designed by world famous architects going up. It's special that I found this little vintage corner.

This is part of my photography project: Classic Cars. I now carry my camera wherever I go and I will collect pictures of vintage cars that I see while out and about. They just make me happy.

1. Mini Cooper in Hamburg
2. V.W. Beetle  in Hamburg
3. V.W. Beetle with vintage skis in Hamburg
4. Mini Cooper in Hamburg
5. Vintage cars in the UK Winter 2012  
6. Renault 5 in Hamburg
7. Classic cars in Sylt in Germany Spring 2012 
8. Classic American in Hamburg
9. Fiat 500 in Liguria in Italy Summer 2012
10. VW Beetle Convertible in Lausanne in Switzerland Summer 2012

LOVE classic cars!

PS. Like to buy handmade? Check out amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Balcony Food: Garlic and herbs

Fresh from the soil

I LOVE having a balcony. It's even south-facing *gush* I have been experimenting with what I can grow. Garlic turns out to be one of those things - Hurrah!

Cleaned up and eaten sliced thin in a salad the same day it was pulled out of the soil! Soft skin and all. Delicate.

I have also been rather successful with sage (some leaves pictured with garlic above), thyme, mint, rosemary and strawberries. On the flower front, I enjoy having some geraniums around, as well as lavender for when I hear the south calling...

What I did: 

• I found out by accident that December is the time to plant the cloves. It happened to be December, so I went to the kitchen and grabbed a few cloves from a shop bought fist of garlic. Then I shoved them a few centimetres (couple of inches) deep into the soil in a big herb planter, making sure to leave some growing space between them and that they were pointy end up. 
• I watered them and waited.
• I watched the leaves carefully and pulled them up mid-June.
• I ate some straightaway, we couldn't resist!
• I cured the rest by leaving them out of the sun in a well ventilated dry spot.
• They are quite small, only an inch or so wide (a couple of cm) but good things come in small packages.

Brush off excess soil and leave somewhere dry out of the sun to cure.

I still have a couple of little heads left that have cured nicely. I'm looking forward to tasting them!


PS. Like to buy handmade? Check out amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell stuff on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Balcony Strawberries.

Last year we had a bumper crop of balcony strawberries. Lovely, juicy and sweet. I kept the plants out on the balcony over the winter and they managed to survive the minus 20 Celsius temperatures we had here in Hamburg in December!

This year they didn't produce as much, but I think that is normal, each season they give a little less and a new generation of plants should be cultivated (they put out shoots which when planted become brand new little plants!).

We just ate up the last of the 2012 balcony strawberries. They were yummy! I wonder what else we can grow on the balcony? I tried garlic too, I'll have to post a photo of my little fists soon :)

Vintage Cars in Hamburg: Classic American

American Auto outside a retro mechanic in Osdorf, Hamburg

This is part of my photography project: Vintage Cars in Hamburg. I now carry my camera wherever I go and I will collect pictures of classic cars that I see while out and about. They just make me happy.

1. Mini Cooper
2. V.W. Beetle 
3. V.W. Beetle with vintage skis
4. Mini Cooper
5. Vintage cars in the UK Winter 2012  
6. Renault 5 
7. Classic cars in Sylt, Germany Spring 2012

LOVE classic cars!

PS. Like to buy handmade? Check out amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take.  If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Vintage Cars - Sylt Spring 2012

Very posh Jaguar in Kampen. Can't find my notes where I wrote down the model...

VW Beetle Soft Top in a garden, also in Kampen.

Another car in Kampen, probably antique, not vintage! Make and model also gone off with the fairies...

Good old VW Beetle in not so posh Rantum by the sea. This is a fisherman's car me thinks.

This is part of my photography project: Vintage Cars in Hamburg. I now carry my camera wherever I go and I will collect pictures of classic cars that I see while out and about. They just make me happy.

1. Mini Cooper
2. V.W. Beetle 
3. V.W. Beetle with vintage skis
4. Mini Cooper
5. Vintage Cars in the UK Winter 2012  
6. Renault 5

LOVE classic cars!

PS. If you are an Etsy Seller you can promote your items on this blog right now for free in the Etsy Stock Take. Please come and join in :)

Sylt

Strandkorb - A windproof beach chair! Could do with these in the UK

We've just got back from Sylt, an island in the North sea linked to Gemany by a rail bridge.

It's a grey, windy and drizzly place, but boy, those sandy beaches and lambs do make it a lovely place to be.

