I was in a place called Skofja Loka in Slovenia the other day. I'd been there once before and forgotten about it, which is surprising as it is an immensely pretty little town. I found it especially endearing this time as, when I asked the waiter in the cafe where we had lunch whether it was compulsory to wear a mask, he said, "No", and then when my husband asked whether compulsory mask wearing indoors had been abolished recently, as it has in Austria and Hungary, the waiter said, "Oh, it hasn't been abolished yet; we just think it's stupid so we don't."
Free thinking, so rare these days, so wonderful.
Anyway, in the central square of Skofja Loka, the Slovene government has set up a number of placards highlighting Slovenian crafts and craftspeople - (or should that be, in modern parlance, "celebrating")?
As I like making things, I was immediately drawn to the placards, (despite the fact that they were really an eyesore, plonked down on a succession of heavy metal poles in a way that interrupted the view of an almost unchanged set of antique buildings with a glimpse of distant meadow beyond).
Displayed were the photographs and what I suppose might be termed "personal statements" of: a blacksmith; a felter; a bookbinder; a patchwork maker; and quite a few lacemakers. Several of them had some pretty grand claims to make about their activities and the products thereof.
Then there was this woman, (see picture), who pointed out that those of us who spin our own wool and then knit it are rare beings. The combination of recognising a fellow spinner and knitter and being designated as something that is rare was very exciting to me. I had never thought of either spinning or knitting as occupations that one would do anything other than not admit to practising, yet here was someone willing to admit pride in the activity and also, I then saw, willing to venture a definition of its significance.
What would it be, what would I discover was the essence of these combined hobbies of mine - hobbies that until now I had thought were essentially embarrassments?
Would she point to a perceived marriage between the earthy, animal nature of sheep rearing and the uniquely human technological achievement that is knitting, (who first picked up a pair of pointed sticks and began the linking of twine to more twine to make a garment via what we now call knitting, and what inspired them to invent such a complex pastime - two questions that I suppose will never be adequately answered).
Or would she assert that spinning and knitting created an intimate bond between man and the animal world? Or that they led to a deep understanding of the intense energy of the seasons - the shearing in the spring, the spinning in the autumn, the knitting in the winter creating a oneness with the rhythms of time and an awareness of its passing?
I read on, and let out a shout of laughter. The essence of being both spinner and knitter it turned out is "being able to make slippers that warm small and large feet." A statement of great bathos, as are almost all statements involving feet, those absurd (but wonderfully useful) appendages - but also a statement of much greater truth than any of the ones I had dreamt up.
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