New Sterling Silver Flowers

At last I've found time to work away with my silver smithing to produce these lovely Sterling Silver flowers with my own fused glass cabouchons as centres.  I will be making them into pendants once I have decided on the design of each individual bail.  I will have these and other designs on offer at the next and subsequent Festivals of Light, starting in Weston-super-Mare on Saturday 11th April.  Details below.  I will post more designs as they are ready on my website.

See below for photos and further details.

Chinese New Year

The Year of the Sheep, sometimes known as the Goat

The Year of the Wood Sheep (Wei) starts on February 19, 2015, and ends on February 7, 2016, in the Gregorian calendar. It comes after the Year of the Horse and before the Year of the Monkey in the Chinese calendar. During Spring Festival, people put up symbols of the sheep, as well as the "happiness" sign, in their homes.

Sheep personalities

People born in the Year of the Sheep are thought to be loyal, good natured and kind. They are belived to be introverts who can easily be overtaken by emotion.

Calculating Chinese New Year

According to Helmer Aslaksen, of the National University of Singapore, there are two rules of thumb used to calculate the new year in the Chinese calendar. The first rule of thumb is that Chinese New Year should be the new moon closest to the beginning of spring (in the northern hemisphere), known as Lìchun. This rule is correct most of the time, but it can fail if Lìchun falls close to halfway between two new moons. It failed in 1985 and will fail again in 2015. Chinese New Year will always fall between January 21 and February 21.

The second rule of thumb is that most of the time Chinese New Year will fall 11 (or sometimes 10 or 12) days earlier than the previous year, but if that means that the event would be outside of the Chinese New Year range of January 21 to February 21, a leap month must be added so Chinese New Year jumps 19 (or sometimes 18) days later.

Honeysuckle

 

Botanical: Lonicera caprifolium (LINN.), Lonicera Periclymenum (LINN.)

Family: N.O. Caprifoliaceae

Medicinal Action and Uses

Synonyms - Dutch Honeysuckle. Goats' Leaf.

Parts Used - Flowers, seeds, leaves.

Caprifoliaceae, the order to which the Honeysuckles belong, includes about 300 species, chiefly shrubs, growing in the north temperate zone or extending into the higher cool tropical regions. Besides the Viburnums and Sambucus, a number have found more or less important uses in medicine, but they exhibit but little uniformity in composition or properties.

Medicinal Action and Uses. A dozen or more of the 100 species of Lonicera or Honeysuckle are used medicinally, the fruits generally having emiticocathartic properties. Several of these drugs have more than a local repute.

The herbage of the true Honeysuckles is a favourite food of goats, hence the Latin name Caprifolium (Goats' Leaf), the French Chèvre-feuille, German Geisblatt and Italian Capri-foglio, all signifying the same. The berries have been used as food for chickens. The name of the genus, Lonicera, was given by Linnaeus in honour of Adam Lonicer, a physician and naturalist, born at Marburg in 1528, who wrote, among other works, the Naturalis Historiae Opus novum, which contains much curious information about plants.

Our native Honeysuckle has expectorant and laxative properties. The flowers in the form of syrup have been used for diseases of the respiratory organs and in asthma and the leaves as decoction in diseases of the liver and spleen. It was also considered a good ingredient in gargles.

Culpepper says:

'Honeysuckles are cleansing, consuming and digesting, and therefore no way fit for inflammations. Take a leaf and chew it in your mouth and you will quickly find it likelier to cause a sore mouth and throat than cure it. If it be not good for this, what is it good for? It is good for something, for God and nature made nothing in vain. It is a herb of Mercury, and appropriated to the lungs; the celestial Crab claims dominion over it, neither is it a foe to the Lion; if the lungs be afflicted by Jupiter, this is your cure. It is fitting a conserve made of the flowers should be kept in every gentlewoman's house; I know no better cure for the asthma than this besides it takes away the evil of the spleen: provokes urine, procures speedy delivery of women in travail, relieves cramps, convulsions, and palsies, and whatsoever griefs come of cold or obstructed perspiration; if you make use of it as an ointment, it will clear the skin of morphew, freckles, and sunburnings, or whatever else discolours it, and then the maids will love it. Authors say, the flowers are of more effect than the leaves, and that is true: but they say the seeds are the least effectual of all. But there is a vital spirit in every seed to beget its like; there is a greater heat in the seed than any other part of the plant; and heat is the mother of action.'

 

Anon