Lavender Box
Summer 2006
22cm x 11.5 cm x 3.5cm
Description
An old threadbare lavender sachet resting on a bed of dried lavender in a rectangular box, fabric in shades of dark blues and greens, the inside painted in pure ultramarine blue pigment, purple ribbon.
Themes, Comments and Storylines
The lavender sachet belonged to a friend’s mother and was in a handkerchief box given to me. When the mother died, she was buried in a blue coffin, surrounded by the fabrics she loved and collected and bunches of lavender.
Shortly before she died, she told her textile stories to her daughter to pass them on to me together with some textile items to work with so they would not be lost.
“Climbing into my grandmother's bed, which seemed very high and soft and smelled of lavender. The house was cold, but she had put a hot-water bottle in the bed, so the lavender scent mixed with the smell of the warm rubber bottle. Her sheets were brushed cotton, soft compared to ours at home.” BBC Radio 4 Memory Experience 2006
“Lavender is a shrubby plant indigenous to the mountainous regions of the countries bordering the western half of the Mediterranean, and cultivated extensively for its aromatic flowers in various parts of France, in Italy and in England and even as far north as Norway. It is also now being grown as a perfume plant in Australia.
The fragrant oil to which the odour of Lavender flowers is due is a valuable article of commerce, much used in perfumery, and to a lesser extent in medicine. The fine aromatic smell is found in all parts of the shrub, but the essential oil is only produced from the flowers and flower-stalks. Besides being grown for the production of this oil, Lavender is widely sold in the fresh state as 'bunched Lavender,' and as 'dried Lavender,' the flowers are used powdered, for sachet making and also for pot-pourri, etc., so that the plant is a considerable source of profit.”
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/l/lavend13.html