Ramblings and webcomics from LeEMS
I have been having some big dreams about decor DIYs that will just make everything in my house a little extra better. A lot of the ideas are actually for small projects, many small projects that all require fabric or pattern. So, I found myself perusing Spoonflower for fabric and wallpapers. In the search for my favorite variety of floral, something I have always thought of as Jacobean (above), I realized that all of my vocabulary is wrong. Or at least the modern application of the vocabulary by designers uploading patterns to Spoonflower is completely different than mine. I am not a textile historian, so I could never argue that my descriptive word choice is the right one, which is what led me down this particular rabbit hole.
Turns out I didn’t really have the wrong word. Patterns popular in Jacobean design were influenced by both Flemish tapestries and Indian palampores. The designs were flowing and floral, with acanthus leaves arranged all over, delicate flowering trees inspired by palampores, and birds, animals, and the tree of life taken from crewel embroidery.
Yet Jacobean is not what people reliably label the floral, acanthus leaf, or all over tree of life patterns.
Of course, tree of life designs now come in many different varieties, and rarely show up as the all over pattern from the ‘Tabriz Tree of Life Deer Person Rug’ example above. So then I noticed, while searching, that many of the designs I was looking for were labeled as chintz.
My initial ideas of chintz was a big, ‘blousy,’ floral with large cabbage roses in a kind of pastel on pastel print that I remembered from grandma couches in the early 80s. It turns out that chintz is the name for any printed cotton fabric with a glazed finish and bright multicolored patterns. The patterns were eventually applied to many other textiles, like wall paper and ceramic, so now chintz is simply an all over floral. This would include my Jacobean floral ideal, but it also gave me a lot more to wade through. Then I wondered…what is calico? I thought calico was an all over floral print…
And, it is, at least in the U.S. where the printed cotton became known as calico instead of just the plain woven unbleached cotton that is called calico in the UK. Calico, like the palampores that inspired Jacobean patterns and the chintz that took Europe by storm in the 1600s, originated in India. The calico pattern is also ensconced within the overarching concept of chintz.
But paisley is not chintz, mostly. Sometimes when the paisley teardrop is included in a rambling floral design like the ‘Paisley” on the right, it is chintz? But mostly, paisley is the one floral print exception that is viewed separately from chintz. Paisley is of Persian origin, and the teardrop shaped designs were also imported from India into the UK where the pattern was given the name paisley after the town of Paisley where it was produced.
And, here is where I want to wriggle back out of the rabbit hole. I found that yes, Jacobean floral, calico, and sometimes paisley are all chintz, but chintz is not necessarily always either Jacobean floral, calico or paisley. Whether this statement is wholly accurate doesn’t really matter either, because platforms that allow tag and metadata creation by up-loaders are always going to suffer from the popular understanding of a term, if there is any real understanding.
Basements are rare things in Florida, so in my fantasies basements have everything.
My friends and I started up a book club to get us reading, and among other titles, we are reading books from Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic series. Hoffman’s books are full of mentions of curative foods and drinks, yet very few full recipes are included. Fan’s of the series have already jumped in to fill this omission and have created recipes in an attempt to approximate those mentioned in fiction. One of the best versions of Aunt Isabelle’s Chocolate Tipsy Cake, as is mentioned in the Rules of Magic is the one on Potpourri with Rosemarie. True to form, I changed the recipe a little when I made it, and I flubbed the icing, but it is one delicious cake!
INGREDIENTS:
Preheat oven to 325 while you grease and dust with cocoa powder a large bunt pan. Add to a saucepan on medium-low heat: coffee, rum, butter, cocoa powder, chopped chocolate bar, and sugar until all is melted and combined, then cool. Once the coffee and chocolate mixture is cool add buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. Sift in flour mixed with soda, cinnamon, and clove a little at a time until well combined. Pour into pan and bake 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
The rum icing, in the recipe on Potpourri with Rosemarie was made with chocolate chips, butter, half and half and dark rum. I had only the darkest chocolate on hand so I wanted to sweeten it. While I should have just added white sugar, I was lazy and dropped in simple syrup, which is why my glaze in the picture looks all lumpy and weird. It tasted lovely though.
The K-12 school system needs support and funding to ensure freedom and democracy:
Nuclear bombs can destroy the world:
Last year, when I initially embraced marking time and celebrating all holidays with movies, there were many holidays that I didn’t even consider. Memorial Day was one of those, along with a small handful of others that I plan to get to this year.
I have experienced the popular Memorial Day family barbecue, and I have also undertaken a road trip to the cemetery where my grandmother, grandfather, and great-grandmother are buried. Considering the sweltering heat in Florida by the end of May, both of these activities require a certain amount of psyching myself up each year.
While I will remember to honor the soldiers who have died for my country this Memorial Day, I am happily going to stay out of the hot Florida weather and watch Memorial Valley Massacre (1989), which was originally planned for release as Memorial Day.
