mercoledì 26 settembre 2018

Once upon a time Italic hour




These days spent running behind the clocks hand that don't even ticking as they once did letting us completely lose track of the passing time, but once how the hours counted?

Certainly not how we do it.



Once upon a time there was Italic hour, marked by a clock face that contained 6 Roman numbers and a hand. The day was divided into 4 quarters and, the zero hour, the twenty-fourth hour coincided with the sunset. Yes, the day began after sunset, at six pm (in summer, at five in winter), the night belonged entirely to the next day. This is because the days were slower, all the work and people daily life  followed the rhythm of the seasons and day and night.



This curious ways of counting the hours causes the same hour marked 4 different hours depending on the time of  day that we lived, then the number 6, for exemple,  marked noon, midnight, six a.m., six p.m., but this only if we want to give him a  modern meaning because for our great-grandparents it didn't not make sense to say it's eight o'clock or it's midnight. There was "the touch" that coincided with the lunchtime that is one p.m.; "first hour" marked the sunrise, actually six in the morning; nine o'clock a.m. were called " the third hour"; three o'clock p.m. " the ninth hour" and so on until you return to the "vespers",  six p.m. at sunset. This last bell was the one to which more attention  because it warned the closure of the doors of the country and those who worked outside the walls had to prepare to return.



There are still some common saying  handed down by our ancestors (in Italy at least) like, for example, "bring the hat to twenty-three hour" meaning a hat with a slightly tilted visor to shelter from the rays of the sun that was about to set, at the twenty-third hour precisely, five p.m., or "you did it like three hours at night" meaning a dirty person like the deeply night, midnight we would say today.

All this complicated (for us) count of hours continued until the late 1600s beginning of the 1700s when the "French" time established by Napoleon took its place.

Many clocks were replaced and those at six hours became rarity. Very few are still working and, among these, in Abruzzo it's famous that of Fontecchio, a medieval village in the province of L'Aquila (Abruzzo), located on the tower at the entrance door of it.



Curiosity, for those wishing to deepen the subject, the study of hours calculation is called "gnomonic" from "gnomone" Greek verb that means indicator: the stick planted on the ground to measure the projection of the shadow and establish the movement of the sun.

If you are curious to see the gear from life and understand how it works, theFontecchio clock tower is open on Saturdays and Sundays in all seasons.

This article, wrote by me, was published in "Abruzzo Forte e gentile" blog


lunedì 17 settembre 2018

A sweater story




"One hundred beautiful memories are related to this old sweater, its dry and gray wool smells of mountain, snow, and Fohn winds of fir and pinewood resin from the mountain woods that have been fatigued by sun, fox footprints, breakfasts cheerful and hungry during the walks" (Herman Hesse)




It is easy to weave a sweater with a pair of knitting needles: knitt one, purl one, twist ... but how many emotions can we put in those stitches. Every time we turn a piece of yarn around a knitting needle we tie a thought, a smile, a memory and our sweater ends up becoming a story, a little bit of our life, a picture fixed in an apparent mixture of points.




"The sweater is that thing that children wear when their mothers are cold," declared Guccini, an Italian singer, in an interview, really it's their mothers hug, warm and fragrant hug that accompanies us  since childhood. 




The sweater is the scent of wool that evokes breathtaking mountain landscapes and meadows and tolling of cowbells. It's our appointment with emotions, the real ones, those that make us in peace with the world.




The sweater is our refuge, it's the hug we are looking for when we need cuddles, it's the joy of a mountain day playing with snow, it's go out with friends on an unexpected Friday of half autumn. 




The sweater is my story, started many, many years ago as a game, sitting on the step of a staircase at my grandmother's house with a thread of red wool taken from an old knitted sweater and a pair of golden yellow knitting needle. Knitt one, purl one,cross, yarn over, ops ... a stitch fallen from the knitting needle.

Full of imperfections, but I did it; over the years 'worn out, just like our life, but it is my red sweater.


(My son Marco. If you like to knitt this sweater here there are instructrions 😊 )


This story was published in the weekly column "Le vie della lana" of the newspaper "Il Centro"



lunedì 10 settembre 2018

Storie sotto la torre





Sono 15 mesi che ho trasferito il laboratorio a Fontecchio. 15 mesi intensi che mi hanno arricchito molto sotto l'aspetto personale. Ho incontrato persone che mai avrebbero incrociato la mia strada in un'altra situazione; la mia mente si è aperta a nuove esperienze e i miei occhi sono annegati in un paesaggio senza eguali.

Storie sotto la torre. Ne ho scritte molte e molte altre ne verranno. Guardandomi indietro non riesco a capacitarmi di tutte le esperienze, i sorrisi, le chiacchiere, i corsi e workshop sotto l'ombra della torre tra un caffè, un dolcetto e fili intrecciati. Vorrei ringraziarle tutte le persone che sono passate ad ascoltare i miei racconti, e vorrei ringraziare chi mi ha dato la possibilità di entrare a far parte di questa bellissima comunità.

Chi mi conosce sa che il mio non è soltanto un laboratorio di fili intrecciati e stoffe colorate, ma anche di incontri conviviali in cui scambiare idee o soltanto farsi compagnia, per esempio...


...a San Martino abbiamo sorseggiato vino novello e gustato dolcetti a tema. Poi è venuto il tempo di Natale ....


...e come non scambiarsi gli auguri sotto la torre. E la fine dell'anno?...


...Ogni occasione è buona purché si stia insieme. E i bambini? Vogliamo dimenticarci i bambini?


