From the sewing room

I've discovered my new favorite fabric shop. I told you a while back about a textile shop outside of Vienna which is one of the only places you can find affordable fabric. But I found another place that's much closer to home and much better organized. Only thing is, it's not really a textile shop. It's Ikea.

I was already planning on picking up a fleece blanket or two at Ikea to use for sewing. But then I saw this jacket on Flickr made from hippo fabric from Ikea. I know what you're thinking. Hippos? But it's cute. Did you look at the jacket? Go ahead, take a look. But come right back.

...

See, it's cute. The person who made the jacket said that she used a duvet from the kid's bedding section for the material. Genius! Turns out, I wasn't able to find the bedding, but I found the same pattern in pre-cut fabric. So I took that (in lime green and in red!) and I also picked out several duvets. And all of the fabric came out to about $2 to $3 per yard. And some even cheaper than that. I have all sorts of ideas brewing for these fabrics -- but I have to wait for my patterns to arrive.

In the meantime, I've been practicing with smaller projects. I am still a beginner, after all. I made this lovely tote from the Simple Tote pattern in Amy Carol's Bend-the-Rules Sewing book.


Last month, I made these cloth shoes for my niece Emmy based on the tutorial at Stardust Shoes. They turned out nice, but there were a few things about the pattern that I wasn't wild about.


Luckily, I found a similar tutorial at Bare Maked that I like a lot. And since the shoes I made for Emmy were a little too big, I'll get to try again with this new pattern. (This pattern is much smaller, so I think these may be too small for Emmy. They were a practice pair anyways. I'll enlarge the pattern when I make her pair.)




And the best thing about this tutorial -- the shoes are reversible!

A small victory

Yesterday was a good day. Brian and I woke up early (for us) and headed across town to turn in our residency permit applications. There's an annual quota on the type of permit for which we applied and by the time we were ready to apply last year, the quota had been met. So we decided we would go the first day the office was open in 2008.

Both Brian and I were a little worried that we would have to wait hour upon hour to see someone. Three or four other people or families were entering the building when we arrived and many people were waiting at the elevator. It didn't look hopeful. But when we found the room we needed, there was only one family ahead of us -- the Haskews! We were given a number and waited 10 or 15 minutes. Maybe not even that long.

The whole thing was pretty anti-climatic. We sat down with the lady taking our application. She looked through everything. Made a few copies. Then gave us a letter saying our residency permit was in process, or something along those lines. The application said that all of our documents (birth certificates, marriage license, passports, etc.) had to be translated into German and notarized. Not the case -- she accepted everything in English. The application said that originals or notarized copies had to be provided. Also not true. Now we just have to wait for a letter. I'm not sure what the letter will say because we've been told that there's a one-year waiting period for this type of permit. But we've been told a lot of things.

Afterwards, Brian and I walked around the city a bit and stopped by Starbucks for a victory cup. It's so nice having this task behind us. I know there may still be a long road ahead as far as the acquiring the permit goes, but it's nice to have finally made the first step.

Buried treasure

Sharkdog has this endearing habit of burying his treats. You'd think this would be difficult considering he's indoors all the time. But he improvises.

It's hard to catch this on film because if he sees you watching him, Sharkdog will glare at you and then take his treat elsewhere. As if I'm going to dig it up! So, without further ado, here's the video. (There's no sound.)

The big bang

Wow.

About half an hour before midnight the sky starting lighting up with fireworks. No longer was there one firework here and then another one there. There were fireworks everywhere.

Brian and I spent about 40 minutes running between the windows in the living room and the kitchen. I've never seen anything like this. It's not just the city putting on a firework show, but it seems like everyone is participating. There were people in the soccer field right outside our apartment setting off fireworks. There were people out on the street setting off fireworks. We even saw some come out of apartment windows! Several were so close to the building I was afraid they might fly into our open window. At midnight, I turned on the radio to listen to Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz, which is always played to welcome in the new year.

I know it's never the same on video, but here's a small sample of the fireworks from our kitchen window. It was so loud, so turn up your volume to get the full effect.

Ringing in the new year with a bang

The folks of Vienna sure do like their fireworks. For the past month, we could hear the pops and bangs of small firecrackers almost as soon as it became dark -- which is between 4:00 and 4:30 these days. At times it sounded like a small battle was being waged at the park down the street from our apartment. But until today, we rarely saw any fireworks. Today we've been able to see and hear fireworks pretty steadily since about 6:00.

Apparently, new year's eve celebration (Silvester, as it's called here) is a pretty big deal in these parts. An article on Virtual Vienna Net, a website for expats in Vienna, explains why fireworks play such a big role in Austria's celebration.

New Year's Eve in Vienna is a loud and merry time. This is no accident, but the enactment of an established tradition: in the fourth century Pope Silvester, after whom the night is named in Austria, tried to purge the new Christian church of heathen customs, but the old gods proved to be extremely stubborn. They kept on returning in the form of scheming devils, evil spirits or artful demons, digging their way into people's souls until the man of God realized that one devil best drives out another and using the old believes announced that the only thing they couldn't stand was noise. This is the reason why the New Year is heralded in with pyrotechnics, firecrackers and loud bangs to make sure that it is free of dark spirits.

Hmmm... so those rowdy kids at the park who have been driving me crazy with the firecrackers every night are just trying to keep the evil spirits away? Whatever their reasons, I hope they run out of firecrackers soon.

Brian and I are having a peaceful evening at home this New Year's Eve. I did venture out to the grocery store earlier today -- along with at least 95% of the inhabitant within a 10 mile radius -- but we're not going to head into town. I'll just watch the fireworks from my window.

I wish you all a happy new year!

Downtown

Have you noticed the trend in naming posts after songs? I just can't help myself.



I'm not really sure where "downtown" Vienna is located, but I headed into the city today. Some might say, I went downtown. I don't know if I would say it. I think I have a bit of cabin fever and I just needed to get out for a while.

I've been thinking about sweet potatoes a lot lately and the only place you can find them is downtown -- no, wait -- at the Naschmarkt. This was my first visit since it's been really cold and I definitely noticed that the crowd was smaller. The last time I was there, the place was overflowing with sweet potatoes. You couldn't turn around without bumping into one. But this time they weren't quite as plentiful. I guess I should have bought them during the fall.

Oh well, there were enough. I loaded up on sweet potatoes and bought a new pair of mittens. I have gloves that I like, but I've been wanting a pair of mittens that have the top part that you can remove so you can actually use your fingers. I hope you know what I'm talking about because I'm too lazy to get the camera.

However, I did snap some nice photos at the Naschmarkt. They're not for the faint of heart. If you prefer a little mystery with the food you eat, maybe you shouldn't continue. because there's no doubt with this food.

I'll start you out with some cute bread -- just so you won't have to see anything you don't want to see. Unless, of course, you're just scanning through the photos. In which case, you get what you deserve.

The pig is a symbol for good luck, so you see all sort of pig-paraphernalia around New Years. One of the bakeries at the Naschmarkt was selling bread shaped like a pig's head. Pretty cute, eh?



But just a little further down at the butcher, you can find real pigs' heads. Notice the one on the right has a cigar in his mouth.



Have you ever had shrimp scampi and wondered what it looked like before it was on your plate? Wonder no more.



If you're more of a fish kind of person, here's your dinner. The one on the bottom looks surprised, the one above it is a little angry and the one above that one is just down-right sad.



If you're eating fish in Austria, it may not look much different when it arrives at the dinner table. I'm pretty sure they serve it with the head intact.

I've saved the most disturbing for last. This was actually the first thing I photographed at the Naschmarkt. I've never seen anything like it. I'm not sure what it was, but the hoof is still there!

Oh, I wish...

Are you singing it yet?

Sometimes I wish I had a really nice camera with lots of different lenses and could take all these amazing photos. But then I realize that I would have to actually learn how to use the camera and learn all that photography lingo like aperture and f-stop. And not just learn what it means, but how it affects the photo I'm taking. Plus, I'd actually have to get out and take photos! Not just hop off the u-bahn and snap some photos from the platform.

So I guess it's a good thing I don't have a nice, expensive camera. I don't think I could handle all that other stuff. Maybe one day. And my point-and-shoot does a pretty decent job most of the time.

Here are the latest photos that I took from the u-bahn platform. It's been pretty cold here for a while and the Alte Donau (Old Danube) is frozen over. It's quite a site to see.









If you look at the last one closely, you can see three people on the ice. There are areas where you can ice skate when the river freezes over, but I think these people just went out on their own. I imagine they're wearing shoes -- I doubt you could skate with the snow on the ice. I can't believe they're in the middle of the river! I hope the ice is thick.