Silk Flowers

f you’ve ever looked at my Instagram account, it won’t have taken you long to realize that I’ve got a little bit of a grass hopper mind. As well as all my work, hobbies and interests, I’m often developing several things at the same time, and this trait has earned me the nickname of “La La”. However, every now and then, I will go waaay off-piste and end up doing something I hadn’t intended, and these silk flowers are a good example of this.
 
I’d started by making a single silk rose for a Christmas present. Innocent enough you may think, but in order to do this, I made the huge mistake of opening my trunk of silk scraps, left over from making costume through the years. So dangerous is the opening of this box, that it’s stored way up high up in a cupboard so it’s difficult to get at…but “get at it” I did… and before I knew it, a single rose had turned into several, and several, a bouquet…a necklace, or three, and then finally these heraldic, rose, brooches. And that’s something else it won’t take you long to spot on my Instagram feed, or this blog page come to that… I quite like a bit of heraldry. It’s a theme I return to time and time again and it never takes me long to find an excuse to use it.
​I’ve always been especially drawn to these iconic flowers, rambling across medieval, manuscripts, lovingly embroidered on ancient pennants and tunics and carved into our most precious historic buildings and palaces. Over time, these single red and white roses, used so often amongst the emblems of the Plantagenet, have come to symbolise the struggles between this most dysfunctional of families. The elegant white rose in particular made so famous in recent years by the discovery of the remains of King Richard III under a car park in Leicester. And, although the Tudor rose was first created by that master of spin and propaganda, Henry VII, you only have to look at it, to evoke the image of his larger than life son, Henry VIII and his many misfortunate wives.

---

I say “finally these heraldic rose brooches” … but the box hasn’t gone back yet, and I’m busy working on two more necklaces with anemone and nasturtium. And of course, despite having silk in every colour under the sun, I never do quite have the right shade for the job at hand so end up buying “just a little bit” more. Whenever the time comes to put that box back, it always has slightly more in it than when I took it down. Strange how that happens.!
 ​