Look What I Can Do!

A no-sew tunic!  Hot off the loom!!

Designed and woven by me.

Granted, it doesn't look that great on me, since I'm not so much shaped like a square.

But I made it :)

Mona And The MerPeople

I got a book of traditional Breton fairy tales from the library, and this evening I sat in the sun with the book, some bread, a wedge of cheese, and a can of tuna.  It was good fairy tale reading circumstances.



Once there was a girl who was so beautiful that people in her village whispered she must have been fathered by a merperson.  She didn't quite believe it, but it is always nice to think of yourself as somehow different from all the rest. 

She would sit and stare into the sea, wishing to see down to the depths to the marvelous country of the merpeople.  One day she uttered her wish out loud, which is always a dangerous thing to do.  The king of the merpeople showed up on the beach right then and there and absconded with her.  She was kind of freaked out, but then she met the prince.  They both fell in love with each other at once, but the king was not happy with that.  He had stolen Mona (that was her name) to be a servant, not a daughter-in-law. 

He fixed his son up with a nice mergirl and practically dragged them off to get married.  In the meantime, he gave Mona some impossible tasks that she had to complete or he would have an excuse to kill her.  Why the king of the merpeople didn't have the juristiction to off a land-lubber with no questions asked is beyond me, but anyway.  The prince managed to sneak away from his own wedding, found Mona in tears and despair, and used magic to help her complete her impossible tasks.  Again, the prince's utter refusal to imagine how else he could use his magic to be with his true love is mind-boggling.  But this is a fairy tale.  There are rules.

The king was not happy at finding the impossible tasks completed; he told Mona that, this time, she had to stand in the corridor outside of the prince's honeymoon suite (that is gastly torture, in and of itself) and hold a lit candle.  If the candle ever blew out, he would cut her head off.  The prince knows something is up, and he sends his wife out to tell Mona to go get something from the kitchens.  Mona gives the bride the candle, of course, and the bride (a truly innocent party, I might add) is the one holding the stupid thing when it blows out.  And, you guessed it, she gets decapitated. 

The prince freaks out at his dad for killing his wife and then grabs Mona's hand, and they head off to the church to get married (scant hours after his first marriage, imagine that!  Fairy tales aren't very sensitive).
They live happily ever after.




But wait!  There is a second act!  And this is the part that tugs on a part of me.

One day, after years of married bliss and growing to love her merprince more and more each day, Mona asks him if she can go home for a visit, the first she's had since she disappeared under the waves years before.  He is sad but lets her go, telling her not to forget him.  She promises, but as she starts her journey, she meets the bitter old king (remember him?) who tells her that she had better not kiss any male people, or she won't be able to return to the sea. 

She says she won't, but when she is greeted joyfully and incredulously by her parents who thought she was dead, she kisses her dad.  And in that moment, she forgets everything about her life in the land of the merpeople and about her true love, waiting for her in the deep. 

She picks her life up where she left it.  She had grown more and more beautiful living with the merpeople (which is saying a lot, since she was beautiful to begin with), and young men come from far and wide to seek her hand.  But she is not interested in any of them.  She can't really say why, can't put a finger on her reasons, but she isn't drawn to them.  Her heart doesn't seem to care enough.  So she remains single, living and working with her parents.

Then one night a huge storm rises.  It wakes her up in the middle of the night and, for some reason, the sound of the wind draws her outside.  She stands on the beach, soaked to the skin with the driving rain, and in the gale she hears the cries of the mourning merprince.  Suddenly it all comes back to her, her life and her love under the sea.  The joy of remembering and the sorrow of time lost flood through her.  There is only one life she wants, and it is far below.  She throws herself into the waves and is never seen again.

The villagers say she went mad and drowned herself, but her parents know better.  Every once in a while, they take long walks along the cliffs, looking down at the sea.  They miss their daughter but they are happy to know that she is happy. 

Fête De L'Arz

I went to a party/fair thing this weekend called the Fête de l'Arz.  The Arz is the river that runs through this area.  A swatch of land around the river was transformed into a carni-vintage-bohemian-eco-friendly paradise, complete with composting toilets instead of porta-potties and washing stations to clean the non-disposable dishes and utensils.  Armchairs and old carpets littered the area, along with innertubes and ancient exercise bikes.  One exercise bike was rigged to power a lamp and another to turn a little child-sized carousel.  Chandeliers, empty picture frames, strings of lights  and garland were hung all over.  A canopy over the bar was constructed out of old sails, and someone had built a raft to float in the river with a little bridge attaching it to the bank.  It was all delightful and also marvelously slap-dash.  Nothing had a finish to it; made me wonder if someone was a good enough designer to make it look haphazard, or if it really was as chaotically arranged as it looked.

