Elena Cresci

Archive for February 2010

I’d like to thank the Academy… and SewIThought…

February 25, 2010 Blog No comments

To use a word that is oft in the casual conversation of Team Fabelhaft – I’m CHEESING that Angela from Sew I Thought nominated me for this award! (Cheesing means that you’re chuffed to bits… no wait, is that a British term too? I’m really happy anyway!)

The rules of the award are as follows:

1) Copy the award to my blog
2) Link to the person who has given me this award
3) Tell 7 interesting things about myself
4) Choose 7 other blogs that I want to give this award to
5) Link to their blogs
6) Comment on their blogs that I have given them this award

Sooo, 7 interesting things!

1) I speak Welsh fluently. In fact I’ll write the next part in Welsh (and any other Welsh-speakers out there, please excuse my GODAWFUL grammar)

Fe astudiais i yn ysgol gyfun Gymraeg, sydd yn meddwl oedd pob wers, ar wahan i Saesneg wrth gwrs, yn cael eu gwneud trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg. Rwy’n falch iawn fy mod i yn gallu siarad iaith fy ngwlad, er rydw i’n teimlo’n fwy gyfforddus yn siarad ac yn ysgrifennu yn Saesneg gan mae fy ramadeg Cymraeg yn hollol pants! Felly, y ddiwrnod rwy medru siarad Almaeneg yn rhugl yw’r ddiwrnod fy mod i’n ‘trilingual’!

Translation:

I studied in a Welsh comprehensive, which means that every lesson, except for English of course, was conducted through the medium of Welsh. I’m really proud that I can speak the language of my country, although I feel more comfortable speaking and writing in English because my Welsh grammar is completely pants! So, the day I’m able to speak German fluently is the day I become trilingual!

I’ve been told that Welsh looks like drunk texting to people that don’t understand it. I feel the same way about Dutch…

2) One of the main passions in my life is Martial Arts. I’ve been doing Karate since I was about 16 and began doing Jiu-Jitsu when I started University. My biggest regret, if any, of this year abroad is not finding a club to train at, but I’ve been doing my own bits and pieces along the way, so hopefully I won’t be completely rubbish when I go back! People think I’m crazy when I talk about some of the things I do in training, but I love it! I have a crazy idea that I’ll make an awesome LBD when I get my black belt!

3) People don’t recognise me in old photos of myself! Fun fact : my Dad thought I was someone completely different in a Jitsu team photo I have, and that one was recent! It’s funny though, sometimes we take the mickey out of each other’s old Facebook photos, and people haven’t even realised that I’m in the same ones as Beef (same school, known each other since babies) because they plain don’t recognise me.

Row, Sophton, Sue and Leonard 2 To be honest, I think it’s the red hair and the fact that I chopped it all off! (Lucky you guys, you get to see how awful my school uniform was…)

4) I can’t stand Coke. It’s disgusting. There used to be a time where I couldn’t drink any fizzy drinks at all, but since coming to Germany I’ve become a bit of a Fanta fan.

5) I auditioned for S Club Juniors when I was 13. Most of you probably don’t know who they are – basically, there was a British pop band called S Club 7 that were really popular in my pre-teens, and the kids’ BBC channel decided to do a whole ‘Popstars’ dealio for kids, creating a band of pre-teens who would open for S Club… I didn’t get very far!!

Classic! My friend Ki decided she’d tell people that I actually was in the band but quit due to ‘artistic differences’.

6) I think that each and every one of you should watch Spaced. Followed by Shaun of the Dead… and then Hot Fuzz. DO IT NOW.

7) After I’ve mastered ze German, I’d very much like to learn both Italian and Japanese – Italian because I am part Italian and Japanese because of my experiences with Japanese Martial Arts.

Here are my 7 Nominees!

1) Ki Shah is a pal of mine from Swansea University – she may be doing a sooper dooper Sciency PHD but she’s a crafty girl at heart. She paints, she makes jewellery, she has a muffin cat… Oh, and did I mention that she’s a fellow Jitsuka? Shahmeister, is there anything you can’t do?

2) Lily from The House of Mirth has some seriously fab creations that have inspired me the past few weeks. I want to steal her personal style!

3) Tilly from Tilly and the Buttons I found through Sew Retro, and is a fellow Wardrobe Refashion pledger. I love what she’s done so far, in particular her Sencha blouse, which is to die for and utterly convinced me that I needed that pattern in my life!