...la Befana a Fontecchio è venuta dalla Torre...  e poi, ammettiamolo, queste storie servono a noi per aprire ogni tanto la stanza dei nostri ricordi bambini.


...e a carnevale? Un aperitivo con musica tradizionale e cantastorie? I campanacci, al secolo Marco e Stefano, ci hanno raccontato il territorio con musica e aneddoti dal sapore antico.

 Il tempo passa e a marzo, quando la nostra voglia di primavera ha iniziato a bussare ai nostri pensieri....


...come farsi sfuggire un corso di intrecci, ma non di fili questa volta, di carta!

L'estate è alle porte ed ecco pronto un corso di tintura naturale per conoscere tutti i colori del mondo


Ma anche un corso di sapone perché come si dice, impara l'arte e mettila a parte...


E dopo tutte queste attività ci vuole proprio un momento rilassante e meditativo e quale posto migliore di un magnifico terrazzo sotto l'ombra della torre?


Crochet yoga al mattino presto, ogni giovedì alle 7:30. Per le coraggiose che superato l'ostacolo del trillo della sveglia, hanno come ricompensa un'ora e poco più di relax totale tutto incluso, anche il té, l'aria frescolina di agosto e tutti i colori del sorgere del sole. Senza prezzo.

Ora iniziano altre avventure. Altri programmi e progetti bollono in pentola che potete seguire anche qui .

Buon inizio di anno creativo a tutti.












venerdì 7 settembre 2018

Marmellata di more




Chi non ha tra i ricordi di fine estate lunghe passeggiate nei sentieri di montagna o di campagna a raccogliere more?

Io sì.

Mi ricordo che per noi era una festa; uscivamo presto la mattina ognuno con il proprio cestino e, raggiunta la destinazione, saltellavamo di cespuglio in cespuglio come tanti uccellini a fare scorte per l'inverno. A parte la raccolta, il momento più bello era sicuramente la colazione: "open air" fatta di fettine di prosciutto, pane fritto dorato, succhi di frutta e crostata di ricotta e cioccolato, slurp!
                                        
                              

Nel corso degli anni (forse è più esatto dire decenni, ma sorvoliamo!) ho continuato ad andare "per more" perché mi rassicura, mi aiuta a mantenere il contatto con i miei pensieri bambini, mi riappacifica con il mondo.


Queste le ho raccolte questa mattina. Appena tornata a casa mi sono messa subito all'opera e ci ho fatto una dolce e squisita marmellata.


Spalmata sulla "ferratella" con alcune gocce di cioccolato e accompagnata da una tisana di liquirizia e menta vi assicuro ha il suo perché.

Ecco la mia ricetta:
1 Kg. di polpa di more 
500 gr. di zucchero
2 mele 
1 limone

Lavare le more, metterle in una pentola con il succo del limone e le mele sbucciate e tagliate a pezzetti, portare a ebollizione a fuoco lento e lasciare bollire per 30 minuti, quindi passare il composto al passaverdure (per eliminare un po' di semini) e rimettere il composto nella pentola, riportare ad ebollizione e aggiungere lo zucchero; far bollire per altri 30 minuti e versare nei barattoli ancora calda sì da facilitare il sottovuoto.

Ecco qua, niente di più semplice. Buona raccolta e buona merenda!


P.S.: lo scarto non lo buttate (magari mettetelo in una bustina e congelatelo), la prossima volta vi racconterò cosa farne!


mercoledì 5 settembre 2018

Where dreams come true


(Fontecchio clock tower)


There is a question that every time people who come in my laboratory ask me:  "But you, with this job, can earn money?". Now, let us fly over the fact that it could  be my business, but what does "earn money" mean?

Why can not it be a job like any other? Why can a job that passionate us can not be called work?

I give you some news: I have made of my passion a job and I did it in a time when money dictates the times of each day and where the needs are created by the great lobbies that govern the world, a time when talking about resilience can seem like mere utopia. Well, it's not like that.

(Pescomaggiore village)

If you belong to that category of people who can only breathe from 1 kilometer away from the big cities and you are ready for anything, you will have the opportunity to perform the daily acrobatics for the bread in a frame that already is a reward in itself, moreover you will have the possibility to be supported by a network of human relationships that becomes more dense just where the population is less dense.

A paradox? I don't think so; when i's easy to count each other because on it's just a few, each counts more. This is why in recent times more and more young people, but also whole families, have chosen these small places for a better quality of life. More complicated, perhaps, but who said that choices must necessarily be easy?

Now that the market is versatile and flexible and offers work contracts that expire before the yogurt we have in the fridge and weeks made of eight days and four jobs all together, the return to the origins searching for a slower lifestyle it's a stronger temptation.

I did it.

I slowed down,I opened my drawer of desires, I elaborated, planned and decided to start a new adventure that would combine my passion for respect and care of the environment, to my being "yarn juggler" and I gave him a name "I campi di mais" (in English it means "Cornfield"...but in Italian is more romantic!💚).



It's my life, it's a place where I can tell stories that can fill the spaces left empty by the frenzy that has invaded the lives of all of us and where I can give voice to silent memories and give new life to unused capacities from time.

With my creations I like to re-emerge stories that envelop people who listen to me and warm them like a soft cape.

In the coming weeks I will be happy to help you discover this colorful world as rich in stories and meanings, good reading.

(This article was published in the weekly column "Le vie della lana" of the Abruzzo's  newspaper "Il Centro") 

E...state in Abruzzo knitting kal

  Anche se il clima dimostra il contrario è primavera e, accantonata la lana per un po',  la voglia di sferruzzare fili più "legger...