And yet more lace...and a silver amulet!

We're getting there mes amis!

Here we go again! We are doing so well chickens that we are going to keep going. In the past three months we have raised over €6000 for Abdalla Mughari and his family, and we are staying the distance and I am continuing to bribe you - although I prefer to think of it as keeping us all on course!

(I have just been over to the fundraiser and seen that someone has anonymously donated a very large amount - I don’t know if it is someone who has come there via me or via another path but I want to say thank you to that person and to also point all of us to the power of collective action. And to say that this fundraiser was at €3700 when we first started directing our energy at it, and is now at €11680 through the collective action so many of you have taken for Abdalla. Keep going! The goal is obtainable! Abdalla and his family are in desperate need. They have now lost everything, including their house, which was mined and completely destroyed several weeks ago by retreating IDF soldiers. We will not give up, we can’t, because we owe so much to Palestinians right this moment, they are losing everything, and they are showing us our own humanity or lack of. We must must must be with them, because we are all in this together and they are our families as well. So let’s go!)

Today’s offerings are a funny little duo. I try to select things that are small but reasonably valuable for their size, things that are worth having but also not exhorbitantly expensive to post. In the future I may run a raffle with the stipulation that the winner must pay the postage, or must be someone who already has purchased items with me - and that way I can put up a larger and more precious item - but I think it works best when everything is accessible.

So the first offering is a 19th century collar of fine handworked needle lace. I am not a lace expert and so I cannot identify exactly what sort of lace this is, I can tell you that it is beautiful and delicate and apart from some small rust marks, it is in excellent condition.

What I can point you towards however is this site here:

www.dressandtextilespecialists.org.uk

from which you can find two really wonderful downloadable PDFs on identifying lace. I keep meaning to find the time and a magnifying glass to go through these PDFs with my small collection of laces and try to learn a little bit more about these beautiful pieces.

The piece I am offering here is approximately 70cm long and 7cm wide at the widest section. It was made as a collar and so is curved to fit to a neckline. It would look beautiful on a dark piece of clothing as a background.

The second piece has a little story attached. I have worn glasses and contacts my whole life, but recently I had to upgrade my contact lens prescription for only the second time. Without correction, my nearsight is perfect but my distance sight is rubbish. My distance sight needed to be strengthened, but alas, this upgrade to a higher strength means that, while wearing contacts, I can no longer see things up close without magnifying glasses. And I keep forgetting to take them with me when I leave the house.

And so it was on the day I picked this up. I thought oh, that looks like a lovely little silver hand amulet. It wasn’t until I got it home that I saw the word ‘Brasil’ on one side, and the tiny anchor. So what is this? Well, it is rather fab, and it is solid silver and a very nice example of its kind. This is a Figa, a Brazilian luck amulet, which according to my little web research, and the symbolism has a very long history. The gesture this hand is making comes from as far back as the Etruscans, through medieval Italy and Southern Europe, and was originally something very rude, and also something that symbolised female genitalia - because of course in a patriarchal society, anything that symbolised a vulva would of course be offensive. Because it was offensive, the gesture was thought to ward off the evil eye, and so these amulets have been worn for centuries in parts of Southern Europe.

But then…the symbol travelled to the New World, and it was adopted by enslaved African Brazilians as a fertility and good luck symbol, but also still maintained its meaning of warding off the evil eye. It eventually became a recognised symbol in Brazil, hence this little one with the name of the country on one side.

So although this little one is a vintage piece, probably mid-20th century, it comes from a very rich history, and carries a very potent meaning. This is solid silver, quite heavy, it measures 3cm long. If you feel in need of a bit of luck, here’s your chance.

How to enter: Please donate €6 for the silver Figa amulet, and €12 for the lace collar, to Abdalla’s Gofundme, for which the link is here - Abdalla’s Gofundme . Take a screenshot of your donation, and send it to my raffle email address (not my usual email address because it may get lost there, I am trying to keep raffle emails separate from my business). My raffle email address is lagrossetoile.deux@gmail.com . If you donate €18 or more, I will enter you for both raffles. I will pay postage for both pieces to the winners - if you have a box going with me that I can add these pieces to, I will donate that postage cost to the fundraiser, or if you choose to pay postage costs I will ask you to give that amount to the fundraiser and I will post out. I will draw the winners next Friday evening the 30th of August, so you have until then to enter. If neither of these pieces takes your fancy, you can donate without emailing me your receipt!

Thank you again my lovely community. We do have power, we can stay the course, we can change things for other people, and it is ok to be in solidarity with people we don’t personally know. If you are finding this time in history very tough on your mental health, if you find yourself crying a lot or having an existential crisis, remember that this is a normal reaction, and that even if the people around you seem to be indifferent, there are many hundreds of thousands of people right across the world who see what you see, who are having the same reactions, who are increasingly growing in number and conviction that what we are witnessing is nothing less than the greatest immoral act of our time, the baring of the violent structures that underpin all that is crumbling and falling away. It is absolutely true that if you ever wondered what you would have done during the Holocaust, look at what you are doing now and there is your answer, because this is a continuation of the Holocaust from root to tip. And that we must do something, whatever we can, to stand against it and in doing so to not lose our own humanity by looking away. Take care of yourself and yours and move from that care xoxo