# -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
bla = u"grümblz"

# works
"bla" + bla + "bla"

utf8_bla = bla.encode('utf-8', 'strict')

# works
print utf8_bla + "bla"

from qt import *

qbla = QString(bla)

# Bails out: AttributeError "encode"
print qbla.encode('utf-8', 'strict') 

# Bails out: UnicodeDecodeError
print str(qbla).encode('utf-8', 'strict')