Can you be that into pink?
I don't do hobby of the month; i have fads where i simply must know everything about something obscure. I research extensively but lazily, and get enthused for about a week. if its still amusing after that then its promoted to an Interest.
This week its GILLYFLOWERS.
It all started with the search for a device. After twelve years in this medieval malarky, i still do not have a registered name and device. It is supposed to be one of those things you do when you first get involved with the sca, but it never made it past more than a week at a time. So i flirted with such names as Artemisia (which shortly thereafter became a kingdom), Sicily de Tournai, Marijke van Leiden... and even Ysabeau for a while. As a device i sort of had a fleur de lis doughnut: gold on red, quite nice, and apparently unregisterable. Unless its real heraldry, in which case you are Neville Chamberlain apparently.
So I never got around to it. It was Miesje, and then eventually Portia (under pain of Ragnarhilda Sexberger), and then about a week before i was laurelled a Vincenzo appeared from nowhere to be my surname. It was all very rushed, and very NOT viking. There was also talk of a device of red and gold and fleur de lis. Also stunningly un-norse. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
So now here I am, a double peer, with no registered name and device. The last one in my group. Sigh. Can we say peer pressure?
Well, Portia, or something that sounds like her is here to stay. After all its taken me quite a few years to remember to respond to that as it is. which just leaves me with finding the rest of the name and a pretty pic to go with.
Trawling through things i find i am strangely attracted to Gillyflowers. I love them in Art Deco design. I pick early period jewellery only to find it is inevitably kentish and has them on in spades. I pick out embroidery patterns only to realise they are studded with the darn things. And there is a growing power that the colour pink seems to display. Except in things like pepto-bismal, barbies, and barbara cartland.
So i start my B grade research. I find they are the ancestors of carnations, and are called among other things gilofre, giroflee, gillyflowers, Pinks, Sweet William, Dianthus, sops-in-wine, clove pinks, pagiants, blunket and horseflesh among other things. There is some debate as to whether they were used as a poor man's clove in roman and medieval times as a food ingredient/mulling agent.
Then there is the bit about Mary having cried following her son up to calvary and where the tears fell up sprang these pinks - hence why it is the symbol of mothers day. And then there is that the colour was named after the flower not the reverse... and the flower was called a pink in the first place because the petals are jagged.
My favourite piece of dodgy information is however:
"They are known as Qu Mei in Asian, where they have been used to relieve rheumatism and arthritis, and to kill harmful bacteria in the stomach."
Who knew there was a language called Asian... sigh
So at the moment I have pictures everywhere, including the toilet of potential gillyflower related devices. And my new name will be Portia Dianthia.
Or at least that's this week...
This week its GILLYFLOWERS.
It all started with the search for a device. After twelve years in this medieval malarky, i still do not have a registered name and device. It is supposed to be one of those things you do when you first get involved with the sca, but it never made it past more than a week at a time. So i flirted with such names as Artemisia (which shortly thereafter became a kingdom), Sicily de Tournai, Marijke van Leiden... and even Ysabeau for a while. As a device i sort of had a fleur de lis doughnut: gold on red, quite nice, and apparently unregisterable. Unless its real heraldry, in which case you are Neville Chamberlain apparently.
So I never got around to it. It was Miesje, and then eventually Portia (under pain of Ragnarhilda Sexberger), and then about a week before i was laurelled a Vincenzo appeared from nowhere to be my surname. It was all very rushed, and very NOT viking. There was also talk of a device of red and gold and fleur de lis. Also stunningly un-norse. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
So now here I am, a double peer, with no registered name and device. The last one in my group. Sigh. Can we say peer pressure?
Well, Portia, or something that sounds like her is here to stay. After all its taken me quite a few years to remember to respond to that as it is. which just leaves me with finding the rest of the name and a pretty pic to go with.
Trawling through things i find i am strangely attracted to Gillyflowers. I love them in Art Deco design. I pick early period jewellery only to find it is inevitably kentish and has them on in spades. I pick out embroidery patterns only to realise they are studded with the darn things. And there is a growing power that the colour pink seems to display. Except in things like pepto-bismal, barbies, and barbara cartland.
So i start my B grade research. I find they are the ancestors of carnations, and are called among other things gilofre, giroflee, gillyflowers, Pinks, Sweet William, Dianthus, sops-in-wine, clove pinks, pagiants, blunket and horseflesh among other things. There is some debate as to whether they were used as a poor man's clove in roman and medieval times as a food ingredient/mulling agent.
Then there is the bit about Mary having cried following her son up to calvary and where the tears fell up sprang these pinks - hence why it is the symbol of mothers day. And then there is that the colour was named after the flower not the reverse... and the flower was called a pink in the first place because the petals are jagged.
My favourite piece of dodgy information is however:
"They are known as Qu Mei in Asian, where they have been used to relieve rheumatism and arthritis, and to kill harmful bacteria in the stomach."
Who knew there was a language called Asian... sigh
So at the moment I have pictures everywhere, including the toilet of potential gillyflower related devices. And my new name will be Portia Dianthia.
Or at least that's this week...