Little escap(ad)e: "No Rules, Just Jeans."

After the end of my vacation I had two extremely difficult weeks in school. 

I started the training last year I was expecting strange experiences, being almost of grandmother age to some of my class mates, older than all the teachers, and higher educated already than any of them. But I figured I would stick it through with a view to the end goal, a diploma that would give me a secure job for the rest of my working life. Perhaps I am not mature enough, but these first two weeks of school after vacation tested every single strand of strength I have in me. I had not expected this training, and especially the school part, so emotionally difficult for me as it has been. I had a very very hard time enduring the still pubertarian sets of mind of some of the class mates, I have suffered in class session with poorly prepared teaching and a dulling method of dripping terms to be taken down in a text with prepared blanks which makes ‘learning’ almost impossible because nothing is self-acquired, everything is geared toward ‘learn by heart’ rather than ‘understand’. But most challenging has been the fact that I feel as if I am being treated like a child by these teachers, having to conform to a school regime which I find highly questionable. Not a good situation to be in. I was very close to dropping out twice, but am biting my tongue and hoping that some miracle will happen, patience and ease of mind will rain down from the heavens and I will find a way to push through.

In the middle of this particularly challenging stretch I had the fun of traveling with Barbara Lange to the opening of “No Rules, Just Jeans”. 

Barbara is the current Chair of the German Patchwork Guild, a wonderful quilt artist with a streak of creativity to her that has always kept me at awe. And she is always good for cheering someone up because there are so many things to laugh about when she is around, even when they might be serious indeed, that it was the best medicine to go about with her.

This exhibition, a challenge for German Guild members who had to sign up and received a small package the items in which had to be included in the quilts, is now showing at that Levis Museum in Buttenheim, which is located in Levis Strauss’ birthplace. 

We traveled by train, chattin along the way and stitching, too. When walking from the station to the museum, and thinking how much we assumed the look of the place had improved since the 1840s we still understood why Mr Strauss had emigrated…

The museum is (partly) funded by the company that sells the jeans, 

and it includes a photo of the house how it looked before the museum was established.

And it gives quite a bit of information on the evolution of that piece of clothing now so everpresent all over the world. For example, we learned that the idea for those little metal studs which have made apparel history was not Mr Strauss’ idea. But he was smart enough to grasp the opportunity when Mr Davis approached him to finance the patent and use that as the foundation for his company. 

The German Guild’s quilts made from Denim and some patches to sew on is an exhibition well worth a visit, and the presentation in the museum is fantastic. 

So should you be in the area before the end of January, go and have a look. Bamberg and Bayreuth and Nuremberg are close by for other places of interest, because Buttenheim doesn’t have much more on offer than this little jewel of a museum.