Only in Switzerland...

... where else would people put this sign up on their garage door AND mean it???

Suuser chilbi

Happy Wednesday everyone! I thought I would share with you the reason behind my hangover on Saturday night... All was done in the name of Swiss culture and tradition so it was all worth it. As I have told you before, Meilen has several vineyards and we have been to wine tasting/events in the past in particular when they involved sampling our favourite winemaker’s products. For those of you who are new to Made in Suisse, you can read about it here and here.

The grapes have been harvested a couple of weeks and the 2011 wine is in the making. However, we don’t have to wait until 2012 to sample this year’s harvest…no no no! Let’s drink it now!

Technically speaking, this isn’t wine but suuser: fermented grape juice.  Depending on the amount of fermentation that has taken place, you obtain suuser of different strengths. The most alcoholic one is on the left (Manne suuser: for the men), followed by Wysser suuser for the ladies and finally Kinder suuser (grape juice with traces of alcohol). The problem with suuser is that it tastes like juice, so you drink it like juice and before you notice we had drunk 2 litres between the 4 of us. And did we feel it later on that day…!

A whole street in Meilen had been closed off for the celebrations which kicked off at 2pm precisely on Saturday with men firing fierce looking heavy guns.

This was followed by what had to be one of the funniest moment of the day, our local brassband rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa. I will spare you the video but credit to them, it was raining hard and they were lively.

The brass band was very clever, blocking the entrance to the heated tent so that we all had to stand and watch before we could get inside to order drinks and food. We had some traditional Swiss fare including some deep-fried sage leaves which taste a lot better than they sound. They tasted like mini Yorkshire puddings with a hint of sage….delicious!

There was the usual bratwurst stand but I decided to try another Swiss delicacy: Hörnli best described as macaroni with mince. The mince and the sauce almost tested of game and the dish was surprisingly different from pasta Bolognese and very good.

We left at around 4pm and spent the rest of the day full and a bit snoozy: suuser happiness!

We’ll be back next year!

Mini-quilt

Good morning everyone!

I am sooooooooooo excited to share with you my latest FO for Handmade Monday!! It started as a bit of a crazy challenge but it ended up being quite pleasant to make and so rewarding!! What is it??

I am Made in Suisse's first mini-quilt!!

I bought a pack of 42 *5 inch squares of  Buttercup Moda Fabric from Sewsweetpetunia on Etsy with this project in mind. I only used half of the pack to make my mini-quilt. The colours are very nice and the different fabrics do really compliment each other.

I chose this cute hedgehoh fabric for the back. I got this piece as an off-cut at a craft fair I attended a year ago in Glasgow so I can't tell you what designer/make it is. It's a real shame because those hedgehogs are damn irresistible!

Assembling the squares together was really easy but required a lot of measuring and precision to ensure that all of the squares were roughly of the same dimensions. To make my life easier, I decided to cut the backing fabric bigger (with an extra 4 inches of all sides) and to use the surplus fabric to create the edges. Because my sewing machine does not have a quilting foot, I ended up quilting by hand ( you can see I used yellow cotton to make knots at the intersections of the squares to secure all three layers in place). I think it worked very nicely.

Front view

Back view

The finished mini-quilt is about 45 inches square and will be a very cosy little snuggle blanket for a lucky niece this Christmas. Considering making the quilt only took me about 3 hours and how nice the end product is (if I say so myself...), I would say that this IS a winner!

Right, I am off to check what my fellow crafters have been up to over at Handmade Monday x

Us zoologists...

... cannot visit a new city without checking out the local Natural History, or also known as Zoology, museum.

As far back as I can remember, I have always loved animals and been amazed by the diversity of Life on this planet. I kept ants in plastic tubs as a child just to be able to watch them go about their daily business. David Attenborough is my idol and if it wasn't for feeling uncomfortable enough to faint at the sight of blood/organs, I'd probably be a vet.