It was donation-only and the food was seriously cheap.  I ate a crepe and have never been happier with the simple taste of sugar and butter in my life.

The music was the best part, though.  There were a few acapella groups on Friday night and a girl who played the guitar and sang what sounded like her own compositions.  I really liked her.  Saturday night, though; that was the jackpot.  Music that sounded like the fire-side revels of a gypsy caravan.  Music that made me think of the Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and France all at the same time.  It was impossible not to move to.  The fiddle or the accordian or the clarinet would play faster and faster and faster!  I had to buy their CD.

Then another band marched out in bomber jackets, helmets, and aviator goggles, with accents of bright orange.  And I'm sorry if I offend, but even if any group of American men would dare, I doubt that they could make neon orange and leather look so hot.  It was late and Manon and Anne-Sophie had already gone home, but I HAD to stay once they started playing.  They were just so good!  It was marching band plus rock band plus dreads plus Europe and they played the crowd as well as they played their instruments.  They even had groupies.  It was so sad when they finished; I had to buy their CD.

Please note: I was dancing a bit when I took these videos.
They aren't for watching.  They're for listening.

   

I had to bike home in the pitch black Breton night.  There were plenty of stars but no moon, and before I realized that my bike had a light on it, I rode into a patch of trees that arched over the road.  The darkness was so thick that the world seemed two dimensional.  If I didn't know better I would think I wasn't moving forward at all, that there was no more air to breathe.  I almost stopped breathing, the effect was so perfect.  (btw, there is a lovely addition to the metaphor of spiritual darkness and light in there, for those who care to find it.)  But don't worry; I got home safe and landed in my bed a little after midnight.  So worth it.

One Week Of Weaving Class

I learned how to weave this week. 

me and Bruno!

On Monday we talked about fibers and measurements and calculated how much warp (chaîne) one would need for three meters of 50cm-wide fabric.  By the afternoon we had prepared the thread on the warping frame and the next morning was spent warping the loom.  Talk about tedious.  Each thread has to be put through just the right lisse in just the right cadres (I don't know what those words are in English, haHa!  See below for a visual), one at a time.  But we were quick.  By the afternoon, Manon and I had finished warping both of our looms, learned the basics of weavers' notation and started weaving!!

my warping mill, complete with warp; 200 threads strong.

me and Manon, with our chains of chaîne

ah!  the precious crossing of the threads.  may the baguettes (those sticks) ever preserve it.

one thread at a time, in order, in the right pattern will determine the weave.  the vertical wires (lisses) have little holes, or eyes, in the middle, and there are four different frames (cadres) full of lisses.  Each thread had to go through the right lisse in the right cadre.

tying off the warp.  such simple tools and techniques, relied upon for centuries' worth of clothing and linens and sailcloth and everything.  it's amazing to me.

advancing the cross with the baguettes so that the warp can be wound.  winding requires tension, which will explain why i'm putting my whole weight into holding it taut.

tah dah!!  WARPED!!

i, Alexandra, just wove that.

see?  those are my knees.

see the cool things you can do with the same warp pattern?

this pattern is wonderfully 3D and is called 'gauffre', even in english.  gauffre means waffle in french.

then I played with color and texture.

we learned how to weave two layers of fabric at the same time.

and at the end i signed my name.

By the end of the week, we had both used all three meters of chaîne, which has never happened with Bruno's students before.  It was almost worrisome because he needed a warped loom for a demonstration today and he was planning on using the leftover warp from one of us.  Instead he taught us how to add warp without having to do the whole 'enfilage' process with the lisses and the cadres: you tie extra length onto your warp.  I learned the necessary knot and practiced it on 130 warp threads before I was done.  He said he'll start me next week rewarping a loom with 600 threads.  Yay!  No, seriously.  This apprenticeship is going to be awesome.

And Children! There Are Children, Too!

Irene (7) and Sylvan (5) are Gaelle and Bruno's kids.  They like me, too.  Playtime with a foreigner is extra mysterious/confusing.

I let Sylvan ride around on my shoulders.  He is super light and stayed up there for at least an hour the first time.  He's happy to carry things for me while I hold his ankles.  The paths around here are funky, though, and I tripped today while he was up there.  Somehow nothing bad happened and we both landed okay.  Thank heaven.  He smacked his head on a doorframe once, too, but he keeps climbing back on!

