100 years after...

On August 1, 1924, my grandparents on my mother's side got married. (Only in the last few days did I start wondering how much of their attention was directed towards the first Paris Olympics back then…? Olympics being an importanst part of my family history, but that is a different story.) Fifty years later we celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary with a boat tour on the steamer on Lake Ratzeburg.

My grandparents as the jubilee couple in front of the brick cathedral.
My grandmother absolutely loved this Norwegian cardigan and
wore it until it virtually fell to pieces, at which point my mother sat down,
copied the pattern in colored pencils and we then proceeded to recreate
the piece. I got to do the major part, knitting the body and the top part
after the body had been joined with the sleeves, which my mother had made.
We knit with rather different gauge, so it was a bit of an awkward piece in the end,
definitely the result of a labor of love rather than a beautiful piece...

 

A document of family history: my cousin on the left, me, my father,
my two brothers and my aunt who was living in Eastern Germany
and had received permission to come for this celebration. Despite the adults' efforts
of persuasion she refused to 'stay in the West' despite the fact that her
marriage was on the rocks already. She did not want to be dependant on
anybody and thus faced another 15 years behind the iron curtain because
after separating from her husband she never was never again given a permit to travel
and reunite with her parents, until the Wall came down.
By then both my grandparents had passed away.

Having recently moved ‘back’ to Ratzeburg I thought I would do a very personal commemoration of that event by taking that same boat ride, only it could not happen on August 1, so I went a week before.

 I just love this lake and am very happy that I decided to go for this big change in my life. Even if it meant that there is some upheaval going on right now and I still don’t know when that will end…

 

The day after that boat ride I went south to see my family and continue packing up our house for the grand move in the end of September. The big spinning wheel and the big sewing machine have already been transferred to the new apartment and my possibilities for making and creating have slimmed down. But since there is no time for that right now anyway I would rather have these two items transported securely by ourselves, and not trusting them to the moving services team.

 

But I had already shipped my contribution to this year’s SAQA Benefit Auction, which will take place in September. As readers of this blog may have heard my last two contributions did not fare exactly as one would have wished – two years ago my piece sold at the last minute, a few days before Christmas, from the SAQA store, and last year I took my piece with me at the end of Houston Quiltfestival and then gifted it to a good friend of mine.

However, I was early in making mine this year. I managed to ensure some clandestine shipment option early on, saving a number of euros in postage, and had a secret contributor who kindly shipped the little item from within the US. It has a two-digit-inventory number in the listing (not that that is something to be particularly proud of, but I noticed when I scrolled through last night.) Now I am hoping that this year’s piece will be a little more successful.

It was crafted from leftover blocks and pieces in my boxes, feeding creative juices after the pandemic, which consequently found its way into the title as “p.C” (meaning ‘post Covid’).

 

Small Study in Blue and Yellow (p.C.), 2024

Let’s see how it fares… You can preview the auction pieces here: https://www.saqa.com/auction

A Towel, somewhat slanted

 I confess, when I wrote my last post, it was a little bit with a mind towards 'talking about it all may take the dynamics out of it and perhaps things will turn to the better'. Rest assured, so far it hasn't. New happenings on the parents' health front, and being in the midst of packing, sorting, clearing out... I wonder how I can cope with it all, and I do wonder, when things will get better!

In any case - to please my battered little soul I gave in to temptation. Anybody who has been reading this blog for a little while may have noticed that I have been struck with a bit of infatuation with Sarah C. Swett and her textile adventures, and am an avid reader and big fan of The Gusset on Substack. 

My Sweater Somewhat Slanted is still in the making.

 

A few weeks ago she posted about her handspun and handwoven towels and showed pictures that were so lightweight and enchanting that I felt very much of the "Oh, I would loooove to have one like that" kind of yearning. Of course, I haven't spun any linen yet, nor milkweed (but I do think hers were made from linen), nor do I have any weaving equipment left in the house. (And being in the middle of a move to a smaller place there is no possibility of acquiring anything in that direction any time soon.) I do have linen to spin, but it didn't make it to the top of my spinning projects list that is currently being worked on with the Tour de Fleece 2024.

But as I was rummaging through my yarn stash I came across a large bag of natural colored cotton which had been a sweater and was taken apart a while ago, and something gave me the immediate feeling that this is the closest I was going to get to a handmade towel anytime soon. Again using the self-delusory trick of telling myself that one slip stitch is not casting on, I started to knit a towel. Planning as I go, embracing mistakes, adjusting the separating number of stitches between the stitch patterns on the go when I have miscounted, I am slowly working on it.

Of course, it is nothing as airy as the woven ones by Sara, in fact, it looks a bit clumsy. It won't be exactly lightweight, first of all because it is cotton, and secondly because knitting does not result in as lightweight a product as weaving. Which may in fact lead to the experiment being reduced in size, although I am determined to make it more sizeable than a wash cloth. Not sure how outside factors may come into this decision making process. But in times when there is basically no free minute to sit down at the sewing machine it is fun to have something 'new' to pick up to keep my hands busy.

2024 Half-year evaluation

 

When I was young, I always thought life would become easier as one grows older. Less emotional excitement, slowing down regarding ambitions, cares and worries. Growing more and more content with what one has achieved, looking around in a stable and richly populated circle of friends that could be trusted and relied on. My grandparents always seemed to be content like that.

Now I am headed towards turning 60 next year and I am beginning to ask myself where in my many turns in life did I take the wrong one …? Because somehow this idealizing image of old age just doesn’t seem to be materializing me. (And I am not assuming I am just not old enough yet for it to happen.)

This year started off wonderfully, the new job in the new town to where I had been dreaming myself for many years, the lake… Then in mid-February things started going wrong with a sudden development I won’t talk about here unless it has been resolved completely. Add serious health issued with rather elderly parents on both sides, the need for relocation on one side (luckily resolved!), and actually on the other side as well (no insight yet, and no preparations made), my husband’s decision to change congregation in the fall which means we have to sort, diminish and pack up our household of 19 years, as my son is going off to university starting in September and I am moving into my own apartment in Ratzeburg – and now, unexpectedly, the news that the practice where I started work in January will not keep me after probationary period. The reasons given are rather vague and sketchy, they refer to minor aspects of work that could easily be fixed if I had been told and were given a chance, but I am not. (Nor was I being told about them in due time, only immediately before the last days of probationary period.) I figure there must something else that is the real reason and not being talked about. This is an experience I am finding a bit difficult to process, and which I certainly did not need at this particular point.

By now I think this year is a strong contender for being one of the worst years in my life, and it’s only half over …

But: my husband and I agreed that I will look for a new job in Ratzeburg, because that is where we want to live when he retires in five and a half years.  So I went back up north to find a new job. I get to keep enjoying the lake, and I will keep my new apartment. Fortunately, there are many jobs for nurses to be found, and even though I had not wanted to go back into hospital and working three shifts plus Sundays, this is what has happened. I have started work on a ward, I have another probationary period to fullfil - by the end of the year I will have worked the entire year ‘under probation’. It all has been a lot more upheaval and excitement than I appreciate, I must say. I do hope things are slowing down now.

Before I left home I worked on my piece for 20 Perspectives’ latest challenge, ‘Conversing with the Earth’, the reveal within the group has happened and you can find the individual descriptions of group pieces on the 20 Perspectives Blog. Not surprisingly, my piece is not quite finished. But I will get back to it when I return home and to my sewing machine at the end of this week.

 

And, as the berry bushes in our garden were getting ready, at least a part of them, I started my last berry season. As far as I know there isn’t much yet growing in the garden which comes with my husband’s new job, and since we are only going to be there for a few years before he retires, I am not certain yet how much time and money I am going to invest by planting new currant bushes. This is one of the two poignant parts of the prolonged good-bye we have entered into, the other being that I will definitely miss the outdoor pool.

 

 

Currently in Ratzeburg, as I don't have a decent sewing machine here nor any fabrics, I am spinning along with the Tour de Fleece 2024

 

and enjoying the lake whenever I get the chance.

 Living nearby the lake, with only a 3-minute-walk that takes me to a place where I can swim or SUP (and many other places to choose from) is indeed a dream come true. So the year cannot keep being as difficult as it has been lately.

Grief

 About 17 years ago, perhaps even a bit more, I had to take my son to the children's hospital in Landshut because of an irregularity in his heart beat, and for a while we thought he might have a problem because of a small hole in his cardiac septum. When a second inspection a few months later showed that everything was fine because the hole had closed up I was, of course, relieved tremendously. While waiting for procedures during these visits (and later, too, whenever we had to spend a Saturday afternoon in the emergency room of that hospital because he had dropped a heavy air pump on his toe which then had to be puntuated in the toe nail to relieve pressure, or stuff similar to that like lively boys do) I saw a small poster about a charity project by the former Medical Director of the hospital who had gone to live in Ruanda after he retired, performing surgeries on children that could not easily be obtained there and had set up a charity called "Kinderhilfe in Ruanda" to support children and their families. I was so relieved that I could take a healthy child home who did not need any surgery, and who had all the medical options and opportunities spread out before him that I started supporting that charity.

I donated all revenue from my one and only knit-along to them.

Picture from ravelry of one prototype of my
shoulder wrap that was the topic of the knit-along.

 

Whenever I am giving away a quilting book, utensils or fabric that I don't  need anymore and people ask me what they owe me for that I request they make a donation to that charity instead.

Dr. Jahn wrote a book about his story - he grew up in Eastern Germany, left the country in 1963, served as a doctor on a ship in Vietnam, and was the long-time medical director of that children's hospital in Landshut before going to Ruanda, which I read several years ago and which impressed me deeply. Not only was he performing surgeries, he also took in homeless children and made it possible for them to attend school and learn a trade.