4) Elaine May from The Selfish Seamstress is one I’ve already sucked up to once, but not without good reason. Her creations are classy and well-made, and she can sew auf Deutsch!

5) Gertie from Blog for Better Sewing – how do I began to describe Gertie? She’s absolutely brilliant – not only is she a talented seamstress, but her personal style is amazing and she comes across as so personable in her blog posts and vlogs. I hope someday I’m just as good!

6) Zoe from So…Zo may have been nominated already, but gosh-darn it I’ll do it again! Like I’ve said before, I really admire her life pledge to the Wardrobe Refashion movement. When you can make your own pants, nothing can stop you!

7) Casey of Elegant Musings is just amazing. Everytime she uploads a creation on BurdaStyle it becomes an automatic favourite.

Phwoar, monster of a post! This is why I’m an English student guys, I waffle too much! There are some people not on the list because I found their blogs recently – so check out my ‘I Read…’ sidebar for some more inspirational blogs!

German Wednesdays : Ich liebe Brot

February 25, 2010 Blog No comments

Short and sweet today.

I love German bread. I really do. I bought a loaf today and I’ve eaten almost half of it already. No, I don’t miss sandwiches or pasties in the slightest, it’s all about the belegten Brötchen thank you very much. Salami with cream cheese is my favourite, OM NOM NOM

Loving the fact that German supermarkets and bakeries tend to have a ‘bread of the day/week’ thing going on, meaning that I can buy a loafy bready goodness for under a euro… CHOMP

Oh man, I think I might go cut myself another slice of my loaf…

Und am ende der Strasse steht ein Haus am See

February 23, 2010 Blog No comments

Been listening to a lot of Eins Live lately while sewing, and this was one of the songs that came on as I finished this project last night. Thought it would be an appropriate title, the song talks about a house by the lake, orange trees and the sun shining – I couldn’t help but associate the blue of the skirt with the blue of the lake Peter Fox is imagining.

Sadly I have no ‘Before’ pictures – I picked up this skirt for 3 Euros at the second hand shop because of its colour. But it was Size 12, straight up and down and meh, despite the gorgeous turquoise. So, I used a pattern from my first ever Burda Magazine (January 2010) to make it into a cute new skirt, and added a bow at the waistband for extra cuteness!

I haven’t really decided what to wear with it yet – the top I’ve pictured it with is Gray’s, and ironically she has the lace top I’m thinking of pairing with it! We’ll see what comes along in the next few weeks!

It took me quite a while because I stitched it all together, was almost done, tried it on… and realised that there was a reason the original skirt had lining. Not just VPL, but you could see the outline of the pockets. Sadly, I’d cut up the original lining for the pockets, d’oh, but managed to find some on sale at Karstadt. Had I figured this out before, I would have used the original lining and would have had scraps of fabric left over – there’s barely any left of the shell, so I’m quite proud that I used my resources well.

The bow was courtesy of a tutorial on Burdastyle, I think it added some extra cuteness! Though this does mean that my standard waistbelt skirt combo cannot be used with this skirt, but oh well, it’s still cute. Also, I noticed earlier that one pocket is bigger than the other due to the taking apart and re-piecing… oops! I don’t think it’s too noticeable, so I won’t worry. I’ll just pretend it was an exercise in asymmetry!

Come to think of it, I really want to make a blouse in the shade of blue the shirt is, they go really well together! Oh, and here’s the song for you too Gotta love a bit of Peter Fox – certainly a big part of the soundtrack for Year Abroad ‘09-‘10!

German Wednesday : Sewing auf Deutsch

February 18, 2010 Blog No comments

Sorry it’s a day late!

I thought I’d use this edition of German Wednesday to talk about my sewing course at the Volkshochschule (community college).

It’s been really enjoyable so far, though I am moving at a snail’s pace, or so it seems! I’m creating View C of Butterick 6582, and I think it’s going to turn out cute! Things I’ve learnt so far:

That copy paper exists. (Seriously, I had no idea what it was or what it was used for, this discovery makes things SO MUCH EASIER)
That tracing patterns is annoying, but useful. I found that it made me think about the construction of the garment more.
Matching a floral pattern on the fabric I’m using is HARD, but I don’t care because I’ve never bothered matching florals anyway. Hell, as my teacher was trying to do it yesterday, I looked at the floral skirt I was wearing and noticed that it didn’t match on that either, so I feel justified in not caring now! Obviously plaids are a different story…
Basting a garment together beforehand is a useful exercise and shouldn’t be skipped in the case of the garment above. Here’s my bodice basted together :

Had I not bothered to do that, then I wouldn’t know that a) the front is too long and needs to be shortened and b) the bodice itself is too big for me and needs to be taken in at the sides in order to create that ‘nipped in waist’ effect that the pattern has going on.