And of course, I will also watch What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? , because Charlie Brown brings the holidays, no matter what holiday.
While visiting some of our excellent thrift stores I noticed a couple of mid century clocks with the zodiac arranged on the face. I was intrigued, I would have never suspected mainstream interest in the zodiac during the 40s and 50s. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me when we were shopping, but I did follow up with a search on eBay and found some more examples:
Of course, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted one of my own for my mid century house. It just so happened I had a clock face wood blank and a clock kit that I had inherited from my mother’s craft supplies.
As to the design, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be too much consistency in how the zodiac is arranged in reference to the hours display. Each of the examples I found starts in a different place. I decided to start mine where the zodiac signs would roughly line up if every hour were representative of the month of the year. I didn’t include a separate sectioning out of the clock face for the numbering so the dividing lines between zodiac signs serve as my hour marks. This effectively shifts the signs forward a bit, but the signs themselves do not start when the month starts so I was happy.
Overall, I am pretty happy with it. It was a soft, cheap wood that either flaked away in large chips with hand tools, or feathered up with a rotary carver. This forced me to change my design dreams a little and accept a less finely detailed result. I used paint to highlight the simple relief and cover carving mistakes. If I had been seeking out new supplies for this project, I would’ve made sure to obtain a harder wood that would’ve been more conducive to carving. Part of my pleasure in finishing this up, however, is most definitely tied to using material I already had in the house.
It sometimes happens that the smallest cat in the house likes the biggest toys. Spasmo is like that. She will tear through the house carrying a stuffed bunny the size of her own head, moving it from room to room.
Walpurgisnacht is known in the Germanic countries of central Europe as a night when the dead walk the earth, when witches and fairies roam about, and the division between the worlds of living and those of the dead are thin. Falling six months from Halloween, Walpurgisnacht shares many of its attributes.
Walpurga was born, and became a nun, in England before traveling to assist her brother, Saint Boniface, in evangelizing the Germans. When Boniface died, Walpurga became abbess of the Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm monastery he established there. Saint Walburga is often depicted in stone carving and pictures as being accompanied by a dog. There is little in her autobiography to account for this faithful companion, but there is plenty of historic associations of dogs with other Germanic goddesses like the Norns and Friga, a Goddess of May Day and the Wild Hunt. This is just one way that the Saint and Goddess have been woven together through time. Saint Walburga’s tomb was also said to start weeping a miraculous healing oil on the first of May. Though the church would try and downplay the association of the oil and saint with Mayday, the connection would remain in people’s minds.
Walpurga, or Walburga, is all white and gold. She is a fertility goddess, a forest goddess, and a goddess of springs. She is associated with grain and the harvest, and like Berchta she has a spindle. With her she carries a unique three cornered mirror that shows the future. She has been compared to Holda, also keeper of a spindle, goddess of fertility, and sharing a tendency to reward her followers with gifts of gold. She has also been compared to Brigid, who shares her May holiday and her double life as saint and goddess.
When the sun sets on the 31st of April a storm of spirits rips through the sky, making mischief through every town in it’s path. Is Odin the leader of the Wild Hunt, atop his six legged steed, or was it Perchta, or Holda? In Scotland the Wild Hunt is made up of the Sluagh or Unseelie Court, joined by any restless spirit that did not feel much like leaving the physical world.
Walpurga has been linked to the Wild Hunt as well. Yet, different from the many spirits who might do you a trick if found in their path, Walpurga is pursued. She runs from the tumult, flying from village to village in a desperate attempt to find a hiding place. It is said that if you leave your window open, so she can hide behind the cross of the windowpane grill, she will leave you gold as thanks.
Readings:
May Day, celebrating the vibrancy of spring, is directly preceded by Walpurgis Nacht. So our movie watching in celebration will be taking both of these holiday’s into account with a couple of pairs:
Admittedly, the Wickerman and Wicker Tree movies do not get all that much play in our house, so to make up for that we look for comfortable filler like the Hetty Wainthropp Investigates “Widdershins” episode and Midsomer Murders “Straw Woman” (thematically appropriate, though not sure if it is actually based on May Day)
May Day also happens to be Gorgon’s birthday – decided by mathematical estimate, though not witnessed. Happy birthday Gorgon!
I’ve said it before, Charlie Brown is the soundtrack to all holidays through my childhood. Though there are a few holiday’s that might not have gotten the Peanuts treatment, Arbor Day is not among them. It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown premiered in 1976 as the 15th Peanuts special premiering on prime time (Wiki). And so, this Arbor Day, we might plant a tree, we will beg all our baby trees to grow, and we will watch It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown.
And, for thematic watching, we will include some woods-are-alive, the-spirit-of-the-woods-is-going-to-kill-you movies:
