family

This Is About Lilly

(my great-grandmother with my mother)

These days I find myself thinking a lot about my great-grandmother, Lilly.

Lilly was born whilst the First World War was raging outside Danish borders. Born into a poor family, she would pick grains from fields at dusk hoping to get enough for her mother to bake bread. At fourteen she was already working as a servant girl. At twenty (or twenty-one) she married her employer - a man nearly thirty years her senior. By this time she had already acted as a mother figure to her soon-to-be husband's seven motherless children. She would end up having eleven children of her own. Relying solely on her oldest children to help her, Lilly brought up eighteen (18) children in the 1930s and 1940s during the Great Depression and World War Two. The house had no running water and no central heating. The family lived off the land and whatever petty jobs could be had.

Lilly was in her sixties when I was born and she looked after me until I was old enough to start school. She brought me old dish rags on which I could embroider my name and I made dolls' clothes using her hand-crank Singer sewing machine. Her button box gave me endless hours of pleasure and it was passed down to me.

And she taught me to knit next to the kerosene stove in her living room.

Family lore has it that she fell out with her mother in the early 1930s and, as revenge, Lilly changed from knitting throwing-style to knitting Continental-style. They made up, but every subsequent generation of women was taught to knit Continental-style by Lilly. She was a formidable, smart woman who played the long game. Lilly would have made an excellent army general.

These days I think a lot about Lilly and her generation. I heard her stories about World War Two (during which Denmark was occupied) and these stories run through my head when I see people talking about inspiring WW2 heroes and kicking Nazi butt.

I was brought up in a family very much altered by World War Two. Someone came home to dinner one night wearing a uniform as he had signed up to guard Allied prisoners. I never knew that family branch existed until Lilly's funeral and his son showed up. Lilly's oldest brother went into the Resistance and when he passed away (at age 100!), we found a medal. The files are still sealed by the government and my great-granduncle refused to utter as much as a word about the War. We have no idea what he did but his eyes spoke volumes. My grandmother recalls seeing planes flying over the fields, columns of emaciated German soldiers marching through the village and Lilly ushering everybody into the threshing barn.

My great-grandmother taught me World War Two was a time of hardship, strife, loss, bitterness, and heartbreaking despair. Resistance heroes were ordinary men and women. They weren't "absolute legends", nor clickbait, nor Brad Pitt with a comedic accent, nor a jingoistic poster. Their actions ranged from whatever my great-granduncle did (but which affected him for the rest of his very long life) to Lilly's refusal to break bread with a family member. War is dirty and terrible - and I really dislike seeing people almost fetishising the idea of reliving World War Two in 2017. This is not a chance to live out your favourite films nor indulge in cosplay (link from 2010 but it still strikes me as tone-deaf). I genuinely wonder what part our collective sense of nostalgia has played in Recent Events - a sense of nostalgia that has been fed by the media we consume. How is it we react to things?

I don't honestly know where I am going with this. I really, really do not know. These days I just find myself thinking of Lilly a lot. I think of what she taught her daughter, her grand-daughter and what she taught me. Lessons of resilience and the many complexities of life. She would have turned 101 years this year and I honestly don't know what she would have made of this mess.

(Lilly with her parents, my great-great-grandparents)

In Her Soft Wind I Will Whisper

Lady on the left? My great-grandmother. She would have been a hundred years old today. The photo was taken in the early 1950s outside her cottage and she is with two of her sons, K and T.

I have several photos of her; my other favourite is from the 1930s when she was approached by a travelling salesman who wanted her to become a hair model. I presume she shot him one of her withering glances. The photo shows her with long, gorgeous hair. I was told it was chestnut-coloured. The photo is black/white.

I was lucky enough to grow up around her. She looked after me when I was pre-kindergarten and I spent most of my school holidays in her cottage. Her cottage did not have running water until I was maybe seven or eight and never got central heating.

I can still envision her sitting in her chair in front of the kerosene-fuelled stove. She'd knit long garter stitch strips from yarn scraps and sew them into blankets. She was the one who taught me to knit. She was certainly the one who taught me how to skip rope.

Happy birthday, momse. We may not always have seen eye to eye, but we loved and understood each other. And I still miss you.

Title comes from this beautiful farewell song (youtube link). Post reposted from previous years with Momse's age amended. I continue to miss her.

