A short lesson on strange Swiss traditions

Once upon a time, in December of 1602, the evil French troops from neighboring Savoy tried to conquer the city of Geneva, which was (and still is) at the southwestern border of Switzerland, surrounded just by French territory and the lake Geneva. They hoped to surprise the Genevans in the middle of the night and tried to climb the wall to open the city gates from within. Just around the place where I sit now and type this, but there was no Starbucks at that time, and no internet of course.

Well, the Genevois noticed it, raised the alarm and defended the city walls. It is also said that there was a woman (la "Mère Royaume") who poured a cauldron of boiling soup over the attackers. In the end the French were defeated and since that time, in Geneva there is he Festival of the "Escalade" (means something like climbing), which is celebrated every December. The funny thing is how they celebrate it. Ok, they have a nice costume parade and bands playing at night, with horses and illuminations by torches. They also have a famous marathon where people run several times through the city, which seems to be quite a big event and for the children there's a Halloween-like disguise thing.


But the strangest thing ever is that they create chocolate cauldrons in best Swiss chocolate, filled with marzipan vegetables, all in remembrance of their favourite weapon to fight foreign troops. They make a huuuuuge one which is smashed in a public event. But you can also buy smaller ones in different sizes, emty or filled, in dark, milk or white chocolate. They are really all over the city, in every chocolaterie the shopping windows are in brown, yellow and red colors.

You may ask why I am telling you all this stuff. The reason is: it seems as if I'm getting a kind of Genevan after all, since I came upon the idea to spin a yarn in remembrance of the chocolate cauldrons in remembrance of the historic one. Therefore I acquired an official Geneva crest, used real Swiss alpaca fiber and some none-Swiss merino and golden angelina (well, Geneva is kind of international anyways...) and created little polymer clay vegetables like mushrooms, radishes, potatoes, gherkins and so on. The yarn is plied with a brown sewing thread and contains some red and yellow 2ply-sections. Here is the finished product:







I brought it over to Tricolaine, but if you are interested in getting in just drop a note.