Has to be said, I love the way in which this sewing class brings together the two main elements of this blog; sewing in German is difficult due to the vocabulary, but it’s done wonders for that and also my describing skills. When you don’t know the word, describe it et voila!

Taking the plunge

February 16, 2010 Blog No comments

So I’ve signed myself up for a 2 month pledge over at Wardrobe Refashion…

For those of you that don’t know about Wardrobe Refashion, now’s the time to find out! Wardrobe Refashion is about giving up buying mass-manufactured clothing in favour of crafting your own clothing and refashioning preloved items. A few of the bloggers that I follow have taken the pledge; Zoe over at So, Zo… has made a lifelong pledge, wow! Not only does she create her own clothes, nowadays she’s even making her own undies! That’s dedication for you! Then there’s Angela from Sew I Thought…, whose refashions are inspiring. I’ve never seen anyone turn a hopeless-case maternity gown into Twiggy-chic – awesome! Then there’s another lifelong pledger Megan Nielsen, who somehow has time to create her own fashion line, write helpful tutorials and be a Mum, ALL AT THE SAME TIME! Kudos to you Megan! There are plenty more inspiring people at the Wardrobe Refashion blog, go check it out!

You might remember from this post that I began scouting out second hand shops here in Dortmund already, and I would have posted about the refashioning except IT WENT HORRIBLY WRONG. The wonderful gray skirt that I bought? I shortened it, quickly became my fave… put it in the wash, and it shrank! The label said nothing about it being handwash only, so I was really and truly put out.

Not to be outdone by a stupid old washing machine, I’ve decided to take the skirt apart and re-create a new one, the idea being that I would trace all the pieces as new pattern pieces and then grade them up a size so that it would actually fit me! Not a bad plan if you ask me… No idea when I’ll actually get the damned thing done, everything’s taking me so long to finish lately.

Just as a last boastful tidbit; I entered The Selfish Seamstress’ pattern giveaway comp for a laugh – the brief? An essay of no more than 100 words on why we deserved the patterns up for grabs.

Dirty tactics such as sucking up, snarking, backstabbing, brainwashing, flattery, and lying are strongly encouraged.

I went for flattery, natuerlich, and I got an Honorable Mention for Unbridled Megalomania! How awesome is that?? OK, so I didn’t win, but I’m ridiculously excited that my entry got noticed – I think it brought out the writer’s pride in me! Anyway, check out my entry and the winners’ entries over here, and while you’re at it, add The Selfish Seamstress to your blogroll or else!

Also : PANCAKE DAY TODAY NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM

Time for an ARDBAAAR* pancake methinks?

*check the ‘About Me’ for explanation for that one haha…

Ahhh Rosenmontag

February 15, 2010 Blog No comments

And I’m ILL. FANTASTISCH.

For those of you that don’t know, Rosenmontag is the highlight of the German Karneval, when all the floats ride down the streets and Germans *shock horror* DRESS UP. I have to say, I have seen very little fancy dress since living in Germany; in the U.K it’s pretty normal to see a fancy dress group out on any given night, particularly in student towns, but here it’s not so common. So the previously mentioned German Stare is at an all time high when fancy dress comes around! Except for Rosenmontag, when pretty much everyone is dressed like an idiot.

Thankfully Karneval has been going on since last Thursday, so we were out in Cologne on Saturday celebrating.

I was a mime! It was fun, if a little cold. It’s still snowing, I’m getting a little sick of it, and apparently there’s more to come on Thursday, ARGHH. Sadly didn’t make any of my costume, I was put entirely to shame on the craft front by Beef and Gray, who whipped up some awesome Cavegirl costumes from some fabric they bought in Karstadt – not a stitch was used, legends!

There was some epic fancy dress going on with Team Fabelhaft, that has to be said, one of my faves being Gravy in her polar bear outfit, which garnered a lot of attention! The mental bit was that she bought it in Ratio, a German supermarket. Beef and Gravy always joke that you can buy everything in there; I think now I truly believe them!

