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This was written in
2007
so is now very dated
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Chapters |
Our first workshop was the next morning and we woke to a day as wet as any in Lancashire. It wasn’t quite what we imagined. Anna and Alberto drove us to the gallery where we were to run the workshop and we had our first view of the problems of too much traffic in the small city.
They had arranged to meet Luciana outside the gallery. We met on the street and were also introduced to our translator, Valentina. There was no sense of urgency and we were taken to a famous coffee shop on the same street. Eventually we returned to the gallery. We had been told it was a gallery but weren’t prepared for the reality. It was now a very exclusive shop selling soft furnishings but was a former palace. We were to work in the Science Room which had a great deal of gold leaf and painted walls and ceiling depicting many famous scientists.
The room had two piles of exotic hand made carpets. Chairs had been arranged in the space between and behind the carpets and a huge basket of yarn and needles sat on top of one of the piles. As we had arranged, the yarn was in the Festival’s colours of red, yellow and white.
We needed to display the hats we had brought with us. The carpets were at table-
The participants started to arrive. They were an interesting mixture of academics, serious knitters and respected citizens of Genoese society. A few spoke to us in English, with varying degrees of success. We smiled sweetly at those who addressed us in Italian. Valentina was a treasure. Her job was as a Science Translator and she was also an enthusiastic knitter. She was wearing a beautiful hand-
On this occasion I did most of the talking at the start. Our usual double act obviously would not work and we didn’t want to confuse anyone. It is very strange to have to wait for every sentence to be translated and we started very hesitantly. Once we got to the practical stage it got easier and it wasn’t long before Valentina was answering questions without asking us. She was rather embarrassed about this at first, when she realised what she had done, but we were quite happy and she became a third teacher not a bystander.
Shortly before leaving England we had a sudden inspiration to simplify the measuring process that started our workshop. Previously we had used tape measures and divided the measurement by eight to give the necessary starting size and then drawn a square of this measurement. Using sticky paper tape instead was a brilliant idea. It was easy to demonstrate, without words, that we wanted everyone to have their head measured with paper tape, throw away half of the strip, cut the remaining piece into four equal pieces and stick them on a sheet of paper to form a square. Having done that, with just a little explanation from Valentina, the knitters started work in the way we had taught so many times before. There was no stopping them now. Apart from the language problem it was much the same as any other group we have worked with.
The only mishap involved an Australian lady who arrived later. I was very glad she spoke English after what I did to her. Because she was late, we wanted to get her started immediately. I measured her head with the paper tape, completely forgetting that it was still pouring with rain outside and she had not yet dried out. Her hair was damp and stuck to the tape! She didn’t seem to mind.
During the morning one lady told us that we would be going to her house for dinner that evening and another that we would be at her house on Friday. This didn’t prepare us for what was to come.
At lunchtime the gallery provided a very nice buffet and most people resumed knitting. A few left early as they were scheduled to be elsewhere in the Festival, which spread throughout the city. The workshop ended at about 3 o’clock and everyone went away keen to finish their hat. It was still raining!
One unusual feature of this workshop was the extra visitors who wandered in and out. Some were scientists who were spending their free time checking out other events; some were shoppers who stopped to see what was going on; some were press reporters and photographers. On the second day the visitors included a camera crew who stayed with us for two whole days. They were making a television educational film. The cameraman was charming but spoke virtually no English. The reporter/interviewer was much more able to communicate though her producer had sent her along with a series of questions in Italian, which she had to ask in English. It became apparent that most were not appropriate but she was good at improvisation.
I hate both television and radio interviews. Fortunately, Steve does not feel the same way, and by now Ben had arrived and was also happy to talk to the camera. There were some hilarious moments during the filming. Filming the activity wasn’t a real problem but trying to conduct an interview surrounded by a group of 30 enthusiastic ladies, in the middle of a shop, on one of the main shopping streets of Genoa was fraught with hazards. The interviews had to be done several times to ensure that there were no police sirens, loud voices from knitters, passers-
The third day had a different mix of participants. Half of them were girls from a fashion college. A few looked as though they didn’t want to be there; most were keen but couldn’t knit. Three of us couldn’t teach them all so the older ladies were asked to help out. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves, even though they weren’t able to make much progress on their own work. However, they probably went away with a better understanding of our methods and they would have been able to finish at home.
On the second and third days we had visits from several people who had been with us earlier in the week. One was an 86 year old lady who had previously been a Maths teacher. She came back to thank us and said her interest in knitting had been rekindled after many years.
25e. ADDING MORE STRANDS continued