Sometimes I actually sew, you know!

While we were in Germany this month we found much to our delight that Hans' distant cousin HAS A WINERY!!!!

Oh happy day!



Here is Hans standing in the door to their business. They've been making wine for years but now that the 'Sohn' (our age) in the Werner & Sohn has taken over there's a bit of concern because you see, he only has daughters and they have no desire to continue the family tradition.

I just hope that the Sohn is around for a long time!

Cousin Marianna treated us to a wine tasting at the family home and I surprised myself when I discovered I absolutely loved one of their sweet wines. Normally they make me shudder but I couldn't get enough of theirs. In addition to the many wines, very expertly described by the owners, we had freshly baked bread from their kiln, elk pepperoni, and an assortment of cheeses.

Toward the end of the evening Bernard brought out an unmarked bottle which I learned he'd pulled from their 1976 stock and apparently it had been a very good year.

I think it was too.

Anyway we ended up ordering a case of assorted wines to be sent to us here in the states and I'm anxious for its arrival.

And as for a true test as to how good their wine was; I woke up headache free the next day.







All the greenery you see here are vineyards.

Actually Germany has many fine wines, they're just not that well known in our area.

Hans says that's because they keep all the good stuff to themselves!












This is Trittenheim, and Baby Brother has an oil painting of that little yellow church before the town grew up around it. Cousin Bernard drove us to the top of a lookout so we could get pictures of the valley.

I wish I had a better camera.

















Here are just a few of the bottles we sampled.

I tried to transfer this picture onto photo transfer fabric (purchased from Nicole Mallalieu) and I think I need to monkey around with my printer settings. It worked; it's just a little washed out (see next picture).














I then sewed the finished transfer to the front pocket of my Passport Purse.

I didn't put Velcro at the top of this pocket because I didn't want to stitch into the picture.




















A close up.

You can see that it's slightly grainy.


























Here's the back. Instead of another outer pocket, I added a more secure zipper pocket.
























I also made an adjustable shoulder strap.

I couldn't find small tri-slides so I substituted a vest buckle.

















The zippered gusset at the top of the bag.

















And I used one of the Werner wine corks as my zipper pull. As a thank you for showing us such a wonderful time, I'm going to send this particular bag to Bernard's wife. She's the tasting expert of the company.

On our next trip to Germany we hope to find relatives who own a brewery!