ALIM0232

We made a pretty unlikely crew, I loved it! Ended up in an Irish bar in Cologne which meant that (despite my assumption that we wouldn’t actually get to see it) we saw the Six Nations match between Scotland and Wales. When we got there, Scotland were winning, meaning the Scots were loving the ‘Wales are RUBBISH’ banter… until Wales turned it around and ONLY BLOODY WENT AND WON!!! YES MATE! Cue a once stressed out Beef turning jubilant and us singing the Welsh National Anthem before rallying the troops to support our fellow Celts the Irish vs. the Frenchies. Sadly they didn’t win, boo, but the most important thing is that Wales did HAHAA!

Perhaps not the conventional Karneval, but I loved the mix of Germany and home that we had on Saturday.

German Wednesday : Kino Tag!

February 10, 2010 Blog No comments

Tuesday is Cinema Day at Dortmund Cinestar, so I went with a fellow assistant to get some German film watching on the go.

I’ve made a pact with myself for the duration of my stay here in Germany; that is, to only watch German-language films, and I’ll tell you why.

Dubbing. The god-damned dubbing. I understand that Germans love American films too, but I just can’t stand this habit they have of dubbing anything English-language into German! I watched ‘The Ugly Truth’ auf Deutsch, and the way in which the voices in no way matched up to the movement of the actor’s mouths completely irritated me to no end. I’ve asked my students about it a few times now, and the majority of them shrug and say ‘but we can’t understand it when it’s in English’, unless they’re so enthusiastic about English that they’ll have made sure to have watched the German and the original version.

It surprises me that a country which places so much importance on learning the English language has this awful habit. It irritates me just as much when Japanese Anime is dubbed (Japanese voice acting works so much better for Anime than American ones do) and it would irritate me equally to see German films dubbed in English. There’s nothing wrong with subtitles!

Occasionally the cinemas will show the original version auf Englisch, there’s even a cinema in Cologne which shows original versions of English-language films. It just baffles me how anyone can put up with it – sadly the dubbing rule is extended to television programmes too, and anyone who has watched German T.V will know that it is, on the most part, terrible, so they have a lot of American programmes.

I wouldn’t say the same of German cinema however – Germany produces a lot of really excellent films. Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) is a favourite in German classes everywhere, as is Goodbye Lenin and Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others).

My new pact has produced interesting results; last week we went to the cinema spontaneously, ended up seeing Zeiten ändern Dich without having any clue as to what it was about… ended up being an autobiographical pic about a German rap star named Bushido, whom I’ve never heard of before I saw the film. It wasn’t a bad film actually, though I’ve got the impression from my German friends that I probably wouldn’t have bothered to go see it had I been familiar with the rapper Bushido – I enjoyed it regardless, though the cinema was full of really annoying wannabe-gangster kids.

Yesterday I saw a film called Friendship!, which was just brilliant. It tells the tale of two East Germans (Ossi is slang for a person from East Germany), Tom and Veit, from Berlin who decide to travel to America when the Berlin wall falls in 1989. Their plan is to travel to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge, ‘der westlichen Punkt der Erde’ (the most western point of the world), though we find out later that Veit wants to find his father, who has been sending postcards on his birthday from San Francisco for twelve years since he fled the GDR. Their money only buys them a flight to New York, and thus follows a hilarious trip across America in the attempt to reach San Francisco in time for Veit’s birthday.

Friendship comes 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so it was interesting to see the situation that arises when two lads from East Berlin decide to plunge themselves entirely in the deep end of the western world, having previously had only covert exposure to it (East Germany was very strict about Western media). There’s a scene in the film where they attempt to explain that they are from East Germany, that they have come because the wall has fallen, only to find that the two American girls have no idea what they’re talking about. I get much the same reaction from people when I tell them about what I’ve learnt of the split between Eastern and Western Germany; most people know about the Berlin Wall, but, particularly people my age, have no idea why it was such a big deal when it came down and don’t have a clue how different the two Germanys were from everyday life to politics. If I hadn’t studied German, I doubt I would have known either.

The film plays a lot on the comedy of the situation Veit and Tom find themselves in, and I loved all the little misunderstandings and attempts at constructing English sentences because this was almost the exact situation that I found myself in not so long ago! I think the highlight of the film has to be when Veit and Tom dress up as Russian soldiers for a gay strip club in Las Vegas in order to make some money.

Well worth a watch! Excuse the massive rant on dubbing, it just seriously winds me up and detracts from my enjoyment of a film a great deal!

