Books, Clocks and Dancing Buildings

On our recent visit to Prague, whilst searching for a Post Office we wandered into a rather large building expecting to find Post Office counters and mail boxes. Instead we found this!

As soon as we were close enough to see that this was made of books we realised that we had wandered into the library by mistake!

This book tower was amazing, it ran the full height of the building, which was at least three storeys high. This photo was taken on the first floor so peeping through the gap in the front you could see right down to the basement or right up to the top floor.

We eventually found the Post Office around the corner :)

Around another corner we found another amazing feat of engineering.

This is the Town Hall clock in the Old Town Square in Prague, isn't it glorious?

The mechanism for this clock dates from between 1552 and 1572, which is pretty mind-blowing too.

The bottom dial, which was replaced in 1866, represents a calendar with peasant scenes to illustrate the months of the year.

The top dial, seen here in close-up, has a wealth of information on it. The hand with the sun on it records three different times, the outer ring for Old Bohemian time (of use only to Old Bohemians!), the Roman Numerals inside that ring records current time, the blue part inside the Roman Numerals represents daylight hours, which vary from summer to winter. The inner ring shows the movement of the sun and moon through the 12 signs of the zodiac. It makes digital clocks look exceedingly boring!

As well as all of the above to take in, there is a floorshow to be seen on the hour :) The two figures on the right hand side of the clock are Death (the skeleton) and the Turk. At each hour Death pulls on the rope in his hand and inverts the hourglass in his hand, the Turk shakes his head from side to side. Vanity, on the left hand side, meanwhile is gazing at himself in the mirror next to his friend Greed.

But that is not all!

Above the dials the windows open and a procession of the Twelve Apostles pass by peering out of the open windows in turn.

Needless to say it is not difficult to tell when an hour approaches if you are anywhere near the vicinity of the clock. The whole show is over in a flash, but is definitely worth the wait.

Although buildings such as the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle above are how most people think of the city, there is a modern side to this beautiful city too.

Nowhere is this better epitomised than in the aptly named Dancing House. 

The building was completed in 1996, and was not universally popular at the time of its' construction, but now is as much of a landmark as its' Baroque and Art Nouveau neighbours. It is even more fun when lit up at night, but we didn't get a chance to see that. Maybe next time :)

Linking up as ever to

Cozy clocks and re-purposed shirts

We had a beautiful, sunny, but cold weekend here in Riga so took the opportunity to have a wander around the Old Town centre. I couldn't resist taking a photo of this clock to share with you, obviously the temperature is colder than I thought if the clocks need to have covers.

Laima is a chocolate factory here in Latvia and the Laima clock is a well-known meeting place in the centre of the Old Town. I can't imagine how long it must have taken to produce a knitted cover for the clock and would love to have been around when the clock was being dressed. Knitting is not my forte, unfortunately, despite my mother being an excellent knitter. I have bursts of enthusiasm and buy lovely wool and fancy needles but always end up adding to the basket of UFO's as the finishing off throws me every time. Perhaps I should sign up to a Knitting WIP challenge, but then again maybe not!

My favourite part of the whole knitted outfit was the scarf, how sweet for the clock to have its own scarf! I shall have to try and keep a lookout for when the knitted outfit comes off, as that must mean that the winter is officially over :)

Whilst waiting impatiently for the next blocks of the Sew Happy QAL and the HST BOM due this week I decided to work on another cushion in one of the colours of the rainbow. Having decided that blue would be the colour, I rummaged around in my scrapbag and came up with enough fabric pieces to have a go at a cushion pattern I had seen in the May 2009 issue of British Patchwork and Quilting. (I knew it was worth keeping that magazine!)

The cushion pattern is called Fleur Audrey and is also available online here so I have called my version Fleur Bleu. The cushion front and back are both cut from a discarded business shirt of my husband's, which was the perfect shade of pale blue for the background. He disputes that it was discarded but it truly was! He will be "losing" more shirts in the future as I received, for Christmas, a copy of Juliet Bawden's book "The shirt off his back", which is full of great ideas for re-purposing men's shirts. I was already putting shirts in the laundry and thinking "that would make a great bag lining" so the possibilities have increased with ownership of Juliet's book :)

Finally, if the forthcoming London Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee are putting you in the mood for all things British, check out Sam's blog "Cup of tea and a Slice of cake aka UKMUMINUSA, where she is hosting a giveaway for her Union Jack pincushions. Details of the giveaway can be found here