Cultural heritage
a couple years ago, when I still had a passion for fabric, cloth, lace and embroidery, I roamed the flea markets and bought quite a lot vintage embroidered pillowcases, fardels, baby sheets etc. In an antique shop a woman imposed a whole bunch of traditional motifs on me, embroidered with metal gold thread on a silk background; this motifs are all what is left from various caftans, donned by who knows, 100 years back. The big couturiers use them in their creations, she assured me. You'll find something to do with them, she added! She sure knew how to sell what she wanted. It is true Dries Van Noten and other couturiers has used oriental motives, but who am I?
Until now I only used 2 small, individual motifs I cut out with infinite patience and pasted them to a strap of leather to create an "Oriental" bracelet; one is gold thread on navy blue leather, the other is gold thread on fuchsia leather. I like them, but they are very fragile, you can't wear them when working or with sleeves.
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| LoveLea's Oriental bracelet with vintage motif. |
Back to the present!
Gudrun, my sister in law inspired me to make bracelets in cowhide for women. I had a small chunk of cowhide, rectangular shaped with the most cute curl in the middle of the piece and in a very vibrant brown. I only cut the ends a bit shorter and look at this cute bracelet:
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| LoveLea's cowhide bracelet for women, detail of curl. |
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| LoveLea's cowhide bracelet for women. |
A different look at gratitude
All the books about prosperity tell you to be grateful. O.k., I get that, I don't feel like giving to a person who doesn't appreciate a gift; I don't want people to be for ever grateful or I am not the kind of person that says: I gave you this and you do that to me. But to me, being grateful is a bit boring, let's say: no challenge, too clear, too obvious. But not for Ryan Holiday! In a TV interview with Marie Forleo, he says that being grateful for your mom is easy and he adds: "what is something I am upset about and why am I grateful that it happened that way". and "who is the person that I feel the most anger towards and why am I grateful for them". Wow, this is a challenge, a mental exercise! This will make my mornings different, I won't feel embarrassed again for doing a lousy gratitude job.
Grateful for my fathers clock.
Remember the post about my antique furniture I didn't have room for in my new house? One of the items I could find room for is the clock my father dearly loved. The steady ticking of the clock is reassuring, life goes on, continues, no matter what. Every hour its bell chimes and 2 minutes later it reminds you of the time! and 28 min later, it chimes the half hour. When I am on the phone and one of my brothers or sisters hear the bell, they are taken back in time immediately; all of them exclaim: oh, I hear the clock and then some seconds of silence. Isn't it amazing what a sound can do to you!!!! There is no manufacturing date on the clock, but it it easily 200 years old, still working, giving the time exactly, keeping us company!
My passion for vinegar!
You want to know what my panacea is for cleaning? Plain old white vinegar. I use it in the kitchen: to clean lime traces, to clean my kettle, I poor vinegar in the kettle and let it sit for 30 min or longer, in the dish washer in stead of a chemical product; in the bathroom to clean the washstands, the tub, the mirror, I add some vinegar to the last rinsing water when I wash my hair. When cleaning the windows, I add a shoot to the last rinsing water; if you use soda instead of baking powder, you should add a dessert spoon of vinegar so the soda can do its job and of course, in a potato salad, lemon won't do, it has to be vinegar.
Any other uses for vinegar? What do you use it for? Tell us, leave a comment.
I hope to have more news about my apron by next week and I've jotted down some notes for my bucket bag. Don't miss out on the next post: to my blog and latest post.
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