Project fail

February 3, 2010 Blog No comments

The version of the Night Flurries dress has officially FLOPPED.

I’m beyond irritated. Been working on it for ages, the skirt came out crappy, scrapped it and then attempted to just make a bustier out of the remaining fabric, but that has also flopped. I’m not having a good sewing day

In fact, I’m not having a good sewing fortnight, nothing is working out. It doesn’t help that I’m not feeling very happy either. I’ve been really thinking about doing the Wardrobe refashion project, but if I don’t bust out something half decent soon, then I don’t know if I’ll bother.

Sorry for the complete downer. What do you guys do when your projects fail abysmally?

German Wednesday : The German Stare

February 3, 2010 Blog 12 comments

Bit of a late German Wednesday this time, because I’ve spent all this morning under my bedsheet cover, dosed up on painkillers, trying to get rid of a headache. Yay me!

The first thing that struck me in my first weekend in Koeln was the amount that people just outright stared at us. In all fairness, I assumed it was due to us speaking English and lugging suitcases around, making complete and utter fools of ourselves – who wouldn’t be staring? Also, with English proficiency being something that a great deal of Germans aim towards, you will find yourself being stared at while speaking English because they probably just want to concentrate and see if they can understand what you’re saying.

I know that a lot of the British assistants get quite frustrated with it at times; after all, staring at someone is considered quite rude in the U.K. Does anyone remember a time when, as a child, they stared at something/or someone and then got told ‘Don’t stare!!’ by a guardian? We’re taught that it’s rude to stare, so people in the U.K get sneaky with it. They’ll stare but then as soon as the object of their attention turns towards them, they’ll quickly avert their eyes. In Germany however, it’s not uncommon to have a staring contest on the U-Bahn!

Obviously I’m not saying that every German stares at me rudely on the U-Bahn, but it seems to be less of a big deal if you are. Someone in the U.K’s feathers are likely to be ruffled if someone persistently stared at them. Perhaps it’s more of a case that the British try to stare into open space on a packed train, whereas Germans don’t really give a toss if they just happen to be staring at someone, they’re not really thinking about them anyway.

I’m definitely not the only one who noticed this, there’s a Facebook group entitled ‘You know you’ve studied abroad in Germany when…’, and at number 14… ‘You know what the “German stare” is’.

Name change!

February 1, 2010 Blog No comments

I bet you all thought Insert Title Here was actually the real title eh??

So this blog will be called Can’t Say Strawberry from now on, not that the URL or anything changes as a consequence, but if any of you (three) readers have me bookmarked, then the title needs to be changed!

As for the reason… well.

Being thrust into a world run by a completely different language has many different challenges, from grammar and vocabulary to just not being able to understand what the hell everyone around you is on about. Lots of ‘pardons?’ (or ‘bitte?’ in my case, but I seem to just utter a dumbfounded ‘’schuldigung?’ every time) and patience are required.

But then there’s that accent problem, you know, that thing that completely gives away your un-nativeness, your status as foreigner trying desperately to master the lingo, bumbling through your ‘ich bins’, ‘ich wills’ and ‘darf ich auf der Toilette gehen bittes’ to get to some sort of conclusion. Pronunciation gives a lot away! I’ve never had a problem with the ‘ch’ sound, being fluent in Welsh, but that’s only half of it. I find that speaking German often makes me thirsty from the effort of trying to sound as German as possible. So far I have been mistaken as Dutch, so I’ll take that one as a compliment!

Despite this effort, I still can’t bloody say Erdbeere – or strawberry to us English native speakers. See the problem becomes apparent every time I order a crepe from the crepe stand at Dortmund Hauptbahnhof – ‘einmal Crepe mit Erdbeere bitte’ I say, but try as I might, I can never escape the look of confusion and the ‘bitte?’ or ‘mit was?’ that follows. People have suggested that maybe I go for the easier to pronounce Nutella Crepe, but NO, I want my Erdbeere Crepe bitte!!

I thought it would make a good title anyway because this blog was begun in order to document my year abroad, and it’s a fairly interesting title if I ever wanted to open a shop or something like that!

For those who want to know, this is how Erdbeere is meant to sound – but when I say it, it sort of comes out more as ‘ARDDBAAAAAAAR’ (why I’ve been cutting off the –eh bit at the end I don’t know) So, any readers out there with pronunciation troubles like me? Perhaps you’re on a year abroad too and are all too familiar with the confused look from locals? I’d love to hear your stories!