He's the one who took this video, from his perch on my shoulders.  Irene is making some food to order.  Three crepes with blue sugar for Anne-Sophie (a fellow WWOOFer), if I remember correctly.  I love her creative fashion sense.   Sylvan gets super excited at all the things he can see through my phone; two balls, a car, the door, and his grandfather's house over the bridge.  Please enjoy the adorable French and don't mind my slightly nervous chuckles now and then; I never quite catch what they are saying until they've already said it.  *shrug*

Oh, And There's A Cat

He is a tiny siamese, and his name is Petit Noel because he showed up around Christmas time.  He likes me and my store-bought yogurt.

 

his favorite spot on the stove.  

the blanket is to keep the food warm after the fire is out.

A Brave New World

This place is nothing like I expected.  My first day was comprised of a million mental exclamations.

There is no hot water, except the stuff you boil.  And you don't boil water unless the wood-burning stove is already in use because you don't want to waste fuel.  There is no sugar, except for a little, teeeeny bit of honey allotted to each person every day.  No meat.  No butter.  No cheese.  Everyone except Bruno (the weaver) is vegan, which means we eat vegan.  The bread is all hand-made and really dense and dark, with a tough crust.  The toilet is a 'composting toilet' comprised of a bucket in a wooden box with a supply of sawdust to cover each 'offering'.  The compost pile is a few feet from my cabin door.  There is no wifi.  There is no fridge.  The house and outbuildings are old and in disrepair.  There isn't any heating either.  Everything seems to be dirty; it's like the inside of the house isn't considered different from outside, and when there is no hot water available, 'clean' doesn't quite ever happen.

BUT I'm not sleeping in a tent!  I have a little cabin with a little bed inside.  The bed is placed diagonally because Sebastiaan, one of the founding members of the community, is sensitive to magnetic forces within the earth and when he spent a few nights in the cabin with the bed against the wall, he couldn't sleep well.  He used a pendulum to figure out the optimal placement for the bed, which happens to take up the most space.  But I don't really need space, and I've been sleeping like a baby, so I'm not going to argue.

  

this is the view from my door!

you can see the compost pile with a woven 

wall of branches around it, top left.

the inside of my dwelling, complete with kaddy-corner* bed

 see bucket of sawdust, right.

 i took a picture of it clean, for all of

you with weak stomachs.

And the toilet isn't so bad.  The compost pile doesn't smell either--I think it's all the sawdust.  I'm just not looking forward to my turn to dump the bucket of poo after lunch.

Maybe that's why I've become such an avid dishwasher.  It may also be that the thought of my dishes being washed in cold water with a slimy rag and a bar of soap makes me want to die or take over the job to be sure it gets done right.  Kate, Sebastiaan's other half and the person in charge of visitors, seems to share my squeamishness for the filthy state of things.  She makes sure I get some hot water for the dishes, and every day I've used the last of the dishwater to clean some other surface in the kitchen.  Once I tried wiping down the wallpaper above the sink, which is grey with soot from the smokey stove, but the drips from the little patch I started on were black.  I decided to stop and save that project for another day. 

Happily, they don't eschew the use of salt.  And instead of butter, there is oil for our bread.  And the bread isn't that bad, especially when fresh.  The food is quite tasty in general, if rather repetitive.  Every morning we sit around the table, discussing plans, and cut up the day's veggies.  Potatoes, green onions, carrots, radishes, spinach, sometimes other greens...  For lunch we have salad, cooked greens (spinach or otherwise), rice, and lentils.  For dinner we have soup made of potatoes and greens.  My first day I gathered wild nettles (yes, nettles; the plants that have fine little pokey hairs that stick in your skin and itch like mad) for the evening's soup.  Imagine that!  You can eat nettles!!  The soup ingredients are boiled while lunch cooks and then get pureed with a food mill (now I want one) while we clean up afterwards.  It's a very efficient method of food preparation.

 bread and butter and rooibos tea for breakfast.
happily i bought some yogurt and there are quick oats too.

This is certainly a new way of life, but I'm adaptable and brave, and it isn't that bad, once you get used to it.





*Is "kaddy-corner" even a word?  Meaning diagonal?  From corner to corner?  I've been wracking my brain to think if I've ever heard it in real life..  Did I make it up?  Is it "kitty-corner" instead?