Crocheted with Love

April 2014 028 I often get asked how I ended up doing what I do for a living. Now that is a very long story - so I often just explain that I'm the fifth generation of very crafty, creative women. It's a simplification but it is also the truth. In 2011 I exhibited knitted art at Glasgow's Tramway gallery - my Homebound piece explored how the act of making tied my family together and how we make ourselves through the act of creation/crafting.

Today added another chapter to the story as I received a parcel from my lovely mum.

I own many handmade things handed down to me: a big blanket made by my great-grandmother; Hardanger-embroidered table clothes lovingly made by my gran; a christening gown which I believed was first sewn by my great-great-grandmother (then altered by my glamorous aunt Grethe); knitted cardigans and various embroidery pieces .. but I do not own many things made by my mum especially for me. That changed today, though.

My mum asked advice on colours, but otherwise this is her work. The squares are neatly joined with crochet and all ends are neatly woven in. My mum has always been very meticulous about her finishing - every time I weave in ends, I think of her! She used this Garnstudio pattern which surprised me as she usually just makes things up as she goes along. She was fairly faithful to it, though she reported she hated the edging and wishes she had just used one of her own ones. She's a Westermann, alright!

When I teach crochet, I tend to joke that my mum thinks I cheat by using relatively heavy yarns (i.e. double-knitting and worsted-weight) when I crochet. Mum usually uses fine hooks and fine yarns, but her new love for making blankets obviously translates into heavier yarns. And I think that is interesting: we develop and change as crafters throughout our entire lives.

The new blanket suits our living room - and I am very, very pleased to have received it. Do you think I could get away with asking for some matching pillows?

In Her Soft Wind I Will Whisper

Lady on the left? My great-grandmother. She would have been ninety-eight today. The photo was taken in the early 1950s outside her cottage and she is with two of her sons, K and T.

I have several photos of her; my other favourite is from the 1930s when she was approached by a travelling salesman who wanted her to become a hair model. I presume she shot him one of her withering glances. The photo shows her with long, gorgeous hair. I was told it was chestnut-coloured. The photo is black/white.

I was lucky enough to grow up around her. She looked after me when I was pre-kindergarten and I spent most of my school holidays in her cottage. Her cottage did not have running water until I was maybe seven or eight and never got central heating. I can still envision her sitting in her chair in front of the kerosene-fuelled stove. She'd knit long garter stitch strips from yarn scraps and sew them into blankets. I think she was the one who taught me to knit. She was certainly the one who taught me how to skip rope.

Happy birthday, momse. We may not always have seen eye to eye, but we loved and understood each other. And I still miss you.

Title comes from this beautiful farewell song (youtube link). Post reposted from 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 with Momse's age amended. I continue to miss her.

Sanity: Restored

Sea Spray

Oh how I wish I were still sitting here..

We unplugged ourselves from the world  - no computers and no smart-phones - and went up north for a mini-holiday. Dave grew up on Scotland's North East coast and I always love visiting his childhood landscape. The light is different up north - it is thinner and bluer - and to me it feels very Scandinavian. It was a joy to sit on the beach and watch the North Sea roll towards us again and again and again.

And although the light was thin and blue, it was also strong. The UK had another bad bout of weather this week, but somehow the North Sea Coast emerged relatively unscathed .. apart from sea foam. We basked in unexpected sunshine, skipped stones and tried to identify sea birds.

Skein of geese We had no trouble identifying these geese flying south for the winter. The birds were everywhere in the sky and flew in the most marvellous formations.

Auchquhorthies

And there were muddy fields too. We went in search of prehistoric sites near the coast and found two stone circles just 300 metres apart. It was an interesting walk towards the two sites as tractors had been working the muddy fields and we had to navigate our way around the worst tractor tracks whilst trying to avoid stepping in cow pats. One of us was successful (hint: it wasn't me). The two sites - Auchquhorthies and Old Bourtreebush - were my first UK stone circles and I'd be interested in following the Causey Mounth track. I'll need to invest in proper wellies first. And maybe learn how to pronounce "Auchquhorthies"..

Hattie

 It was sad having to leave our little beach haven with its stone circles, fishing huts and picturesque cottages. It was also sad saying adieu to family and new-found friends (such as Hattie the Horse with her on-trend haircut). Alas, the modern world awaits us and I have patterns to finish, samples to knit, and workshops to teach.

But it was good to get away for a few days. I feel a lot more sane than I did just a week ago.