Dear gentle spiders,
I had been looking forward to this week & now it has gone by so fast, but
it has been truly wonderful.
I arrived in Pärnu on Sunday & found my accommodation - a dormitory room
with spartan bathroom facilities, but cheaper than a hotel. On Monday
morning I had a small breakfast & wandered around the city center, learning
the street names & obtained a "This Week in Pärnu" booklet from the Tourist
Information center. Inside was listed everything going on in town from June
until August - but sadly no mention of the lace exhibition at all. But I
found an advert for a linen shop which I went looking for. For some reason
the shop was shut when I located it & when I started walking away my name
was called out. There was Kristiina & Priit Halberg with Marianne Stang
walking towards me, heading for the shop also. I received hugs from
everyone & then we decided to adjourn to a cafe since the linen shop was
closed. We chatted about many different topics & at 11am I excused myself
so that I could return to my room to change for the noon opening of the
exhibition.
The bus from Tartu arrived at 11:35 & I met Katre Kelder who lives & works
in Tallinn, but her family lives in Tartu. She had spent the weekend in
Tartu, demonstrating with me & other local lacemakers at the Hansa Days
festival. Her English is very good & she shared my room. We found that we
shared many likes & dislikes besides also having red hair.
The exhibition was titled as an International Lace Exhibit because there
were lace & lacemakers from Latvia, Sweden, Finland & Germany. There was
even a Bucks point ground bookmark made by Patricia Alba also on display
representing England. After the opening speeches were made, we were
entertained by a group of 5 singing girls & 2 boys sang solos. I then took
the opportunity to introduce myself to Birgitta Hulterström & Kristina
Malmberg. There was a display of Birgitta's modern lace outside the main
room & Kristina had brought 2 books that she had written about the lace
made by the Swedish lacemakers that were living on the Estonian island of
Ruhnu in the Gulf of Riga & also on the Pakri Islands near Paldiski, west
of Tallinn. The inhabitants were deported in 1940 by the Russians so that
military bases could be set up there.
I joined Katre & her friends from Tallinn for lunch & then Marianne's
workshop started at 2.00 pm. For most of the Estonian lacemakers learning
about "tulle" lace was not for them. The notes we were given was titled
"Liebenauer Point de Lille-Spitze". Marianne was very patient with a very
big class, making sure that we all had the right thread, pins, bobbins, &
pillows to make this point ground lace. By mistake I had prepared the
sampler pricking for the thicker thread & not the finer thread that my
bobbins were wound with. On Tuesday morning I found I had a problem with
the ground that I couldn't fix without undoing what I had made. So I
decided to undo it completely & prepare the correct pricking for the 2nd
pattern which was a narrower edging. By the time I had retro-laced my work,
Nina Drigoris had finished her sampler piece which she had made on her
beautiful Christina pillow. I admired her work & asked Nina, who was a
visiting lacemaker from Sweden, if she knew that her name was the Estonian
word for 'nose'. She didn't know that fact but would remember it. I also
asked if she had attended the lace school in Vadstena & if she had met
Linda Sheff from Massachusetts who had visited me in July last year. She
said that she did remember Linda. Later we exchanged contact information
before she & her family headed off to Latvia for a family vacation.
I enjoyed eating lunch with Marianne in the Jazz Cafe nearby & she
introduced me to Hedvig Seger who was from Finland. Later I met her friend
Mia. Hedvig showed us some linen fabric that she had bought from the linen
shop. After we ate we also had a quick look in the linen shop just up the
road before we returned to the classroom. During our lesson time it was
interesting to listen to all the languages being spoken. Marianne spoke in
German, English or French, & the Estonians spoke either German or English.
I met Aili Kuldkepp who lives & works as a librarian & language teacher in
Rapla (50 km south of Tallinn). She asked me about our little group in
Tartu. She would like to have more time for making lace during the school
year & is considering catching the bus to Tartu, maybe once a month.
After 6pm the exhibition was officially closed, the visiting lacemakers
were thanked & given gifts, & the prizes were presented to the winners. The
competition title was "Plant" so that the lace could be flowers, leaves,
trees, etc. Lia Looga from Tartu won the competition with an orchid that
she had made with metallic threads. The front doors were locked & then
everyone helped dismantle the display.
Katre & I had Chinese food for dinner, then walked down to the Pärnu beach,
where we ate an ice cream before walking back to our room. The next morning
we packed our bags & met the other lacemakers in front of the Pärnu Hotell
where a small bus took us all to Haapsalu to visit the Swedish Museum.
Kristina Malmberg gave a talk about the Swedish Estonians & their
lacemaking traditions & the lace that they made & wore. We then browsed
through the museum. There was in one room a very long embroidered mural
which depicted the history of Haapsalu. I decided that I had to buy a set
of postcards of the mural. Then we all walked along the path that wound
around the bay to a beautiful old building that had been restored & was now
a restaurant. Katre used to spend her summers at her grandparent's home
nearby & remembers the building when it was neglected. On the way we walked
past a bench that had been erected to mark where Tchaikovsky used to sit &
contemplate nature & receive inspiration. We enjoyed a simple but delicious
lunch & then walked back to the bus where we said our farewells to those
who had to travel in different directions.
Hedvig informed me that their Finnish organization would be celebrating
their 20th anniversary next year with a special exhibition & invited me to
come & see it. We arrived back in Pärnu just before 5pm & I then said my
final good-byes before catching the next bus back to Tartu where my
husband's brother & his wife were waiting to greet me after travelling all
the way from Adelaide in South Australia.
Warm regards from Estonia,
Pene
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