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EXTREME Crochet Video - Rockpool candy

Northern Irish Artist, arm wrestles a giant yarn!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VdnEZgS4KY

Wedding Gown that made history

This was shared with me by a LA SR participant.  

Lilly Friedman doesn't remember the last name of the woman who designed and sewed the wedding gown she wore when she walked down the aisle over 60 years ago.  But the grandmother of 7 does recall that when she first told her fiance Ludwig that she had always dreamed of being married in a white gown he realized he had his work cut out for him.

For the tall, lanky 21-year-old who had survived hunger, diseased and torture this was a different kind of challenge.  How was he ever going to find such a dress in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Person's camp where they felt grateful for the clothes on  their backs?

Fate would intervene in the guise of a former German pilot who walked into the food distribution center where Ludwig worked, eager to make a trade for his worthless parachute.  In exchange for two pounds of coffee beans and a couple of packs of cigarettes Lilly would have her wedding gown.

For two weeks Miriam the seamstress worked under the curious eyes of her fellow DP's, carefully fashioning the six parachute panels into a simple, long sleeved gown with a rolled collar and a fitted waist that tied in the back with a bow.  When the dress was completed she sewed the leftover material into a matching shirt for the groom.

A white wedding gown may have seemed like a frivolous request in the surreal environment of the camps, but for Lilly the dress symbolized the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world descended into madness.  Lilly and her siblings were raisedi n a Torah observant home in the small town of Zarica, Czechoslovakia where her father was a melamed, respected and well like by the young yeshiva students he taught in nearby Irsheva.

He and his tow son's were marked for extermination immediately up arriving at Auschwitz.  For Lilly and her sisters it was only their first stop on their long journey of persection, which inluded Plashof, Neustadt, Gross Rosen and finally Bergen Belsen.

Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of Celle on Jan. 27, 1946 to attend Lilly and Ludwig's wedding.  the town synagogue, damaged and desecreated, had been lovingly renovated by the DP's with the meager materials available to them.  When a Sefer Torah arrived from England they converted and old kitchen cabinet into a makeshift Aron Kodesh.

"My sisters and I lost everything - out parents, our two brothers, our homes.  The most important thing was to build a new home."  Six months later, Lilly's sister Ilona wore the dress when she married max Traeger.  After that came Cousin Rosie.  How many brides wore Lilly's dress?  "I stopped counting after 17."  With the camps experiencing the highest marriage rate in the world, Lilly's gown was in great demand.

In 1948 when President Harry Truman finally permitted the 100,000 Jews who had been languishing in DP camps since the end of the war to emigrate, the gown accompanied Lilly across the ocean to America.  Unable to part with her dress, it lay at the bottom of her bedroom closet for the next 50 years, "not even good enough for a garage sale.  I was happy when it found such a good home."

Home was the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. When Lilly's niece, a volunteer, told museum officials about her aunt's dress, they immediately recognized its historical significance and displayed the gown in a a specially designed showcase, guaranteed to preserve it for 500 years.

But Lilly Friedman's dress has one more to make.  Bergen Belsen, the museum, opened its doors on Oct. 28, 2007.  The German government invited Lilly and her sisters to be their guests for the grand opening.  The initially declined, but finally traveled to Hanover the following year with their children, their grandchildren and extended families to view the extraordinary exhibit created for the wedding dress made from a parachute.

Lilly's family, who were all familiar with the stories about the wedding in Celle, were eager to visit the synagogue.  They found the building had been completely renovated and modernized.  But when they pulled aside the handsome curtain they were astounded to find that the Aron Kodesh, made from a kitchen cabinet, had remained untouched as a testament to the profound faith of the survivors.  As Lilly stood on the bimah once again she beckoned to her granddaughter, Jackie, to stand beside her where she was once a kallah. "It was an emotional trip.  We cried a alot."

Two weeks later, the woman who had once stood trembling before the selective eyes of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele returned home and witnessed the marriage of her granddaughter.  

The three Lax sisters - Lilly, Ilona and Eva, who together survivied Auschwitz, a forced labor camp, a death march and Bergen Belsen - have remained close and today live within walking distance of each other in Brooklyn.  As mere teenagers, they managed to outwit and outlive monstrous killing machine, then went on to marry, have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and were ultimately honored by the country that had earmarked them for extinction.

As young brides, they had stood underneath the chuppah and recited the blessings that their ancestors had been saying for thousands of years.  In doing so, they chose to honor the legacy of those who had perished by choosing life.

by Helen Zegerman Schwimmer.  Author of THE STARS OF THE HEAVENS.  helenschwimmer.com

SR-West Hollywood

The power of the machine, the memory of the hands, the gift of mending.  Pins are Verboten!

Kaiser Cartel

Frau Fiber attend the Kaiser Cartel show at the Silver Lake Lounge.  Kaiser Cartel, hosted a Sewing Rebellion in Dec. at their apt.  it was great having them on the west coast, and getting to hear their music.  I've been having a great time mending to their lovely songs.

www.kaisercartel.com

Praise of the mend and stitch

While I didn't get to hear this on Tuesday, a Sewing Rebellion Participant in Lancaster PA, sent the poem, and I couldn't help but share it with the rest of you.  

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.  All about us is noise.  All about use is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues.  Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils.  Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day.  Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the  cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for the every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love they neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national.  Love that casts a widening pool of light.  Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winer air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp - praise song for walking forward in the light.

-Elizabeth Alexander

Darn Those Socks workshop in Brooklyn

Darn those socks: Saturday January 24, 2009

The Proteus Gowanus Fixer

s Collective is pleased to offer another opportunity for you expand your mending skills.  Donna Maria Perkins will demonstrate how to mend socks using a darning egg.  Bring your socks with holes and if you have one, a darning egg.  Other materials will be provided.

Fee. $15

RSVP info@proteusgowanus.com

543 Union STreet, Brooklyn NY 11217