Needle holder

This sweet Soviet needle holder is probably from the seventies or eighties. It’s wooden with a plastic cap. I bought it almost by accident, I liked the nesting doll but I didn’t know it’s also something (more or less) practical :).  

Painted backgrounds and a real one

Some photos from my collection. I think they are more or less from the same time period (end of the nineteenth century, first decade of the twentieth century) with the exception of the smoking young man which is dated in pencil on the back 1930. The one with the two women and two boys is from a studio in Buenos Aires, so strange for it to end up here, in my collection. The woman in the ruffled dress, holding a book is from a studio in Timisoara, with an Art Noveau logo. The woman from the country side and her children are photographed, most probably, in front of their house.

Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays and Thriftasaurus.

Absinthe spoon

When I picked up this strange looking spoon at the flea market (for almost nothing) I had no idea what it is. I liked its elegant leaf shape. I looked up its hallmarks, and I found out that the company Cailar Bayard went out of business in 1934. And this is an absinthe spoon. Quite interesting, besides its ugly name (Colonial).

Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays and Thriftasaurus.

Sparrow

This is a very early birthday present. It’s a French silver hand etched cuff, most probably from the late nineteenth century. Hard to photograph, but so beautiful.

Trees

Strange times of adjusting to a new rhythm, of feeling sad, of feeling angry, of trying to be hopeful, of being grateful for the good and sheltered life that I myself have while also thinking of possibilities to make small changes in the unfairness around…

Scanning a film that I have just picked up from the lab today, I was thinking that if someone in the future would find these photos, how idyllic our life would look like to that person… How good it really is most of the times…

These are some photos that I have scanned today, taken with my Welta Weltix camera and a very expired film in August and September, in parks, the forest and out of my window.

Liebster Award :)

Thank you a lot, Orange Smoothie for nominating me! It was fun answering the questions and thinking of some other ones.

Here’s how the award works:

1. Make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you.
   Include the Liebster Award sticker in the post too.
2. Nominate 5 -10 other bloggers who you feel are worthy of this award. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting on one of their posts. You can also nominate the person who nominated you.
3. Ensure all of these bloggers have fewer than 200 followers.
4. Answer the eleven questions asked to you by the person who nominated you, and make eleven questions of your own for your nominees or you may use the same questions.
5. Lastly, COPY these rules in your post.

I nominate these lovely bloggers (I’m not sure about the followers numbers, thought, I think some of these blogs have a larger number on different platforms):

Suzie from Second Hand Suzie

Ette from www.parvasedapta.ch

Aniko from Idle needle

Questions for me to answer: 

1. Clowns. Funny or Scary?

Mostly boring, but I have a nice vintage silver pendant shaped like a clown, with moving arms and legs :).

1. Do you listen to music when you’re creating? If so, what/who?

Not so much, music tends to be disturbing to me when I need to think, and when I’m doing more repetitive things I prefer listening to audio books. But my favorite band in the last years is Tinariwen.

1. Cars. Point A to Point B or a reflection of your personality?

I don’t have a driver’s license and I have no intention to get one. Not only that I prefer public transport for ecology reasons, but also I’m very bad at taking good decisions in crisis and I don’t have good reflexes, so I would definitely be a menace on the road.

1. If you won the lottery, aside from savings, what would you buy first for yourself?

I always thought I like living in an apartment very much, but after having a difficult dog, who is very much controlled all the time on the street, I dream of a house with a big yard where he could run freely. I wouldn’t want to live in the country side, so this house would be in the city, so definitely I would have to win the lottery for that :).

1. Do you have a hidden talent?

I try to make all my talents manifest :).

1. PC or Mac?

PC.

1. Favorite creative activity?

This changes all the time, usually I like writing and these days I’m very much into weaving.

1. Favorite movie/tv program to binge watch?

I don’t really have a favorite one. I watch TV only in the night to numb my mind and get ready for sleep, so the silliest the show is the better.

1. Favorite childhood memory?

Visiting socialist factories with my class in primary school. Finding out how everyday things like bread or textiles or books are produced and imagining that someday I’ll be as wise and great as the workers there. The reassuring feeling that everything makes sense in the world (feeling that it is long lost since then).

1. Why did you start blogging?

I wanted to have a place where I can organize my collections and hobbies, a creative space to feel free in and from where to meet other people with same interests.

1. Describe the place where you perform most of your creative work?

I don’t have a special place to work in. We use a lot the biggest room in the apartment as a workshop for sewing, crafting, making our art projects, writing and reading, etc. But I like moving around with my embroidery or weaving loom in different rooms or in the kitchen. So, I have little “kits” (boxes or baskets with the supplies for the different things I work on) that I can easily carry around with me from room to room.

To my nominees I ask: 

1. List five things that make you happy.
2. What’s your favorite season?
3. Why do you like blogging?
4. What makes you feel better when you are sad?
5. What’s your best childhood memory?
6. Tell us one of your strangest/funniest/nicest night dreams.
7. Tell us one thing about yourself that you are the most proud of.
8. What is your favorite small gesture that you do to make the world around you a better place?
9. Who’s your favorite person/persons in the world?
10. Describe the place in which you are the most creative.
11. What’s your favorite vegetable?

Banana icecream

This is so simple and delicious, with a perfect, rich and creamy texture. I felt so very tired these days and such a nutritious sweet was very welcome. It was made from 3 ripe bananas kept in the freezer over night, one and a half cups of cashew nuts soaked in water over night blended together with sugar.

Beefsteak mushrooms (fistulina hepatica)

Besides the disgusting name and appearance, this mushrooms were so great! My friend bought them from the farmer’s market. We have never seen such mushrooms, but the man who picked them and from whom we have bought forest mushrooms before said they taste very good. They are also very good for you. When we cut them, it was kind of difficult to get over the fact that this mushroom looks so much like meat, but after tasting it raw, it was obvious that it will make a very nice dish, with a strong mushroom taste, slightly sour.

The man selling them suggested we should fry them, but we wanted to try a healthier version. We superficially looked online for a vegan recipe, but we couldn’t find any (we also didn’t have the patience to search a lot, we were really hungry). So, my friend Maria improvised this dish, which turned out great.

Ingredients (for approximately 6 servings):

500 gr mushrooms

a few pieces from a Romanesco broccoli head

a big salad bowl full of purslane (we were allowed to take a big quantity from a vegetable garden from our neighborhood)

1 bell pepper

3 onions

2 garlic bulbs

1 big tomato

oat flakes

3 spoons of flour

dill

salt and pepper

This is the order in which the different vegetables were cooked in cold pressed sunflower seed oil: first the onions, half of the garlic and the pepper (all of them minced). After the onions were translucent, we put in the sliced mushrooms and broccoli. After cooking them for a few minutes, we added water, the purslane and some of the dill and then, after another few minutes, the minced tomato. When the mushrooms and broccoli were almost cooked, we added the rest of the garlic, some more fresh dill, salt and pepper. We added the oat flakes and the flour to make the texture more creamy.

It was really delicious!

Doll

This funny postcard is from the seventies or early eighties (it used to be in my childhood collection but I don’t know who are the people who wrote a formal note of spring good wishes on the back). I used to have dolls similar to the one in the photo and I can say they were much less creepy in reality :).

Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.

Morning glory

This is the last pinhole for this year. I ran out of chemicals and I’ll buy some fresh ones in spring, to start doing pinhole photos again when it is a lot of summer light. The transparent shape in the front is a morning glory flower, moving in the wind.

I’m tired today and a bit worried, but in the greater picture of what is happening in the world, my little troubles seem so unimportant…