 I collected a lot of pretty shells too. What shall I do with them? I'm thinking some kind of candle craft project...

PS: If you are an Etsy seller, come and link up to the latest Etsy Stock Take and get some exposure for the items you offer. Oh and tell your friends too :)

Nature Inspiration - Spring 2012

Moss on windowsill with snow below

I find that nature provides the best inspiration and this spring has been no exception. My camera is nearly always in my handbag and I love looking out for unusual angles on everyday things.

This spring I found some exquisite beauty in the mundane!

Spiky seed pods

New Leaves

Little leaf buds

The vigor of hedges coming back to life

My favourite tree: silver birch

PS: You are still in time to enter the giveaway for a craft book, learn how to make beaded jewellery. Open until 28th April 2012, come and join in!

Vintage Cars in Hamburg - Renault 5

 

Vintage Cars in Hamburg - Renault 5

Today I have great pleasure featuring a little old Renault 5. I spied this out while driving in the Flottbeck area of Hamburg and managed to snap it while stopped at a red light.

This was my first car! In exactly the same colour! I had adventures in that car.

-Driving to a party with the heated curlers still in my hair...
-Locking the key inside and having to hitch a lift to get the spare from home...
-Finding out the hard way what to do about the choke and flooding the engine with petrol...
-Reversing into a lamp pole after checking out a possible wedding reception location with my mum...
-Wheel spinning on gravel and being too chicken to do hand-brake turns (if I could turn back time!)...
-Leaving the lights on and Petie teaching me how to recharge a car battery (Thanks for all the great car stuff Pete)...
-Seriously considering pouring porridge oats into the radiator to seal a crack (yea really!)...

Oh the things I learnt! Shame you can't just open up the hood and fiddle with cars these days. I liked getting my hands dirty. Now you just have a computer to deal with. Can't argue with progress though, at least my current car ALWAYS starts in the morning!

Chilli Muchacha was a sweetie, until someone rammed into the side of her and that was that...

My mum also had a little black one. Good times :)


This is part of my photography project: Vintage Cars in Hamburg. I now carry my camera wherever I go and I will collect pictures of old cars that I see while out and about. They just make me happy.

1. Mini Cooper
2. V.W. Beetle 
3. V.W. Beetle with vintage skis
4. Mini Cooper
5. Vintage Cars in the UK Winter 2012 

LOVE vintage cars!

PS. If you are an Etsy Seller you can promote your items on this blog right now for free in the Etsy Stock Take. Please come and join in :)

Reading in Hamburg (and Pinterest issues).

Look what I found in the Neugraben part of Hamburg last week: a book booth! 

Is that not the most lovely thing ever? I think it's brilliant. I even jumped up and down with childish glee. Let's get reading everyone! Shame the books were in German... 

What I'm reading:

On a slightly related note, I'm reading Our Mutual Friend by Dickens. Very lovely and atmospheric. It's a sister read-a-long, motivated by the unfortunate failure we both experienced trying to read this book in the past! My kindle tells me that I'm 25% through, so happy face :)

What I'm thinking:

On a totally unrelated note, I have deleted my Pinterest account. 

I am very sad about this because I loved pinning and looking at pins. But it has come to my attention that I should really have read the conditions carefully before signing up:

• When becoming a member you confirm that you own the rights or have express permission from the person who owns the rights, for everything you pin. Yup, even though it's not intended for self-promotion...! 
• Also there is some talk that I don't completely understand, that says anything that is pinned becomes the property of Pinterest, for them to do as they wish with (i.e. sell) with no liability to the original owner (i.e. royalties). 
• Oh and that in any legal issues that arise regarding ownership of images etc, the final liability rests with the person that pinned (that's me and maybe you!)

My personal concerns are:

• I might have contributed to artists losing control over the ownership of their images, items and ideas. 
• When I feature someone's work (usually Etsy shops) on my blog I always email them and check that I can use their pictures. I never did this when pinning, but if I follow the principle, I should have asked the image owners!
• Although I like the promotion of my creations over Pinterest, I totally don't want them to think that they can do whatever they want with my images.

 All this is explained much more clearly at The Window Seat. I have just seen that they have updated their post and that there is some kind of communication flowing with the Pinterest guys. That's good. Maybe they can work a way around this.

Maybe I'll be able to pin again sometime soon. Meanwhile I'll have to find a new way of organising the gorgeous things I find online, what do you do?