Happy Valentine’s Day

14th February 2017

Happy Valentines Day!

Whilst it’s easy to be caught up in the flowers and chocolates that today surround the holiday, looking into the legend of St Valentine and the origins of February 14th is really interesting. Valentine’s Day has become the second most popular card sending holiday right after Christmas, with 150 million cards being given every year.

The history of the day, along with the story of St Valentine himself is mysterious with many stories being fabricated through the years. Valentines Day contains vestiges of both ancient Roman and Christian traditions- but what are these, who was St Valentine and why do we still celebrate this day with such enthusiasm so many years later?

There are two main theories as to why Valentine’s Day lands on the 14th February- one is simply that it commemorates the day of the Patron Saint’s death or burial (around the year 270 A.D.) Other theorists claim that it was the Christian Church who long ago decided to celebrate with a feast in mid-February to Christianise Lupercalia- a Pagan celebration. Lupercalia was a fertility festival, dedicated to the Roman God of agriculture, Faunus- as well as Romulus and Remus, the Roman founders.

Lupercalia celebration was deemed ‘un-Christian’ by the end of the 5th Century as Pope Gelasius decided February 14th was to be St. Valentine’s Day. However at this time, it wasn’t associated with love- in France and England it was thought that February 14th was the beginning of birds’ mating season; perhaps today this is the association with all the birds we see on cards.

Of course, cards like we send today weren’t sent during this period, in fact, the oldest known Valentine we know is a poem, written in 1415 by the Duke of Orleans, Charles, who wrote it to his wife during his imprisonment in the Tower of London after he was captured during the Battle of Agincourt. During the 25 years he spent in the prison, he wrote 60 love poems to the Duchess- she died before she received this Valentine; the manuscripts are now in the British Library.

Photo Credit: BBC

Since then, it developed to hand written notes and small tokens of affection that were exchanged. Hand made cards began to be exchanged in America in the early 1700s. During the 1840s, it was Esther A. Howland who began to sell the very first mass produced Valentine’s Day cards- one example can be seen below, but make sure to take a look at others as they’re really beautiful crafts! According to many websites, Esther has been deemed the ‘Mother of the Valentine,’ creating cards by using colourful ‘scrap’ pictures, ribbon, lace and other craft pieces.

It remains unknown who St. Valentine specifically was, and which the Pope intended to honour; according to the ‘Catholic Encyclopaedia,’ there were at least three Saints a the time who went by that name. One, a Bishop in Terni, another a Priest in Rome, and the third we largely know nothing about, except that he died in Africa. In a spooky coincidence, all three St. Valentine’s were martyred on February 14th.

It’s interesting that the tradition remains all these years later, when, if you research the day, we largely don’t know why it began or for who we are celebrating. Though Valentine’s Day today has become a huge (and profitable) holiday, perhaps we shouldn’t grumble and instead be happy at any celebration of love.