So I went down the Zoology degree route instead and, even though what I do today as a scientist is only vaguely related to cute furry animals, I love Zoology museums. I had been to visit the Zoology museum in Zürich when Mr T and I flew there for a long weekend last year to consider whether Mr T should accept his job offer at the University. Made in Suisse back then wasn't born so I hadn't really taken photos of my visit. However, my friend Gus arrived on Wednesday to stay with us for a week. He is a zoologist too, so off we went on Thursday for a quick tour of the museum.

The museum's grand entrance

The 2 of us have seen quite a few Zoology museums in our time and have to admit that this one is very good.

Giant sloth

Why are the coolest-looking animals all extinct?

Apart from being very big (displays on 2 floors), it is very well set up, well lit and the animals are displayed in a very clever way. There is a lot of educational aids for children available, microscopes t play with and they organise tours for children of all ages. We visited at the same time as a class and the seem to have a lot of fun.

Whe you think you've seen them all, there are more downstairs!

Display cases show animals from around the world, grouped by continent/ecosystems.

Giant armadillo- South America

The bird displays are very colourful and truly shows you the diversity of sizes/shapes and colours in only one group of the animal kingdom.

Everywhere you look around, you witness the wonders of Evolution... It blows my mind EVERY time!

In the same building as the Zoolog museum, you can find a Paleontology museum we didn't have the time to visit but which, given the quality of the Zoogy museum, is sure to be a treat.

We made our way into the Old Town, walking past the University and ETH main buildings...

... stopping for a few minutes to enjoy the view of Zürich from the esplanade!

For kids (and parents alike), the Zoology museum in Zürich is a wonderful (and free!) way to spend a couple of hours.

Have a lovely Sunday! We're off to a pumpking tomorrow so do come back to hear about that!

Silent Thursday

Cuddle time

A job long overdue...

Shame finally got hold of me on Sunday...

As someone who regularly posts on here about her sewing (granted I am no expert but I manage!), I spent the last 8 months staring at these every single day:

What's wrong with these I hear you say? Well, IKEA made these curtains absolutely fine (if not a bit long). They are not the world's best looking curtains but they do the job of obstructing the view onto the neighbours' balcony.

But look a little closer... first to the side panels then to the ones in the middle...No, this isn't a clever optical illusion...the ones in the middle ARE longer than the sides one. You need proof??

Here it is!

I wasn't drunk or stonned when making these but it turned out that neither of the 4 panels were the same length  after I cut them (I measured them on Sunday; 120/122/123 and 124 cm!!) and "hemmed" them using interfacing and an iron. I was so mad with myself (and yet so not bothered to do something about it) that the curtains stayed up. It has been an eyesore (and a source of endless entertainement for my mother and mother-in-law) ever since.

The landlady actually paid for the curtains and since we are moving out in 3 weeks, I started feeling guilty about leaving the silly-looking curtains behind, for them to be an eyesore for another innocent couple. So on Sunday...8 months later...I finally took them down to measure them all up again and make a proper hem with the sewing machine. I am ashamed to say this didn't even take me an hour...that was extreme laziness on my part not to have sorted them before.

That's a long overdue job well done!

Am I the only one putting silly easy tasks off?

Handmade Monday

Remember the hat I casted on last weekend? Well, this proved to be one of the easiest and most satisfying knitting project I have done in a long time. For my fellow knitters out there, you can go and check the details on my Ravelry page (click on the tab on the left-hand side of the blog).

This was knitted in a few evenings with some left-over wool I had in my stash:

I am kicking myself for not keeping the details of the yarn. I have used it for various projects before and they always turned out beautifully. I think it really suits this little hat too!

I often find that wooly hats can sometimes look a bit odd on my head so I wasn't intending to keep it...but I tried it on upon completion and secretly thought that I did not look like too much of a weirdo with it...what do you think?

I guess it is hard to tell considering that I have one giant camera in front of my face! Maybe just take my word for it! I may just be selfish and keep it for myself...

If you need more of a crafty fix, go and check out the Handmade Monday crowd over here!