I have never met Dr. Jahn personally, although I know that acquaintances of ours know him, and I was always thinking I would try and ask them whether we could arrange a meeting should they know if he was coming to Germany for a visit. I was shocked when I read in the paper a couple of years ago that he had been attacked and robbed - by a former protégée! He barely survived but then again continued practising medicine for children, and helping their families, heavily affected by post-Covid effects on food prices, or floodings. Sometimes he would send an email newsletter to keep supporters informed, sometimes a short notice would appear in the local paper.

Today I read in the paper that he passed away in Ruanda recently.

 I am sad about this. A completely self-less person, who put his entire being into the service of others, particularly children. But I was glad to read in the final paragraph that two adoptive sons are planning to continue his work in cooperation with the organization in Landshut. There will be opportunities again to ask for donations, and I wonder whether I should run the knit-along once more? I'm afraid I don't have time right now to concoct a new one, but as I gave away every single prototype I made, and the scarf I knitted while the knit-along as well I don't have one for myself, so it would be a good way to get myself a scarf for myself, after all these years.

I have written about the Christmas postcards Dr. Alfred Jahn used to send and am wondering whether his adoptive sons mentioned in the article will send one this year, too. Or whether I won't receive another letter with stamps from Ruanda again. It used to be one highlight during the pre-Christmas season to see the beautiful card inside... May he rest in peace.

75th Anniversary

 

Photo of the front page article from the daily
newspaper "Die Welt" from May 23, 2024

Last Thursday, May 23^rd, marked the 75th anniversary of Germany’s ‘Grundgesetz’, which translates as ‘Basic Law’ (you can find the English translation here) and is Germany’s constitution. Its name derives from the fact that it was passed by a legislative convention that included members from only three of the then occupied sections of Germany, the American Sector, the British Sector, and the French Sector. Representatives from the Russian Sector were not included as the Cold War was already in its beginning stages, a unified Germany was not in the interest of the Russian occupiers. The convention declared a continued interest in aiming for a unified Germany, therefore this linguistic specification.

The document included paragraphs that left open the option for the other parts of Germany to join the union, two different possibly ways to achieve reunification were outlined, and the Federal Republic of Germany with a clear West-orientation was on its way.

The Russian Sector passed a separate constitution a few months later, leading to a de facto separation of the two German states that would last forty years, until just a few months respectively weeks after the celebrations of the 40^th anniversaries of the two different documents, when dissatisfaction, demonstrations in the Eastern part of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Empire led to the opening of borders in November 1989 and political reunification in October 1990.

The Grundgesetz aimed to improve on deficiencies of the constitution of the Weimar Republic, learn from other democratic countries and their experiences and was worded explicitly to make it impossible to have developments such as the destabilisation of democracy as had happened during the Weimar years that then led to the dictatorship of Hitler and his Nazi regime.

We were taught to be proud about the Grundgesetz, and although I have always had an emotional difficulty with calling myself (and being) German because of the historic load that comes with it, I have indeed always been patriotic about the intentions expressed in that document. I must not be the only one with this condition as there exists a special term for this feeling, "Verfassungspatriotismus", i.e. patriotism for the constitution. As a political constitution I think it is really pretty darn good. Even if there are flaws in its execution in some areas, and I do not agree with some of the changes that were made in later years. (A two-thirds majority is needed in both chambers of parliament to enable a change in the wording, and there are a few articles that are not open to attempts at alteration.)

I made a quilt that runs the text of the first (unalterable) article, “Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar” (‘Human dignity is untouchable’). 

 

Part of the text messages series: Article 1

It was part of the SAQA Europe-Middle East exhibition “Made in Europe” a few years ago, and on display at FoQ, and it sold recently. So it got out there, and it’s maybe having some impact now.

These words were also one of the driving motivations behind my long and intensive involvement with refugees, which is still ongoing on a smaller level, even though I don’t talk about it much anymore. (I might, once the current bout of uncertainty is over, but only, if it turns into success.)

Likewise, my love and appreciation for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is grounded on these words, as they were drawn in part from that document. UDHR has been influential in several of my quilts, the words appear as the quilting and title of “Everyone has the Right” and “#UDHR” from a few years ago.

My strong feelings about justice, equality and human rights has made it rather difficult to live with a peaceful mind in the last years as more and more wars are erupting in so many different areas of the world, social justice seems to be eroding in developed countries and the countries that developed countries have been exploiting, climate and plastic crisis is increasing and so on and so on. I don’t know how to deal with all of this. And I don’t know whether making a quilt about that will help. So perhaps there won’t be any more ‘political’ quilts of mine? Who knows. I have no clue whether it makes sense to make quilts expressing a political opinion, what do you think?