📣 This fabric is on a big sale! 📣 Our red Strawberry Thief drill fabric is currently on sale for £15 a metre 🍓 Our drill fabric is a slightly heavier weight and weave than our heavyweight fabric and is perfect for light upholstery, curtain making and more 🪡🧵 It won’t be on sale long so grab yourself some whilst you can ✨
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Golden Lily always brings the sunshine indoors ☀️ we’ve got 15% off our website right now with code: florals 🌷
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The soundtrack to our day- our fabric cutter! 🎼 If you ever order fabric from us this is how we get our cuts so straight ☺️ Did you know that we sell our fabrics by the half meter, so however big or small your project is, we’ve got fabric for you ☺️ This is our gorgeous William Morris Strawberry Thief blue design, it’s very often on our cutting table as it’s so popular! Do you prefer it in red or in blue? 🍓
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The prettiest design; Hearts & Kisses 🤍 An original design, we’ve restored it from our late 1800- early 1900s French archive, we just love how delicate it is 💕 Would you like to see more of our archive designs? 🌷
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An Easter crafting weekend, our pvc wipe clean fabric is perfect for crafting with easy clean up!🌷🐣 Hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend, remember if you’re doing any shopping, our 15% off is still running on our website with code; EASTER 🐣
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🌟 15% off our website! 🌟 Get your tablescapes sorted for Easter (or get a treat for yourself from the Easter bunny!) with code; EASTER on our website only until Tuesday 7th 🐣🐰
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Replacing all normal eggs with chocolate ones for the foreseeable future 🐣 Brother Rabbit Green on the table always looks so beautiful, we just love this new colour way in this gorgeous William Morris design ✨
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Spring is officially here! 🌷 Take 15% off our website this weekend with code; EASTER to celebrate spring finally being here, use it to treat yourself or to get those Easter tables ready! 🐣
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Officially mini egg season, so we’ll incorporate them into every meal 🐣🌷 On the table today is our William Morris Lily design, isn’t it a stunning design 🌿
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Gorgeous flowers this weekend 🤍 We can’t get over the beautiful tulips 🌷 Brother Rabbit blue on the table, do you prefer it in the blue, red or green? 🌿
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A moment for the greens 🌿 We know sometimes it’s hard imagining different designs together for projects whether you’re quilting with tonal colours or mix matching curtains and cushions, the things you can do with our William Morris fabrics are endless, so seeing them together you can see how beautifully they pair together ✨ We’ll post the blues next so you can see them together too! 🤍 Message us if you’d like a sample of anything, we send them free in the UK 📮
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Back in stock alert! ✨ All sizes of our gorgeous William Morris blue Strawberry Thief tablecloths & napkins 🌿 Sometimes the easiest napkin folds are the most effective (we have no bias towards this being our favourite just because it contains a chocolate egg… promise…) 🐰
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Happy International Women’s Day! 🌍 We thought we’d celebrate by bringing you the words from some amazing Pre Raphaelite women, who’s talents shouldn’t have been so overlooked at the time (but luckily now are being celebrated with their contributions to the arts!) be sure to read into their stories if you have a minute today, they’re all so interesting ✨ As a business run by women, it’s always a day to celebrate 💜
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Gorgeous Willow Bough blue on the table paired with layers of beautiful @burleighpottery plates 🤍 Always a stunning design to have on the table, did you know it was first produced in 1887, his daughter May Morris wrote of the design, “We were walking one day by our little stream that runs into the Thames and my father pointed out the detail and soon after the paper was done.” We love the behind the design info, painting a beautiful picture of how he was so inspired by nature 🌿
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Have you seen our range of table runners? ✨ This gorgeous Golden Lily design adds some Morris floral loveliness to the table, pair with matching napkins and placemats for layer upon layer of floral magic ✨
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Some new fabric bundles are now uploaded on our Etsy! ✨ We’ll post the link to our stories to them but some, like in the picture are almost fat quarters, perfect for quilting and crafting, and some are proper scrap bundles full of various sizes and designs, wonderful for crafting- we always wonder what everyone will create from them 🪡 They get rave reviews on our Etsy with crafters and quilters loving them for smaller projects 🥰
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We’re so ready to see everyone’s beautiful Easter tablescapes! 🐣 our top necessities for an Easter table are multiple eggs and gorgeous flowers- the best combo! This William Morris Brother Rabbit tablecloth is the perfect addition to Easter with all those rabbits all over it! 🐰
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Beauty is always found in the details, our kitchen needs lots of different florals to bring colour and fun to the kitchen - this is our William Morris licensed design Willow Bough in Green, one of our favourite tea towels ✨ Do you have a favourite Morris design tea towel in your kitchen? 🤍
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Have you seen our range of exclusive designs? 🥰 From our exclusive French archive dating back to the late 1800s- early 1900s we’ve faithfully restored them and recoloured them to digitally print them ✨ All perfect for quilting and crafting, they’re such gorgeous designs, in blues and greens (this isn’t the full collection but head to our website to see them all!) 🤍
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William Morris designs bring nature indoors with all the florals, birds and botanicals, so we brought some of our garden inside with some beautiful snowdrops on the table - anyone else excited about the garden waking up for spring? 🌱☀️
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Happy Valentine’s Day

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