Well, not only German - the Austrians have it as well, but it's not that common in most other countries. Even though it's so nice...


What I am talking about? The Schorle. In case you never heard about it, a Schorle is a mixed drink consisting of about half (carbonated) water and half something else - the most typical non-alcoholic Schorle would be the Apfelschorle (water and apple juice), but there's lots of other juices used for Schorle as well. You can also get Schorle in the alcoholic version, with either red or white wine mixed with water.

During NESAT in Esslingen, I was a little surprised that a lot of the non-Germans and non-Austrians didn't really know the concept. One Swede actually professed getting addicted to this Schorle stuff - and I can understand that: it's really neat. You get a large drink that has some sparkle and a lot of taste, but is not as sweet-and-sticky as pure juice would be. And Apfelschorle, mixed with three quarters water and one quarter juice, is about isotonic as well (says the German wikipedia, which, in contrast to the English wikipedia, has a lot to say about the topic).

When I was younger, there was a different Schorle version quite usual as well: Applejuice mixed half-and-half with lemonade (the sweet clear carbonated "lemon"-flavored kind), the so-called "Apfelschorle süß" (süß means sweet) in contrast to the "Apfelschorle sauer" (sour, you probably guessed it). It seems, however, that everybody ordered the sour kind mixed with water, since the sweet version has about disappeared from menus everywhere now. A while ago, we found a menu where the sweet kind was still printed, and everyone on the table sort of went "Wow, they still have that??"

So... in case you are looking for a nice summer drink that's healthier than pure juice or soft drinks, but still has taste - and does quench thirst very nicely - you might want to try this Schorle stuff. I've been having it all my life, and if I'm not in need of a caffeine jolt, it's still my staple order in a restaurant or pub. And I think it's an idea worth spreading.

I stumbled across this yesterday, and it's so weird that I just have to share it with you.

Here you go: A WTF lamb.

I'm back from a wonderful long weekend spent upholding a nice tradition - once a year, I meet up with a small group of likeminded folks to do some bookbinding. This year, for a change, I had no huge list of things that I really needed (or wanted) to get done during the weekend - and since I was quite tired, I did not have such an output as in some of the previous years... but nice chats with people I only see once a year, and I made a few boxes and a protector for knitting pattern sheets that I take with me - and a new "conference book".

Back in 2008, I decided that it would be really nice to have notes from conferences in one book instead of on this and that notepad or this and that single sheet of paper. So in May 2008, I made myself a bright green book, a bit larger than DinA4 (that was a happy accident - I wanted A4 and did not really measure after cutting the bound block) and slim enough to easily lug it to conferences. I have since taken it to every one I went to except one, where I left it at home, and it's filled up almost completely now (I blame the last NESAT, where I took copious notes). I suspect it will still last for Leeds, but after that, I really need a new one.

So I made one - with the same measurements, a tad thicker, and with bright colours. It's the yellow-cloth-and-seventies-wallpaper bound book that you see in the front of the picture - and behind it is a box to hold my wool combs.


And now it's back to normal work - like trying to get the webshop to run, and finishing the spinning I have to do.

This Thursday was a holiday here in Germany, and thus we have a long weekend - so you get no proper blog post today. Instead, I hope you find this just as amusing as I did...


Regular blogging (where I'll try harder to write about things interesting to you) will resume on Monday.

It's been really nice and sunny here for several days now, and everything is exploding in bloom - especially those trees that give me hayfever. So while I'm really enjoying the utterly fine weather, I'm also looking forward to some nice, cleansing rain (that is fortunately forecast for tomorrow). And speaking of spring and spring happiness, here's a very good (and evil!) song that we stumbled across this weekend:

I'm sorry for the unannounced blog silence - our internet somehow stopped working yesterday evening, and I was without access for the morning and part of the afternoon. The friendly helpdesk man, however, told me they'd take care of it and fix the problem - and lo and behold, the Internet is back again.

Proper blogging again tomorrow!

During the past two days,  I stumbled across some very awesome and teeny-tiny stitchery. Check out these websites showing miniature stitchery of landscapes on background skies painted with textile colouring and embroidery for dollhouses in scale 1:12 (scroll down a bit, to "Beispiele"). While personally I'm not really a fan of petit point (contintental tent stitch on the Wikipedia page), because there's more embroidery thread in the back of the work than in the front, and I am much too cheap for that, those examples on the website are incredibly impressive and almost make me want to try it.

Just almost, don't you worry. I'll stick with my nice, large stitches over two threads on 20-threads-per-cm linen for a good while longer.

And finally a really nice video (h/t to Arachne, who facebooked this) with indubitable proof that textile works, creativity and innovation are never very far from each other: